NSC

FSU biologists describe key role of signal-transcribing gene during cell cycle

Study in Oct. 1 'Development' shows when, where Alzheimer's, some cancers and genetic ills beginT. Biologists at Florida State University have uncovered the pivotal role of a gene called "Cut" that acts as a sort of middleman in cell-to-cell communication. A DNA-binding protein, Cut interprets and transcribes the developmental signals sent through the "Notch" gene, which regulates a layer...

Modification of program enables prediction of gene transcription

A modification to an "ace" gene prediction program by computer scientists at Washington University in St. Louis now enables scientists to predict the very beginnings of gene transcription start sites and where the first splice occurs thereby defining the first exon of the gene. The modification to the gene prediction software TWINSCAN is called N-SCAN. Michael Brent, Ph.D. professor of com...

NYU chemists use computer simulation to enhance understanding of DNA transcription

New York University chemists have employed a computer simulation whose results have enhanced scientific understanding of the DNA transcription process. The study, funded by the National Institutes of Health, appears in the June 7 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Previous research has indicated that chromatin--a chromosome's substance consisting of histone prote...

Solexa and collaborating scientists illuminate the small RNA component of the transcriptome

Solexa, Inc. (Nasdaq: SLXA) today announced that its researchers in collaboration with the Delaware Biotechnology Institute and the University of Delaware reported the most comprehensive analysis to date of the small RNA component of the transcriptome. The research, "Elucidation of the Small RNA Component of the Transcriptome," was published in the September 2, 2005 issue of the peer-reviewed jou...

Mammalian Transcriptome Mapped

The FANTOM Consortium for Genome Exploration Research Group, a large international collection of scientists that includes researchers at The Scripps Research Institute's Florida campus, is reporting the results of a massive multi-year project to map the mammalian "transcriptome" in this week's issue of the journal Science. The transcriptome, or transcriptional landscape as it is sometimes...

Discovering the first steps in transcription-coupled repair

A team of scientists led by Priscilla Cooper, a senior staff scientist in the Life Sciences Division of the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, has discovered new players in the first steps of transcription-coupled repair (TCR), an essential but still mysterious mechanism of DNA repair. If a blockage occurs when genetic information from a cell's DNA is being trans...

Tandem transcripts team together

In the January issue of the journal , two teams of scientists describe a widespread phenomenon in the human genome called transcription-induced chimerism (TIC), where two adjacent genes produce a single, fused RNA transcript. The work has implications for drug development, as well as for understanding mechanisms underlying gene evolution, transcription regulation, and genom...

MatBase -- A new transcription factor knowledge base released by Genomatix

Genomatix Software GmbH, a pioneer and leader in the analysis of eukaryotic transcriptional regulation, releases MatBase, a knowledge base of transcription factors (TF). It contains genomic TF binding sites and protein binding domains, related literature, more than 27.000 known TF ?gene interactions, experimentally verified complexes with other TFs (promoter modules), and weight matrix de...

When it comes to gene transcription, random pauses aren’t quite so random, study finds

Of the thousands of proteins produced in our cells, few are as important as the enzyme RNA polymerase (RNAP), which has the unique ability to faithfully copy genetic information from DNA. In fact, all organisms--from bacteria to people--depend on RNAP to initiate the complex process of protein synthesis. Despite its crucial role in cell biology, fundamental questions remain about how the RNAP enz...

Non-coding RNAs help silence the mammalian transcription

Dr. Shirley Tilghman and colleagues (Princeton University) lend new insight into the mechanism of genomic imprinting, demonstrating a necessary role for a non-coding RNA transcript in the silencing of an imprinted gene cluster in mice. Imprinting, or the differential expression of a gene based upon which parent it has been inherited from, is integral to normal growth and development. Two h...

Pesticides need sunscreen to beat the heat

A pesticide with a new in-built sunscreen will help farmers beat the heat in crop protection. This means that the bug sprays last longer, as they are protected from the strong rays of sunshine, reports Chemistry & Industry, the magazine of the SCI. This is becoming increasingly important as temperatures rise, with the Met Office announcing that several heat records were broken in the UK this...

Nanotech tools yield DNA transcription breakthrough

Rutgers researcher Richard H. Ebright and his collaborators have resolved key questions regarding transcription, the fundamental life process that was the subject of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Transcription is the first step in the process cells employ to read and carry out the out instructions contained in genes. Transcription is carried out by a molecular machine known as RNA po...

New sunscreen ingredient to heal sunburn and help prevent skin cancer

People who suffer from sunburn could soon benefit from a new sunscreen ingredient that actively repairs sunburnt skin and helps prevent the onset of skin cancer, according to research published in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology. Unlike conventional sunscreen lotions which merely act as a filter for UVA and UVB sunlight, the new ingredient releases an active ingredient which mop...

Nobel Laureate finds 'elegant' explanation for DNA transcribing enzyme's high fidelity

Last month, Roger Kornberg of Stanford University won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his efforts to unravel the molecular basis of eukaryotic transcription, in which enzymes give “voice?to DNA by copying it into the RNA molecules that serve as templates for protein in organisms from yeast to humans. Now, Kornberg and his colleagues report in the December 1, 2006 issue of the journal Cell, publi...

Global 'sunscreen' has likely thinned, report NASA scientists

A new NASA study has found that an important counter-balance to the warming of our planet by greenhouse gases ?sunlight blocked by dust, pollution and other aerosol particles ?appears to have lost ground. The thinning of Earth’s "sunscreen" of aerosols since the early 1990s could have given an extra push to the rise in global surface temperatures. The finding, published today in the journa...

Stability of mRNA/DNA and DNA/DNA duplexes modulates mRNA transcription

The distribution of the four nucleotides along the DNA sequence encodes the genetic information in living systems. However, do nucleic acids possess other attributes that contribute to their biological functions? Recent work of a team led by Stoyno Stoynov, working at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, suggests that thermodynamic stability of DNA/DNA and RNA/DNA duplexes influences mRNA transcrip...