Single

Novel Asthma Study Shows Multiple Genetic Input Required; Single-gene Solution Shot Down

For patients with high-risk breast cancer treated with radical mastectomy and adjuvant chemotherapy, the addition of radiation therapy leads to better survival outcomes with few long-term toxic effects, according to a 20-year follow-up of a randomized trial, which appears in the January 19 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. The British Columbia randomized radiation the...

Opposing fat metabolism pathways triggered by a single gene

Regulating metabolism of fat is an important challenge for any animal, from nematodes to humans. Central players in the regulatory network are the nuclear hormone receptors (NHRs), which are transcription factors that turn on or off a set of target genes when bound by specific lipid molecules. In the premier open-access journal PLoS Biology, Keith Yamamoto and colleagues show that the nuclear hor...

Single stem cells from bone heal a broken heart

Myocardial infarction results in irreversible damage to the heart that can cause congestive heart failure. The lasting damage results from the limited ability of the myocardium to regenerate and self-repair. Douglas Losordo and colleagues from Tufts University now document the existence of a previously unrecognized subset of human bone marrow–derived stem cells with therapeutic potency for myocar...

Basis for DNA ejection from single phage particles

Studying phage, a primitive class of virus that infects bacteria by injecting its genomic DNA into host cells, researchers have gained insight into the driving force behind this poorly understood injection process, which has been proposed in the past to occur through the release of pressure accumulated within the viral particle itself. Almost all phages (also known as bacteriophages) are f...

Successful Test Of Single Molecule Switch Opens The Door To Biomolecular Electronics

A team of scientists led by biophysicist Stuart Lindsay from the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University has created the first reproducible single molecule negative differential resistor ?and in the process has developed a groundbreaking experimental technique that provides a “roadmap?for designing single-molecule devices based on biochemistry. The findings were presented Feb. 18...

Single-donor Islet Transplantation Procedure Shows Promise For Patients With Type 1 Diabetes

Patients with type 1 diabetes who received islet transplantation from a single donor pancreas were insulin independent one year later, according to a study in the February 16 issue of JAMA, a theme issue on medical applications of biotechnology. Type 1 diabetes remains a therapeutic challenge, according to background information in the article. The success rate of islet (cells that produc...

Ancient DNA confirms single origin of Malagasy primates

Yale biologists have managed to extract and analyze DNA from giant, extinct lemurs, according to a Yale study published in a recent issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Radiocarbon dating of the bones and teeth from which the DNA was obtained reveal that each of the individuals analyzed died well over 1,000 years ago, according to the senior author, Anne Yoder, ass...

Single gene is genetic switch for fly sexual behavior

A male fly's sexual courtship of a female fly is a complicated business of tapping, singing, wing vibration, and licking, but a single gene is all that is needed to produce this complex behavior, according to new research published in this week's issue of the journal Cell. The gene encodes the Fruitless protein. Male and female flies carry different versions of the fruitless protein, as a...

No single gene for ageing

According to professor Thomas Kirkwood of the University of Newcastle, there is no single gene for ageing. Throughout time, Humans have used energy to get food, produce offspring and survive danger - not to repair and maintain cells. So the maintenance system in the body slowly breaks down. This topic was of great interest at the seminar for ageing at the conference "Functional genomics an...

Natural selection at single gene demonstrated

Biologists seeking elusive proof of natural selection at the single-gene level have a powerful new tool at their disposal. Chris Toomajian, postdoctoral researcher in molecular and computational biology in the USC College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, led a group that sought to replace the standard neutral model, a common but unrealistic test for natural selection, with a statistical meth...

Manipulating single cell receptor alters animal behavior

Researchers at the University at Buffalo and the University of Pennsylvania were the first to demonstrate that two intracellular events, both stimulated by the same cell receptor, can provoke different behaviors in mammals. The broad implication of the findings may alter the way behavioral neuroscientists think about sub-cellular underpinnings of mammalian behavior, according to the resear...

Single microRNA causes cancer in transgenic mouse

Scientists in the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center say that just one, single, malfunctioning microRNA is sufficient to cause cancer in mice. The discovery offers new insight into the development of some forms of leukemia and lymphoma and at the same time underscores the powerful role that these tiny snippets of non-coding RNA play in cell signaling pathways active in carcinogenes...

