Somatic in Biological News

Protecting cells from their neighbors

... body organs and tissues -, and that comprise the somatic cell line. Scientists at the Institute for ... CSIC, have identified the mechanism that protects somatic cells against the behaviour of germ cells. When ... but whose signalling also reaches neighbouring somatic cells. The researchers have now discovered that ...

Recruitment of reproductive features into other cell types may underlie extended lifespan in animals

... These germline cells generate their offspring's somatic cells other cells involved in all aspects of ... of the C. elegans roundworm induce 'mortal' somatic cells to express some of the genes that allow the ... programs normally restricted to the germline into somatic cells," says Sean Curran, PhD, of MGH Molecular ...

Therapeutic cloning gets a boost with new research findings

... rate of spontaneous point mutations than adult somatic cells, which give rise to the body's remaining ... higher mutation rates, however, adult somatic cells are used as the donor cells in a cloning process called somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). This made ...

Researchers generate functional neurons from somatic cells

... stem (iPS) cells, which are engineered from adult somatic cells and can differentiate into most other cell ... support the possibility that reprogrammed somatic cells might prove to be a viable alternative to ... "It seems possible that disease-specific somatic cells may be reprogrammed and utilized to model, ...

Animal eggs not suitable substitutes to produce stem cells

... the cloning of Dolly the Sheep over a decade ago, somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) has been considered ... in a paper entitled, "Reprogramming of Human somatic Cells Using Human and Animal Oocytes." The ... then be differentiated to become any type of somatic cell and used for cell or tissue repair or ...

New route for heredity bypasses DNA

... the cell, these ciliate cells have two. One, the somatic nucleus, contains the DNA needed to carry out all ... When two of these ciliate cells mate, the somatic nucleus gets destroyed, and must somehow be ... of it is thrown away during regeneration of a new somatic nucleus, in a process that compresses a pretty ...

Bodily breakdown explained: How cell differentiation patterns suppress somatic evolution

... applies to cellular populations; this is called somatic evolution. Such somatic evolution tends to reduce cooperation among ... mature tissues of animals functions to suppress somatic evolution, which is essential to the origin and ...

Mental disorders are disorders of the brain

... and emotion (such as depressed mood, panic), somatic functioning (e.g. appetite, heart rate ... life in industrialized regions. Unlike to somatic diseases, such as diabetes and cancer, the vast ... costs contrast high direct costs typical for somatic disease. For instance, pharmaceutical costs ...

Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona researchers first to clone mice in Spain

... removed their chromosomes and substituted them for the nucleus of an adult somatic cell. The cloning of mice is part of a research being carried out to study ... in levels of gene expression, which would favour the reprogramming of the somatic cell nucleus transferred to the oocyte cytoplasm. Its use in nuclear ...

Research uncovers promising target to treat chronic abdominal pain

... this approach appears to be effective for visceral pain only, and not for somatic pain, which is pain resulting from injuries to the skin, superficial ... said that observation, combined with the fact EAAT2 does not affect somatic pain, suggest the protein is a good candidate for a therapy specifically ...

Stem cell chicken and egg debate moves to unlikely arena: the testes

... used a detailed lineage tracing strategy to differentiate between single somatic stem cells (SSCs) and hub cells," said Voog, an M.D./Ph.D. student in ... that likely allows stem cells to latch on to the support hub but only in somatic stem cells. When they did so, DE-cadherin expression on hub cells also ...

Oosight microscope enables embryonic stem cell breakthrough

... in Reproduction course, worked with Oldenbourg to adapt the technology for somatic cell nuclear transfer and embryology. The use of the Oosight was one of ... microscope also helped enucleate mouse eggs, the critical step during somatic cell nuclear transfer, and proposed that this approach would improve the ...

Parasites ready to jump

... carry transposons in their genomes and introduce them into the host cells they infect. Therefore, transposon activity must also be repressed in somatic cells. Recently so-called endo-siRNAs that perform this function were discovered in the fruitfly. A similar class of molecules has been found in ....

