Mutant in Biological News

Small molecules might block mutant protein production in Huntington's disease

DALLAS May 3, 2009 Molecules that selectively interfere with protein production can stop human cells from making the abnormal molecules that cause Huntington's disease, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found. These man-made molecules also were effective against the abnormal ...

No helicopter moms among Rutgers mutant mice

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. First, he discovered a gene that controls innate fear in animals. Now Rutgers geneticist Gleb Shumyatsky has shown that the same gene promotes "helicopter mom" behavior in mice. The gene, known as stathmin or oncoprotein 18, motivates female animals to protect newborn pups and...

MIT researchers offer glimpse of rare mutant cells

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- MIT biological engineers have developed a new imaging system that allows them to see cells that have undergone a specific mutation. The work, which could help scientists understand how precancerous mutations arise, marks the first time researchers have been able to pinpoint ...

Scientists solve 30-year-old mystery of mutant mouse's kidney woes

Researchers seeking insights into kidney failure in human infants have located the source of a 30-year-old mystery mutation that causes similar problems in a mouse line. Scientists have known of the mouse line's naturally occurring mutation since the early 1970s. Researchers at Washington Univer...

Gene transfer using mutant form of good cholesterol cuts vascular plaque and inflammation

Transfer of a gene that produces a mutant form of good cholesterol provides significantly better anti-plaque and anti-inflammation benefits than therapy using the "normal" HDL gene, according to a mouse study conducted by cardiology researchers at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and reported in the Oct...

Researcher gets NSF grant to create mutant maize lines

A Boyce Thompson Institute (BTI) researcher at Cornell University has received a grant to help assemble a unique database of DNA mutations in maize (corn). The project not only will allow researchers to study the effects of knocking out the function of single genes, one at a time, but also will ...

Carnegie donates landmark clones to biology

...ns of the pore-like structures at the membrane surface in plants. In this study they focused on the underlying mechanism of the pore activity by using mutant proteins that cannot shut the pores off with their C-terminus to see how they work in yeast and immature eggs of the frog Xenopus in the presence of...

Understanding how weeds are resistant to herbicides

...ressure -- you're selecting for that rare plant or mutation that will survive. When you do that, and you kill all of the siblings that are weaker, the mutant survives and all of its progenies will survive and that's how resistance evolves. It's evolution in action," said Tranel. This genomic data will al...

UBC researchers find first-ever 'wanderlust gene' in tiny bony fish

...lates, or "armour," in these new environments. Scientists have identified a mutant form of a gene, or allele, that prohibits growth of armour and is commonly ...klebacks in the sea despite the high predation there. Sticklebacks with the mutant allele just like to go to new places." ...

Drug-proof zebrafish reveal secrets of addiction

...ain insight into the mechanisms triggering the initiation of addictive behaviour". The team used the mutagenic chemical ENU to generate hundreds of mutant zebrafish. From these, they bred a line that did not respond to amphetamine administration (despite the presence of the drug in the fish's brain) but ...

Little-known protein found to be key player

...nd U.S. teams examined the effect of both an overabundance and a scarcity of atlastin on cell function and on fruit fly development. They also created mutant versions of the protein to see how it functioned -- or failed to function -- when some parts were disabled. The tests showed that cells with extra ...

Promising new treatment for Alzheimer's suggested based on Hebrew University research

...mutation in the BChE-K gene damages the very end, or tail, of the resultant mutant enzyme protein. This tail is the part of BChE which is important for protec...h at the Hebrew University). It was much more stable and efficient than the mutant protein, which suggests that the BChE-K carriers' susceptibility to Alzheim...

Hormone clue to root growth

... root cell production. The new research shows that mutant plants that do not produce gibberellin are unable ...h the cells in the meristem were made to express a mutant version of the growth-repressing protein GAI not d...owed disrupted cell proliferation. Expressing this mutant form, gai, in only one tissue, the endodermis (the...

Scripps Research scientists observe human neurodegenerative disorder in fruit flies

... novel functions that had evolved over time in some tRNA synthetases, including this one. He reckoned that, if one could first show that a CMT-causing mutant synthetase was active for protein synthesis, then recreating the same disease in another organism (by putting the same mutations in the other organism...

