Researchers estimate risk of transmission of Huntington's disease to offspring among male carriers
(Boston) Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have quantified the probability of a male who carries a "high normal" variant of the Huntington's Disease (HD) gene having a child who develops the disease. Although thought to be a very rare event, the probability has never be...Mothers and Offspring Can Share Cells Throughout Life
SEATTLE, May 2 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Cutting the umbilical cord doesn't necessarily sever the physical link between mother and child. Many cells pass back and forth between the mother and fetus during pregnancy and can be detected in the tissues and organs of both even decades later. This...Fetal Alcohol Exposure May Prime Offspring for Alcoholism
Rat studies suggest the senses learn to like drinking early on THURSDAY, Dec. 13 (HealthDay News) -- Rats exposed to alcohol while still in the womb learn to like the substance and are more drawn to it as young rats, a new study shows. The observation may help explain why teens with...Adult offspring of parents with PTSD have lower cortisol levels
A small study suggests that adults whose parents are Holocaust survivors with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) appear to have lower average levels of the stress hormone cortisol than the adult offspring of parents without PTSD, according to a report in the September issue of Archives of Gener...What Moms Learned May Be Passed to Offspring
Mouse study concludes rich environmental memories can affect learning in children THURSDAY, Feb. 5 (HealthDay News) -- The things mothers did as children may affect their children's memory and the severity of learning disorders, according to U.S. researchers who studied the brain funct...Epilepsy Drug May Raise Autism Risk in Offspring
Yet another reason pregnant women should avoid this medication, experts say WEDNESDAY, Dec. 3 (HealthDay News) -- Women taking the epilepsy drug valproate while pregnant are at increased risk of delivering a child who develops autism. The British findings, appearing in the Dec. 2 is...Researchers Create First Targeted Knockout Rats Using Zinc Finger Nuclease Technology
... scientists used ZFNs to knock out an inserted reporter gene and two native rat genes without causing measurable effects on other genes. Importantly, offspring of the ZFN-mutated rats also carried the modifications, demonstrating the genetic changes were permanent and heritable. Together, these results demon...Molecular Marker Identifies Normal Stem Cells as Intestinal Tumor Source
... Next, the researchers switched on cancer-producing machinery in the Prominin1 intestinal stem cells and used a fluorescent tracer to follow the offspring of these cells. Those studies revealed that the stem cells stopped making normal intestine and made tumors instead. "We saw a dramatic change in these...deCODE and SGENE Consortium Discover Deletions in the Human Genome Linked to Risk of Schizophrenia
...E first analyzed the genomes of a total of approximately 15,000 parents and offspring taking part in deCODE gene discovery programs and who had been genotyped wi...discovered 66 de novo CNVs, that is, CNVs present in the genomic DNA of the offspring but not in that of their parents. deCODE then tested these variants for ass...Women Who Gain Excessive Weight During Pregnancy More Likely to Have Overweight Children
...ers add that more research is necessary to clarify whether the association between greater gestational weight gain and increased odds of overweight in offspring is causal, and whether it exists in today's environment of increasing obesity. Dr. Wrotniak's coauthors were Justine Shults, Ph.D., of the Center fo...Mothers give interloper's offspring a head start in life
A new study has revealed that mother birds can provide an early advantage to the chicks that they have sired with their non-social partner (known as extra-pair offspring). It has long been known that female birds commonly mate with males other than their social partner, producing broods of mix...A low dose of caffeine when pregnant may damage the heart of offspring for a lifetime
A new study published online in The FASEB Journal shows that the equivalent of one dose of caffeine (just two cups of coffee) ingested during pregnancy may be enough to affect fetal heart development and then reduce heart function over the entire lifespan of the child. In addition, the researche...Mice mothers devote energies to offspring when life is threatened
AMES, Iowa -- An Iowa State University researcher has found that sick female deer mice devote their energy to producing healthier offspring. Lisa Schwanz, a researcher in the department of ecology, evolution and organismal biology, studied the size of offspring for both infected and healthy mic...Species still have more viable offspring if they can choose their best mate
Athens, Ga. -- When it comes to picking a mate, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young had an answer: If you cant be with the one you love, love the one youre with. As it turns out, that may be a cardinal rule in the animal kingdom, too. New research that crosses several species boundaries shows that ...Bisphenol A exposure in pregnant mice permanently changes DNA of offspring
Exposure during pregnancy to the chemical bisphenol A, or BPA, found in many common plastic household items, is known to cause a fertility defect in the mother's offspring in animal studies, and now researchers have found how the defect occurs. The results of the new study will be presented Saturd...Mothers pass on disease clues to offspring
When there is a threat of disease during pregnancy, mothers produce less aggressive sons with more efficient immune systems, researchers at The University of Nottingham have discovered. The study provides the first evidence for a transgenerational effect on immune response based on environmenta...OMT announces a breakthrough in the development of a novel human antibody platform
...BioSciences, Inc. to knockout a gene encoding rat immunoglobulin. The mutations in rat immunoglobulin caused no off-target effects in other genes, and offspring of the ZFN-edited rats carried the mutated genes. Together, these results demonstrate the ability to generate heritable, specific and permanent modif...Microbix Files First Patent Applications On Novel Technology Platform For Large Semen Sexing Market
...3 billion Artificial Insemination (AI) market. Semen sexing is instrumental to the dairy industry due to the growing international demand for female offspring and the negligible value of dairy bull calves. "This market is attractive for its size and the absence of regulatory barriers, and importantly, our ...Gene-engineered flies are pest solution
... For the first time, male flies of a serious agricultural pest, the medfly, have been bred to generate offspring that die whilst they are still embryos. Researchers writing in the open access journal BMC Biology describe the creation of the flies that, when rel...'Museomics' yields new insights into extinct Tasmanian tiger
...ed museum samples. In this study, an international team of scientists has sequenced mitochondrial and nuclear DNA from the hair of the male thylacine offspring brought to the National Zoo in 1902 and a female that died in the London Zoo in 1893. In addition to refining the place of this unusual animal in evo...