Free radicals and fertilization: Study reveals egg protection secret
...ct a similar process occurs. If true, a damaged or missing peroxide-producing gene could explain one source of infertility. Wessel said their finding also sheds light on the contributions of free radicals to reproductive biology. Typically, free radicals damage cells. But Wessel said these molecules can also...First analysis of chicken genome offers many new insights
... why chickens have less DNA. "A part of what's missing is some of the 'junk' DNA -- the recognizable repetitive content of the chicken genome is only about 10 percent as compared to about 50 percent for humans," says lead author LaDeana Hillier, senior research scientist at the GSC. Scientists ide...Researchers compare chicken, human genomes
...involved in hair formation. Likewise, chickens are missing the genes involved in the production of milk prote... showed that, in contrast to chickens, mammals are missing key genes coding for proteins involved in egg production, such as egg whites and yolk storage. Chi...Timing scavenging to prevent age-related blindness
...t of uptake activity at first light was completely missing and instead uptake occurred steadily throughout th...e, as tissue culture experiments showed that cells missing this integrin were unable to pick up rod cell fragments. The link to digestion was also surprising b...New model of rare childhood blindness holds promise for testing preventive therapies
...ying the retinas of affected newborn mice with the missing AIPL1 gene," said Melanie Sohocki, Ph.D., assistant professor of Ophthalmic Science at Columbia University (New York) and senior author of the paper. "This approach appears to be a reasonable strategy because of the major role this gene plays in reti...Solving the mechanism of Rett Syndrome
...lated promoter, is usually silent. If defective or missing MeCP2 protein were to fail to silence an imprinted... gene targeted by MeCP2 where, if the protein were missing or defective, the result might lead to misregulation in the production of the neurotransmitter GABA....Tips from the Journals of the American Society for Microbiology
...9, showed minimal risk of causing disease as it is missing two of the genes necessary for replication and it stimulated a stronger immune response in both animals. "Given its efficacy, its defectiveness for latency, and its ability to induce rapid, virus-specific CD8+-T-cell responses, the dl5-29 vaccine ma...Brain tumor study reveals why treatment efforts fail in genetic disorder
...'t develop tumors unless all other brain cells are missing at least one copy of the gene. In this study, the researchers found that K-RAS follows a similar pattern: When the protein was overly active in astrocytes of mice with two normal copies of Nf1, the cells multiplied but did not develop into tumors; ho...JCI table of contents, 3 January 2005
...arkinson disease in primates The replenishment of missing neurons in the brain as a treatment for Parkinson disease reached the stage of human trials over 15 years ago, however the field is still in its infancy. Researchers from Kyoto University have now shown that dopamine-producing neurons (DA neurons) ge...Transplantation of monkey embryonic stem cells reverses Parkinson disease in primates
The replenishment of missing neurons in the brain as a treatment for Parkinson disease reached the stage of human trials over 15 years ago, however the field is still in its infancy. Researchers from Kyoto University have now shown that dopamine-producing neurons (DA neurons) ge...Pitt scientists study how cancer cells get out of control
...tured oral cancer cells a protein called dynein is missing from the spindle, and the centrosomes no longer cluster together. Furthermore, the researchers discovered that in some types of tumors, dynein is inhibited by the overexpression of another protein called NuMA. Excess NuMA seems to prevent dynein fro...Found: Missing sequence of the human Y chromosome
...ensure that this 554-kilobase sequence was in fact missing from the "finished" human genome sequence and was not a structural polymorphism present only in a subset of males in the human population, members of Rappold's laboratory including Stefan Kirsch, Ph.D., lead author on the paper tested 100 men of di...Researchers find how protein allows insects to detect and respond to pheromones
...ior in the mutant flies by injecting them with the missing lush gene. In the absence of the pheromone, the researchers found that LUSH still binds to the olfactory neuron, sparking the neuron to fire a small electrical signal called "spontaneous activity." With the pheromone present, and bound to LUSH, the ...Priming embryonic stem cells to fulfill their promise
...aw material needed to repair or replace damaged or missing liver, nerve, muscle, and other tissues and organs. However, in order to fulfill their therapeutic promise, scientists believe that stem cells must first be coaxed to differentiate, or mature, into precursors of specialized cell types found in the bo...Scientists find missing link between whale and its closest relative, the hippo
...ion years and then died out in the ice ages is the missing link between the whale and its not-so-obvious near... to argue persuasively that anthracotheres are the missing link between hippos and cetaceans. While the common ancestor of cetaceans and anthracotheres probab...Scientists ID molecular 'switch' in liver that triggers harmful effects of saturated and trans fats
...n the blood were unknown. "What we have found is a missing link, a mechanism by which saturated fats and trans fats can do their dirty work," said Spiegelman, who carries out basic research on fat cells and metabolic pathways in diabetes and cancer at Dana-Farber. "It offers the opportunity to try to underst...Molecular biology fills gaps in knowledge of bat evolution
...antifies the fraction of the fossil record that is missing for bats." The team, using DNA sequencing, analyzed data from portions of 17 nuclear genes from representatives of all bat families. Their results support the hypothesis that the group of large fruit-eating bats from the tropics, that fly mostly dur...Scientists reveal cells' 'energy factories' linked to cancer
...s get more oxygen. The researchers have found the missing pieces in this puzzle. They show how the high levels of succinic acid in the cell that result from SDH mutations block the cell's usual method of ridding the cell of HIF-1. HIF-1 levels can then build up, resulting in inappropriate growth of blood ve...Multi-purpose protein regulates new protein synthesis and immune cell development
...ved, also. Zhang studied mouse embryos that were missing the gene for IRE1. He found that mice lacking both copies of IRE1 died before birth and had fewer hematopoietic stem cells precursor cells which develop into many different types of blood and immune cells than normal mice. Zhang transplanted hemat...Melatonin shrinks bird gonads. What does the popular supplement do in humans?
...em on and antagonists to switch them off, GnRH was missing an antagonist. GnIH seemed to be that missing antagonist, and work by Tsutsui and Bentley confirmed its role in turning down production of GnRH an...