Fate in fly sensory organ precursor cells could explain human immune disorder

...ts that have disrupted peripheral nervous system development, Akhila Rajan and An-chi Tien, two graduate students in Bellen's laboratory, identified a mutant with a cluster of neurons. This occurs when there is a problem in Notch signaling. Ordinarily, the sensory organ progenitor cell uses the Notch pa...

Researchers observe single protein dimers wavering between two symmetrically opposed structures

... The scientists studied three different Rop proteinsthe wild type anti, the mutant syn, and another mutant known as A2L2. They found that although the A2L2 was active, it surprisingl...

The downside of microtubule stability

...cal disorder Charcot-Marie-Tooth (CMT) disease, Tanabe and Takei report in the June 15, 2009 issue of the Journal of Cell Biology ( www.jcb.org ). A mutant protein makes the microtubules too stable to perform their jobs, the researchers find. The mutations behind CMT disease slow nerve impulses, reduce...

Rutgers research tackles childhood epilepsy

...ence at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. "Clearly there is a pressing need to come up with new strategies for treatment." D'Arcangelo's mutant mice lack a gene (Pten) that suppresses cell growth in some neurons, resulting in these mutants displaying molecular, cellular and physiological trait...

Is this the beginning of the end of plant breeding?

...ons. The work, by a team of researchers in France and Austria, is potentially very important commercially, because it makes the creation of stable new mutant cropssuch as plants of a different colour, or with a different yield, etc.much simpler. It is now much closer to being po ssible to reproduce a plant ...

Muscle atrophy through thick but not thin

...letal muscles. The researchers triggered atrophy in mice containing defective MuRF1 (lacking its RING-finger domain crucial for ubiquitylation). These mutant mice break down less muscle than wild-type mice, and less ubiquitylation takes place in the mutants. Cohen and colleagues found that MuRF1 targets...

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

...omatic cell expression of genes usually active only in germline cells. The mutant worms also were protected from stresses that damaged the DNA of non-mutant ...he researchers also found that inactivating germline-expressed genes in the mutant worms eliminated the increased lifespan and that longevity-associated mutat...

Zebrafish provide a model for cancerous melanoma in humans

... in these signals as do humans. Zebrafish that were born from the original mutant fish displayed abnormal growth of their melanocytes, reminiscent of familia...ndrome (FAMM) seen in humans. By producing other signaling molecules in the mutant fish, the researchers were able to identify a pathway that reduced the effe...

Plant Min protein sits tight and rescues E. coli

...h MinD and MinE. Surprisingly, the minicell phenotype of this E. coli HL1 mutant (MinDE) was rescued by the plant AtMinD gene, even though the dynamic MinE ... has diverged beyond recognition. "The complementation of E. coli HL1 mutant (MinDE) by AtMinD and the requirement of EcMinC for this complementation su...

Pliable proteins keep photosynthesis on the light path

...obiology and Immunology at the University of British Columbia, discovered a mutant that replaced the magnesium metal found in the reaction center with zinc. ...or the naturally occurring magnesium reaction center and compared it to the mutant reaction center that was replaced with zinc bacteriochlorophylls. She found...

Flow of potassium into cells implicated in schizophrenia

...in the heart than the other main form of KCNH2 and does not exist in lower animals, suggesting that it has evolved a unique role in the primate brain. mutant forms of KCNH2 in the heart can lead to arrhythmias and even sudden death a rare risk of taking antipsychotic medications, many of which interact wit...

Stowers researchers develop whole genome sequencing approach for mutation discovery

...urnal GENETICS . The team mapped a fruit-fly mutation caused by the compound ethyl methanesulfonate (EMS) by determining the DNA sequence of the mutant fly's genome. The results provide insight into the mechanism of EMS mutageneseis and into gene conversion events involving balancer chromosomes genet...

Single gene defect can cause stroke, other artery diseases

...me occluded. The main function of smooth muscle cells is to contract in response to the stretching from pulsing blood flow. Vascular pathology from mutant aortas and analysis of smooth muscle cells removed from patients and grown in the laboratory suggest that persons with ACTA2 have increased multiplica...

