conserved

Plants, animals share molecular growth mechanisms

...time as multicellular life evolved, they have been conserved in both plants and animals, Szymanski said. So, some of the plant proteins that comprise the ARP2/3 and the WAVE complexes are interchangeable with proteins in animals. Others proteins are not interchangeable, and Szymanski's research team is delving...

Research advances quest for HIV-1 vaccine

...results suggest that 4E10 interacts with gp41 at a conserved region very close to the surface of the virus and they reveal some special characteristics of 4E10 that make it unusually effective at targeting this region. Drs. Burton and Wilson are members of a scientific consortium of laboratories, the Internat...

Ancient olfaction protein is shared by many bugs, offering new pest control target

... this gene's function appears to be evolutionarily conserved across very different insect species. Research by...arguing not only that the gene's sequence has been conserved over 250 million years of evolution but that the gene's function in olfaction has also been conserve...

Bound for destruction: Ubiquitination protects against improper Notch signaling

...e determination anddevelopmental processes, and is conserved in species from human toroundworm. In all processes in which it participates, Notch signalingshows the ability to sense a small change in cell fate and amplify it,acting as a sort of contrast enhancement mechanism in cell fatedetermination. Notch is...

Molecular machine may lead to new drugs to combat human diseases

...ability of cutting and pasting apparently has been conserved since life evolved. "It's thought that RNA, or a molecule related to RNA, possibly were the first biomolecules, because they are capable of both performing work and carrying around their own genetic code," Golden said. She and her research team use...

Researchers identify target for cancer drugs

...anisms such as the fruit fly. Finding this complex conserved in species as diverse as flies and humans supports the claim that the mTOR/rictor complex is indeed a missing piece of the puzzle. According to Sarbassov, "If we find a molecule that can block the mTOR/rictor complex, then we may be able to prevent ...

Critical role in programmed cell death identified

.... elegans, enhancing the view of how cell death is conserved from worms to humans. "Now it seems that there is really one way of killing cells and it involves these mitochondria. Using genetics, we could rigorously show that mitochondria are part of it. It unifies two different hypothesis and makes worms a gr...

Examination of internal 'wiring' of yeast, worm, and fly reveals conserved circuits

...tein "wiring" connections in one species are often conserved in all three. This first-of-its-kind analysis of t...racting Proteins for protein interactions that are conserved in the three most thoroughly studied species: yeast, worm, and fly,. The research team completed a ...

Unexpressed But Indispensable -- The DNA Sequences That Control Development

...go, the authors reasoned that non-coding sequences conserved between them are likely to be fundamental to verte...ngly strict criteria, they identified 1,373 highly conserved non-coding elements (CNEs), with an average length of about 200 base pairs. The average sequence mat...

Institute for Systems Biology Symposium Addresses Need for Better Computational Tools

...hree dimensional structures, which are more highly conserved than one dimensional structures. Understanding three dimensional structures allow researchers to identify the presumptive function of proteins. These functions can then be assigned to appropriate networks. Researchers expect that approximately 2/3 of...

Scientists discover how plants disarm the toxic effects of excessive sunlight

...notes that the response mechanism is likely highly conserved across species from microbes to plants and humans - and therefore very applicable to other fields of study. For example, too much sunlight can actually be harmful to plants, because the heightened photosynthetic activity also means an increase in si...

Light therapy may combat fungal infections, new evidence suggests

...sense light, Heitman said, and have neither of the conserved light-sensing proteins. "Fungi have many negative implications for human life as they lead to human disease, as well as plant disease and mold," said Idnurm, a post-doctoral fellow at Duke. "However, fungi also play important beneficial roles, for e...

Researchers rein in regulatory RNAs

... that these molecular characteristics were largely conserved in plants. "Conventional belief in molecular biology suggests that poly(A)+ mRNAs are major mediators in flows of genetic information," Abe explains. "However, the information obtained from this study implies that some classes of poly(A)-negative nu...

Scientists identify molecule that regulates well-known tumor suppressor

..., and that this cell survival control mechanism is conserved among various tissues and species. Taken together, our data suggest that overexpression of DJ-1 can modulate PTEN tumor expression to the point where oncogenesis may result from upregulated PKB/Akt-mediated cell survival," writes Dr. Mak. Elevated DJ...

New understanding of DNA repair may pave way to cancer treatments

...f ATF2, which is expected to disturb the otherwise conserved balance between its role in gene regulation and the DNA damage response. We need to find out which of the two functions is more dominant under these circumstances in order to devise ways to regain the proper balance," he said. The Ronai lab's work o...