Stem cell research: From molecular physiology to therapeutic applications

... been studying the mechanism of differentiation and de-differentiation, cellular plasticity and totipotency of pluripotent cells, as well as that of somatic cells. He intends to build various cellular and animal models for human diseases, to uncover mechanisms underlying these different cellular processes ...

When every photon counts

... The distributions of the densely packed inactive and the less densely packed active regions of DNA differ remarkably from those in other somatic cells of nearly all organisms from protozoans to multicellular animals, including the rods of diurnal mammals. With this unique arrangement, the rod ...

The egg makes sure that sperm don't get too old

... is important in the development of stem cell therapy. Stem cell therapy involves replacing the cell nucleus in unfertilised egg with a nucleus from a somatic cell that has come from a patient who needs a stem cell transplantation. As soon as the cell has divided a few times, it is possible to harvest stem ...

Scripps research scientists identify compounds for stem-cell production from adult cells

... study was published in the November 6, 2008 edition (Volume 3, Issue 5) of the journal Cell Stem Cell. "Our study shows for the first time that somatic or general cell types can be reprogrammed with only two genes and small molecules, and that these small molecules can replace one of the two most ...

Stem cell research puts interstate rivalry on hold

... Institute of Medical Research (MIMR) and colleagues from New South Wales will compare two different methods of creating patient-specific stem cells: somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS). SCNT, or therapeutic cloning, is one method used to produce a source of ...

Controlling embryonic fate by association

... said Songyang. Such a demanding state of readiness may mean that the embryonic stem cell requires a different complex at the chromatin than the somatic (or differentiated cell). ...

A step forward in virology

... infiltrate a cell. Professor Helenius, whose research objective is to find out what methods and strategies various different viruses employ to invade somatic cells, clarified This strategy is a new one. Other viruses, such as herpes, adeno and H1 viruses use macropinocytosis. However the vaccinia virus is ...

Wild chimpanzees appear not to regularly experience menopause

... low," the researchers write in Current Biology. "This suggests that reproductive senescence in chimpanzees, unlike in humans, is consistent with the somatic aging process." In other words, human evolution has resulted in an extended life span without complementary extended reproduction. "Why hasn't ...

Reprogramming the debate: stem-cell finding alters ethical controversy

... many of those debates with the right-to life community." The research alters the debates surrounding both human embryonic stem cell research and somatic cell nuclear transfer cloning. For ordinary embryonic stem cell research, it offers a means of obtaining pluripotent cell lines from a non-embryonic ...

Penn Veterinary Medicine report new strategy to create genetically-modified animals

... transgenesis would provide an important alternate approach to the generation of transgenic animal models for biomedical research. Currently, somatic cell nuclear transfer or pronuclear injection is used to generate transgenic animals. These inefficient and difficult methods also carry a risk of ...

St. Jude study solves mystery of mammalian ears

... which drives this cellular contraction, or somatic motility. The contraction pulls the tufts of ... One group of scientists believes that somatic motility in mammalian outer hair cells is simply ... the work of amplifying sound in mammals. “If somatic motility is the dominant force for amplifying ...

Cloned mice created from fully differentiated cells, a milestone in cloning research

... that Dolly the sheep and other mammals cloned by somatic cell nuclear transfer were most likely derived ... success rates in the range of 1 to 5 percent. somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), the scientific term ... by using a nucleus that's been removed from a somatic cell ?any cell other than a reproductive cell ...

Researchers create genetically matched embryonic stem cells for transplantation

... to demonstrate the first use of another method, somatic cell nuclear transfer, to create customized ... stem cells to repair genetic defects in mice. But somatic cell nuclear transfer (sometimes called ... are as technically challenging and inefficient as somatic cell nuclear transfer, Daley says.) There are ...