Avian flu research sheds light on swine flu outbreak

...ory droplets. When the genetic sequences of the mutant virus and original hybrid virus were compared, the...es would bind. "Because the binding site of the mutant virus is different from the virus upon which the v... stocks would not be as effective against the H9N2 mutant strain as previously anticipated," said Perez. "W...

Diminuendo -- New mouse model for understanding cause of progressive hearing loss

...m Mnchen, led by Professor Martin Hrab de Angelis, director of the Institute of Experimental Genetics, have developed a new mouse model with a genetic mutant in which a single base of a specific microRNA seed region has been altered. Mice carrying this miR-96 mutation suffer progressive hearing loss as they...

New study overturns orthodoxy on how macrophages kill bacteria

...zyme is to see what happens when it is absent, so the researchers looked at mutant S. typhimurium that had the genes for SodA, SodB, or both enzymes, delete... laboratory in aerobic conditions," he said. Furthermore, the SodA/SodB mutant bacteria were profoundly weakened even in a mouse that was unable to produ...

Sugar on bacteria surface serves as base for a web of resistance

...ent in our cells, but it's becoming clear that DNA has roles outside of that capacity," Wozniak said. Wozniak and colleagues introduced a number of mutant genes and enzymes to the process to either block or generate extra Psl to test its role in matrix formation. All signs point to Psl as the key scaffol...

Mouse model provides a new tool for investigators of human developmental disorder

...re born with heart defects due to thickening of the cardiac valves, and they have abnormal facial and skeletal structures compared to normal mice. The mutant mice also have deformities in throat cartilage structures, which may provide insight to the swallowing and speaking difficulties experienced by many W...

New hope for treatment of neurodegenerative disorder

...an essential component to healthy nerve cells, the mutant Huntington gene makes a toxic mutant Huntington protein. mutant Huntington contains increased levels of the amino ...

Separating the good from the bad

...ater and bacteriato create a "shear" flow of adjacent layers of water moving at different speeds. In their tests, Stocker and Marcos used a non-motile mutant of the bacterium Leptospira biflexa, whose entire body has the shape of a right-handed helix. They injected the Leptospira into the center of the micr...

HIV pays a price for invisibility

...em. In the new report, Hayley Crawford at the University of Oxford and colleagues show that the virus pays a price for its invisibility. The triple mutant replicated 20 times slower than normal in cell culture. The researchers went on to study Zambian couples in which one HLA-B*5703-expressing person ...

New insights into progressive hearing loss

...development of intricate sensory hair cells in the mutant mice. Mice with two copies of the mutant gene had malformed hair cells from birth and the c...ed from an early age. In mice with one copy of the mutant gene, the effects were less severe, but became wor...

New therapeutic strategy could target toxic protein in most patients with Huntington's disease

...ent for Huntington's disease, which is caused by a mutant form of the Huntingtin gene. Huntingtin is required for healthy nerve cells, but the mutant gene makes a toxic protein that contains excess am...nt a single siRNA could shut off expression in the mutant Huntingtin gene while leaving cells' healthy H...

200,000 rice mutants available worldwide for scientific investigation

... the public availability of more than 200,000 rice mutant lines, which represent mutations in about half of ... number of different rice mutants needed to have a mutant for every gene as somewhere between 180,698 and 46...tations in the rice genome sequence, for each rice mutant plant. About 50 percent of the protein-coding gene...

Protein is key to embryonic stem cell differentiation

...undamental signaling methods that determine whether a stem cell's fate will be self-renewal or differentiation." In the study, the Feng lab created mutant Shp2 mESCs and showed that differentiation was dramatically impaired as the cells self-renewed as stem cells. The researchers also demonstrated small ...

200,000 rice mutants available worldwide for scientific investigation

... the public availability of more than 200,000 rice mutant lines, which represent mutations in about half of ... number of different rice mutants needed to have a mutant for every gene as somewhere between 180,698 and 46...tations in the rice genome sequence, for each rice mutant plant. About 50 percent of the protein-coding gene...