Single cell amoeba increases MRSA numbers 1000- fold

Scientists in the UK have found that a type of amoeba acts as an incubator for MRSA bacteria. As amoebae are often found in healthcare environments this discovery has implications for the infection control strategies adopted by hospitals. The single cell amoeba, Acanthamoeba polyphagam commonly eats and digests environmental bacteria. It also engulfs pathogens such as MRSA. However, instea...

'Micro-boxes' of water used to study single molecules

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have demonstrated the use of water droplets as minuscule "boxes" for small numbers of biomolecules. The unusually simple containment method may enable easier experiments on single molecule dynamics and perhaps lead to the development of molecule-sorting devices that might be used for medical screening or biotechnology resear...

Recombination protein dynamics observed with single monomer resolution

Using a sensitive, single-molecule measurement technique, researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have observed the life cycle of RecA, a protein that plays a major role in repairing damaged DNA. RecA is a DN...

A single sugar found responsible for an antibody's ability to treat inflammation

For years, researchers have struggled to understand how IVIG worked. It's ability to treat autoimmune diseases seemed to bean apparent contradiction. Intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) is a complex mixture of IgG antibodies made from human plasma that contains the pooled antibodies from thousands of people, and is only FDA-approved to treat a few assorted conditions; nonetheless, practiti...

Autoimmune disease triggered if T cells miss a single protein early on

Scientists have discovered that autoimmunity can be triggered in the thymus, where the immune system's T cells develop, if T cells fail to recognize just one of the body's thousands of proteins as "self." The research confirms an emerging view that autoimmunity can start in this cradle of the immune system, and not only at the sites where autoimmune diseases emerge, such as the pancreas in the c...

Single molecular 'mark' seen as pivotal for genome compaction in spores and sperm

In higher order animals, genetic information is passed from parents to offspring via sperm or eggs, also known as gametes. In some single-celled organisms, such as yeast, the genes can be passed to the next generation in spores. In both reproductive strategies, major physical changes occur in the genetic material after it has been duplicated and then halved on the way to the production of mature...

'Best of both worlds' -- Targeting a single gene could inhibit bone decay and stimulate bone growth

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Medicine have found by targeting the function of a single gene that it is possible to inhibit bone decay while simultaneously stimulating bone formation. This concept may lead to drug treatments for osteoporosis and other bone diseases. Senior author Yongwon Choi, PhD, professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of Pen...

Single molecule extends fat mice lives by reversing gene pathways associated with disease in obese

Researchers have used a single compound to increase the lifespan of obese mice, and found that the drug reversed nearly all of the changes in gene expression patterns found in mice on high calorie diets--some of which are associated with diabetes, heart disease, and other significant diseases related to obesity. The research, led by investigators at Harvard Medical School and the National Institu...

New nanotechnology able to examine single molecules, aiding in determining gene expression

A new nanotechnology that can examine single molecules in order to determine gene expression, paving the way for scientists to more accurately examine single cancer cells, has been developed by an interdisciplinary team of researchers at UCLA's California Nanosystems Institute (CNSI), New York University's Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, and Veeco Instruments, a nanotechnology compan...

Scientists discover new virus caused deaths of transplant recipients from single donor

Scientists in the Greene Infectious Disease Laboratory of the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and colleagues in the Victorian Infectious Diseases Reference Laboratory in Melbourne, Australia and 454 Life Sciences have discovered a new virus that was responsible for the deaths of three transplant recipients who received organs from a single donor in Victoria, Australia. <p...

Penn researchers replace organ in adult mice using 'single-parent' stem cells

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine have derived uniparental embryonic stem cells - created from a single donor's eggs or two sperm - and, for the first time, successfully used them to repopulate a damaged organ with healthy cells in adult mice. Their findings demonstrate that single-parent stem cells can proliferate normally in an adult organ and could p...

Scripps research study reveals structural dynamics of single prion molecules

The new findings, which are being published the week of February 12 in an online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, offer significant insights into normal folding mechanisms as well as those that lead to abnormal amyloid fibril conversion. The new insights may lead to the discovery of novel therapeutic targets for neurodegenerative diseases. Intriguingly, certa...

Caribbean frogs started with a single, ancient voyage on a raft from South America

Massif de la Selle. Nearly all of the 162 land-breeding frog species on Caribbean islands, including the coqui frogs of Puerto Rico, originated from a single frog species that rafted on a sea voyage from South America about 30-to-50-million years ago, accord...