Biochemists report discovery of structure of major piece of telomerase; implications for cancer

... of the pseudoknot must be significant since it is conserved from humans to marsupials, birds and marine animals," Theimer said. Feigon's laboratory studies the three-dimensional structures of DNA and RNA, and how proteins and DNA and RNA recognize one another to switch genes on and off in cells. Her laborato...

Scientists discover that three overlapping signals in embryo help get the backbone right

...f, while it was originally identified in newts, is conserved through all vertebrate evolution," Khokha said. "If you cut out a similar tissue and transplant it in a mouse, you also get the Siamese twin phenomenon. So, we expect it to also be true in humans." ...

Master gene controls healing of skin in fruit flies and mammals

...remarkable that flies and mammals share an ancient conserved pathway to construct and repair the body envelope that protects them from sharp edges and microbes, even though that body envelope is constructed of mostly different molecules." In their paper, the UCSD researchers state that studying the wound resp...

Conserved amino acids play both structural and mechanistic roles in sandwich-like protein

...fessor of biochemistry and cell biology. "Are they conserved to direct the protein-folding reaction, or are they selected to stabilize the final protein structure? In our paper, we unravel an unprecedented answer to this question." Wittung-Stafshede and graduate student Corey Wilson analyzed the purpose of si...

Ancient immune defense mechanism is no match for HIV-1

...rplay between RNAi and SRS remains physiologically conserved from plants and invertebrates to higher vertebrate animals," explains Dr. Jeang. "Our finding that Tat is an SRS also helps explain the long-standing biological observation that when HIV-1 is engineered to be lacking Tat but contains alternative tran...

Chimp genome reveals a retroviral invasion

...appears therefore that the sequences have not been conserved from a common ancestor, but are specific to each lineage. PTERV1 contains three structural genes -- gag, pol, and env -- and regulatory sequences called long terminal repeats (LTRs). To further explore the evolutionary history of the retroviral elem...

Scientists analyze chromosomes 2 and 4

... important to human biology because they have been conserved throughout the evolution of mammals and birds, and work is now underway to figure out their exact functions. Humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes ?one less pair than chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans and other great apes. For more than two decades, r...

Researchers Identify Cause of Early Bird Sleep Disorder

...ifferent regulatory mechanisms, despite the highly conserved nature of their individual components," the research team wrote in Nature. Such studies may help unravel some of the fundamental mysteries of how circadian rhythms are established and maintained in creatures that have evolved along very different pat...

New understanding of cell movement may yield ways to brake cancer's spread

...mals, from roundworms to mammals, and likely has a conserved function throughout species. Knowing exactly what triggers cellular migration can help develop treatments that halt cancer metastasis and immune disorders like arthritis and asthma. "Previous studies by us and others have identified how a migrating ...

Discovery could be key to bioterrorism defense

...osts and transmission greater. Ephrin-B2 is highly conserved in animals, and this finding sheds light on how these viruses can infest such a wide range of hosts. "In addition to our concern about Nipah and Hendra viruses as emerging global health and economic threats, we worry about their potential use as bio...

UI researcher studies deafness in fruit flies, humans

... specialized for hearing function, myosin VIIA, is conserved in these ears. In looking for clues to inherited deafness in humans, Eberl begins with the "love song" of the fruit fly. Although they may seem an odd choice, the fruit fly and its love song are very effective tools for learning about the molecular ...

Bioinformatics reveals new gene regulation system

... groups of bacteria, identifying not only a highly conserved signal sequence, but also the regulatory transcrip...re it divides to reproduce. The search revealed a conserved palindromic sequence occurring upstream of many ribonucleotide reductase (Nrd) genes. A genetic pali...

Biologists determine genetic blueprint of social amoeba

...telium and other genetic model organisms have been conserved or adapted through evolution in humans and other organisms. "The cells which gave rise to plants and animals had more types of genes available to them than are presently found in either plants or animals," explains William Loomis, a professor of bio...

Novel plague virulence factor identified

...odel of plague." Aballay said that these types of conserved virulence factors may regulate innate immunity in ...ovel Y. pestis virulence factors but also to study conserved innate immune responses to the bacterium," Aballay said. "This may help us in developing strategies ...

New Look at DNA Hints at Origin of UV Damage

...odel of plague." Aballay said that these types of conserved virulence factors may regulate innate immunity in ...ovel Y. pestis virulence factors but also to study conserved innate immune responses to the bacterium," Aballay said. "This may help us in developing strategies ...