Study finds how organs monitor themselves during early development

... and 2) intermingled cells, which are neighboring somatic cells in the ovary. The surface of the ... The scientists had a hunch that PGCs and the somatic cells communicate. "Dr. Gilboa's experiments ... mechanism, whereby the PGCs send a signal to the somatic cells to keep them alive and ...

Researchers devise new technique for creating human stem cells

... human embryonic stem cells by fusing adult somatic cells with embryonic stem cells. The fusion ... This approach could become an alternative to somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), a method that is ... transferring the nuclei of adult cells, called somatic cells, into oocytes in which scientists have ...

Of mice and men's (and women's) contraceptives

... opposed to all other cell types, which are called somatic cells. "There are many proteins whose deletion ... male and female infertility without affecting the somatic cells." Animals deficient in the protein ... it can't be a protein also active in such somatic tissues as brain, heart, liver, and so forth, ...

Xie Lab demonstrates the role of microRNA pathway

... is essential for controlling self-renewal of germline stem cells and somatic stem cells in the Drosophila ovary. The paper, "Dcr-1 Maintains ... or maintenance of two types of stem cells —germline stem cells and somatic stem cells," said Dr. Jin. "In the future, the small RNAs responsible for ...

Development of gene therapy

... is achieved using a vector ? a kind of vehicle that carries the gene. somatic gene transfer only targets body cells (somatic cells). Introducing genes ... great difficulties with technical implementation, initial successes in somatic gene therapy are on the horizon, for example in treating adenosine ...

Origen publishes in Nature a robust and versatile method for creating transgenic chickens

... in vitro to differentiate into embryonic germ cells that contribute to somatic tissue. "As well as the practical applications of this work, the ... and influence them to commit in cell culture to either the germline or the somatic lineages provides a very useful new tool for understanding some of the ...

With few factors, adult cells take on character of embryonic stem cells

... which may eventually allow the creation of pluripotent cells directly from somatic cells of patients," Yamanaka said. While the findings could have wide ... know whether the four factors can generate pluripotent cells from human somatic cells," Yamanaka said. Use of c-Myc, a gene implicated in many human ...

With few factors, adult cells take on character of embryonic stem cells

... which may eventually allow the creation of pluripotent cells directly from somatic cells of patients," Yamanaka said. While the findings could have wide ... know whether the four factors can generate pluripotent cells from human somatic cells," Yamanaka said. Use of c-Myc, a gene implicated in many human ...

Sleeping beauty plays a significant role in identifying cancer genes

... D. "Cancer gene discovery in solid tumours using transposon-based somatic mutagenesis in the mouse," Nature, Vol. 436, No. 7047. Dupuy A., Akagi ... D., Copeland N., Jenkins N. "Mammalian mutagenesis using a highly mobile somatic Sleeping Beauty transposon system," Nature, Vol. 436, No. 7047. ...

New technology addresses female fertility preservation

... but the process can take up to six weeks and for some this delay of treatment is not an option. Immature follicles (the female egg and surrounding somatic cells) can be preserved at any time but are difficult to mature when removed from their normal environment. A team of scientists from Northwestern ...

Cloned stem cells prove identical to fertilized stem cells

... flawed. But they don't agree about what that means for stem cells derived from cloned embryos, the basis for therapeutic cloning. Also known as somatic cell nuclear transfer, therapeutic cloning is a promising approach to create individually customized cellular therapies for treating certain ...

Sickle cell disease corrected in human models using stem cell-based gene therapy

... process. The transferred gene must not disrupt the cells' normal functions," explained Isabelle Riviere, PhD, Co-Director of the Gene Transfer and somatic Cell Engineering Facility and a study co-author. The new gene had two functions -- produce normal hemoglobin and suppress the generation of ...

Researchers offer proof-of-concept for Altered Nuclear Transfer

... Hurlbut, Stanford University professor and member of the President's Council on Bioethics, ANT has been described as an ethical alternative to somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), also known as therapeutic cloning. For SCNT, a donor nucleus, for example one taken from a skin cell, is implanted ...