Researchers track down cause of a disfiguring bone disorder

...discarded as organisms evolved. By introducing the conserved segments into cells similar to osteoblasts (bone-f...orming cells), the team found that a 250-base-pair conserved region named ECR5 was able to drive SOST expression. "This study represents a clear and unambiguous...

Carnegie Mellon University research reveals how cells process large genes

...s discovered in the fruit fly Drosophila, has been conserved over tens of millions of years of insect evolution...0 kilobases in length, and 92 percent of them were conserved over at least 25 million years of insect evolution. This discovery strongly suggests that recursive ...

Reversal of role for a viral protein associated with the development of lymphoma

...s discovered in the fruit fly Drosophila, has been conserved over tens of millions of years of insect evolution...0 kilobases in length, and 92 percent of them were conserved over at least 25 million years of insect evolution. This discovery strongly suggests that recursive ...

3D Atlas Will Help Navigate The Spinal Cord

...s. Because most of the neurochemical proteins are conserved across species, they are present not only in a particular group of nerve cells in the rat, but also in its homologue (corresponding structure) in the human. The study will, for the first time, comprehensively depict transverse and horizontal sections...

NHGRI Selects 13 More Organisms for Genome Sequencing

... human and other mammals. Sequences that have been conserved throughout evolution often reveal important functional regions of the human genome. Initial data show that using low-density sequencing for such comparisons is almost as effective as more costly, high-density sequencing. The eight mammals are: 13-lin...

Possible treatment found for 'chemobrain'

... human and other mammals. Sequences that have been conserved throughout evolution often reveal important functional regions of the human genome. Initial data show that using low-density sequencing for such comparisons is almost as effective as more costly, high-density sequencing. The eight mammals are: 13-lin...

miRNAs and musculature

...sophila mir-1 (Dmir-1). Mir-1 is an evolutionarily conserved miRNA, whose expression in mouse and humans is limited to heart and skeletal muscle. Strikingly, their study shows that, in Drosophila embryos, mir-1 expression is not required for mesodermal cell fate decisions or cell proliferation during embryoge...

Eleven gene 'signature' reliably predicts cancer prognosis

...cer. This work indicates that the presence of the conserved BMI-1-associated gene expression pathway that exists in a very malignant subset of human cancers predicts a marked predisposition toward metastasis and a high probability of poor therapy outcome. In an accompanying commentary, Gordon Mills and others...

MicroRNAs have shaped the evolution of the majority of mammalian genes

...nds of human genes contain microRNA sites that are conserved in this way. To the extent that evolution has pres...Grimson took mRNAs whose target sequences were not conserved and exposed them to microRNAs, which latched on without a problem. The experiment proved that a matc...

A bug's life: Exceptional genomic stability yet rapid protein evolution in a carpenter ant mutualist

...nes shared between the two genomes were completely conserved in terms of order and strand orientation. This is a remarkable observation, given that bacteria are particularly noted for their rapidly evolving genomes characterized by extensive recombination, gene transfer, inversion, and translocation. In compa...

Zebrafish may hold key to improved cancer research

...pelling, said Spitsbergen. The B-myb gene has been conserved through hundreds of millions of years of divergent evolution in species ranging from worms to fruit flies, fish and humans. When it functions normally, B-myb appropriately regulates cell proliferation. When it becomes mutated, either through genetic...

The earliest animals had human-like genes

...ight well give us an even better look at important conserved processes. Another thing that this has shown us is that evolution is not always about gain; the loss of complexity can equally be an important player in evolution." ...

CO2 sensing proves critical for fungal pathogens to adapt to life in air and human hosts

... CO2 sensing and metabolism utilize evolutionarily conserved enzymes to control the growth and sexual reproduction of pathogenic microbes. The two studies are reported by Joseph Heitman and colleagues at Duke University Medical Center and by Fritz Mühlschlegel of the University of Kent, Jochen Buck at Cornel...

MicroRNA gene that regulates lifespan found by Yale scientists

...n-driven metabolism and aging. "This microRNA is conserved in humans leading to the enticing idea of being able to beneficially affect the results of aging including diseases of aging," said Slack. Work is under way to identify other microRNAs regulators and genes they target, to determine where they functio...

Membrane research opens window to benefits for plants, humans

...because sequencing has shown the gating loop to be conserved in them. "Plant cells close their water channels in response to drought stress in order to preserve their water content," said Tajkhorshid, who also is assistant director of research of the Theoretical and Computational Biophysics Group at the U. of...

Evolutionary conservation of a mechanism of longevity from worms to mammals

...ivity that was initially observed in C. elegans is conserved in mice, supporting the idea that some molecular mechanisms of aging are shared throughout the animal kingdom." ...

A resetting signal keeps circadian rhythm on track in Drosophila fruit flies

...cadian clocks and even neural mechanisms are quite conserved with mammals." "We were curious about how these brain cells stay synchronized, so we controlled the way time was ticking in individual clocks: we made the morning cells run faster and the evening cells relatively slower, and the other way around," e...

Researchers discover new form of cancer gene regulation

...ly, the study demonstrated that this regulation is conserved from human to the worm, Caenorhabditis elegans (often used in laboratory research), indicating that the formation of these RNA protein complexes is a very ancient form of regulation of protein function. Olga Lakiza, postdoctoral fellow in pediatric...

Researchers develop new method to help find deadly malaria parasite's Achilles heel

...ed that yeast, worm, and fly have hundreds of both conserved proteins and protein interactions, we didn't initially believe our own analysis, which showed that there are only three Plasmodium protein interactions in common with yeast and none in common with the other species studied."The World Health Organizat...

Yale scientists decipher 'wiring pattern' of cell signaling networks

...gnal disease." Biological networks are typically conserved between species, meaning that often the same type of protein carries out the same type of function, whether it is in a yeast cell or a human cell. According to Snyder, these findings in yeast are of immediate use for understanding both human developm...

Marsupial genome reveals insights into mammalian evolution

...t have important functions and therefore have been conserved for long periods of time. The monotremes split off from other mammals 210 million years ago. The remaining marsupials split from the main (placental) group about 180 years ago." Significantly, the authors also found data supporting the idea that th...

Common molecular 'signature' identified in solid tumors

... hundreds of miRNAs and found that they are highly conserved over time ?meaning that they show up in generation after generation in everything from plants to mice to humans ?confirming their important roles in growth and survival. Carlo Croce, professor and chair of molecular virology, immunology and medical...

Wisconsin scientists discover a master key to microbes' pathogenic lifestyles

...cel Wuthrich identified a molecular sensor that is conserved in these six related dimorphic fungi found worldwide. The sensor, says Klein, is like an antenna situated in the membrane of the fungi's spores. It senses temperature, and when a spore finds itself at a comfortable 37 degrees Celsius, the body temper...

The evolution of food plants: Genetic control of grass flower architecture

...rass family, because the ra2 expression pattern is conserved in other grasses including rice, barley, and sorghum". Perspective : Branching Out: The ramosa Pathway and the Evolution of Grass Inflorescence Morphology In an accompanying Current Perspective Essay, Paula McSteen of The Pennsylvania State Univer...

Novel molecular 'signature' marks DNA of embryonic stem cells

... of chromatin that control the most evolutionarily conserved portions of DNA, particularly the key regulatory genes for embryonic development. "These signatures appear frequently in ES cells, but largely disappear once the cells choose a direction developmentally," said Bernstein. "This suggests they play a s...

NHGRI announces new sequencing targets

...mparisons among the 24 genome sequences will allow conserved sequences as small as six base pairs to be identified reliably. Six base pairs is roughly the size of a transcription factor binding site: a small DNA sequence occurring near a gene that is involved in switching the gene on or off. Sequencing effort...

Polymer aids in blood clotting, pointing way to new treatment

...but scientists thought it to be a molecular fossil conserved from prebiotic time. "This is something that has mainly been studied in bacteria," Docampo said. "There is almost no data on polyphosphates in vertebrates, including humans. No role was seen for them, so there was little interest in studying them." ...

New mechanism for essential genome-wide gene silencing identified

...al nature, critical genetic systems are frequently conserved with few changes in life forms that diverged during evolution millions of years ago. "In our experiments, we saw SUMO binding to histones across the genome, suggesting that if this mechanism went wrong, it could have a dramatic effect," says Berger....

Insects and mammals share common fat-building pathway, study suggests

...ies and mice. The findings are the first to show a conserved effect of genes on fat storage from insects to mam... data support the notion that Hh signaling plays a conserved role, from invertebrates to vertebrates, in inhibiting fat formation and highlighting the potential ...

For the first time: Longevity modulated without disrupting life-sustaining function

... cascade including the newly identified protein is conserved across many species, including humans, these findings raise the prospect that one day it might be possible to medically tweak this pathway to slow aging and improve the quality of life without harmful consequences to the body. In humans and other m...