Free Republic

An article titled "m6A RNA modification as a new player in R-loop regulation," by the Dynamic Gene Regulation research group led by Arne Klungland at IMB, was published in the January edition of Nature Genetics. Following a new collaboration between UiO and research groups in Nottingham and Oxford, it has now been revealed that RNA has a direct effect on DNA stability, according to Professor Klungland's research. He believes the discovery will provide the health service with an important tool, since many studies have shown that the regulation of modifications to RNA is important for the development of cancer. If...

FULL TITLE: Want to know when you’re going to die? Your life span is written in your DNA, and we’re learning to read the code. ------------------------------------------------------------------ It's the ultimate unanswerable question we all face: When will I die? If we knew, would we live differently? So far, science has been no more accurate at predicting life span than a $10 fortune teller. But that’s starting to change. The measures being developed will never get good enough to forecast an exact date or time of death, but insurance companies are already finding them useful, as are hospitals and palliative care teams....

Genetic changes stemming from the trauma suffered by Holocaust survivors are capable of being passed on to their children, the clearest sign yet that one person’s life experience can affect subsequent generations.The conclusion from a research team at New York’s Mount Sinai hospital led by Rachel Yehuda stems from the genetic study of 32 Jewish men and women who had either been interned in a Nazi concentration camp, witnessed or experienced torture or who had had to hide during the second world war.They also analysed the genes of their children, who are known to have increased likelihood of stress disorders,...

Just two hours of exposure to diesel exhaust is enough to cause significant damage to the human body, a new UBC study concludes. The study, led by Dr. Chris Carlsten, looked at how pollution particles affect the way genes are expressed in the body. Sixteen non-smoking adult volunteers with asthma were put in an enclosed booth about the size of a standard bathroom, and made to breathe diluted and aged exhaust fumes equal to the air quality along a Beijing highway, or a busy port in British Columbia. Carlsten says the impact of the pollution "exceeded our expectations." "Quite rapidly,...

Darwin's Finches: Answers From Epigenetics by Jeffrey Tomkins, Ph.D. * Authentic speciation is a process whereby organisms diversify within the boundaries of their gene pools, and this can result in variants with specific ecological adaptability. While it was once thought that this process was strictly facilitated by DNA sequence variability, Darwin's classic example of speciation in finches now includes a surprisingly strong epigenetic component as well.1 Epigenetic changes involve the addition of chemical tags in an organism's genome without actually changing the genetic code. Both the DNA nucleotides and the proteins that DNA is wrapped around (called histones) can be...

Neandertal: The Answer Is Epigenetics Not Evolution by Jeffrey Tomkins, Ph.D. * Recent genome reports show that the Neandertals are essentially fully human, causing scientists to reclassify them as "archaic humans."1,2 But what about the apparent subtle differences in anatomy that first caused scientists to claim that Neandertals were a completely different species? It turns out that the answer can be found in epigenetics, according to newly published research.3 Epigenetics, in the more modern sense, refers to the heritable chemical changes performed by cellular machines to DNA that alter gene function without actually changing the DNA nucleotide code. In the...

The roots of inheritance may extend beyond the genome, but the mechanisms remain a puzzle. When Brian Dias became a father last October, he was, like any new parent, mindful of the enormous responsibility that lay before him. From that moment on, every choice he made could affect his newborn son's physical and psychological development. But, unlike most new parents, Dias was also aware of the influence of his past experiences — not to mention those of his parents, his grandparents and beyond. Where one's ancestors lived, or how much they valued education, can clearly have effects that pass down...

Evolutionists Call New Plant Epigenetic Study 'Heresy' by Jeffrey Tomkins, Ph.D. * New research has uncovered a hidden layer of trait-determining epigenetic information that resides outside the DNA sequence in plants. This new discovery challenges the evolutionary paradigms of the scientific community and their long-standing views on how organisms adapt to changing environments at the molecular biological level of the cell. In fact, some are even calling this recent research "evolution heresy."1 For over the past 50 years, Darwinian evolutionists have attributed changes in an organism's traits to the specific DNA sequences that code for them. They never anticipated a...

Exercise promotes health, reducing most people’s risks of developing diabetes and growing obese. But just how, at a cellular level, exercise performs this beneficial magic — what physiological steps are involved and in what order — remains mysterious to a surprising degree. Several striking new studies, however, provide some clarity by showing that exercise seems able to drastically alter how genes operate. Genes are, of course, not static. They turn on or off, depending on what biochemical signals they receive from elsewhere in the body. When they are turned on, genes express various proteins that, in turn, prompt a range...

Epigenetic changes affect neurotransmitters that lead to pair-bond formation. Love really does change your brain — at least, if you’re a prairie vole. Researchers have shown for the first time that the act of mating induces permanent chemical modifications in the chromosomes, affecting the expression of genes that regulate sexual and monogamous behaviour. The study is published today in Nature Neuroscience1. Prairie voles (Microtus ochrogaster) have long been of interest to neuroscientists and endocrinologists who study the social behaviour of animals, in part because this species forms monogamous pair bonds — essentially mating for life. The voles' pair bonding, sharing...

Scientists from King's College London have identified patterns of epigenetic changes involved in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) by studying genetically identical twins who differ in autism traits. The study, published in Molecular Psychiatry, is the largest of its kind and may shed light on the biological mechanism by which environmental influences regulate the activity of certain genes and in turn contribute to the development of ASD and related behaviour traits. ASD affects approximately 1 in 100 people in the UK and involves a spectrum of disorders which manifest themselves differently in different people. People with ASD have varying levels of...

Collaborators from Mayo-Illinois Alliance for Technology Based Healthcare have developed a new, single molecule test for detecting methylated DNA. Methylation -- the addition of a methyl group of molecules to a DNA strand -- is one of the ways gene expression is regulated. The findings appear in the current issue of Scientific Reports (Nature Publishing Group). "While nanopores have been studied for genomic sequencing and screening analysis, this new assay can potentially circumvent the need for some of the current processes in evaluating epigenetics-related diseases," says George Vasmatzis, Ph.D., co-leader of Mayo's Biomarker Discovery Program in the Center for Individualized...

ABSTRACT Male and female homosexuality have substantial prevalence in humans. Pedigree and twin studies indicate that homosexuality has substantial heritability in both sexes, yet concordance between identical twins is low and molecular studies have failed to find associated DNA markers. This paradoxical pattern calls for an explanation. We use published data on fetal androgen signaling and gene regulation via nongenetic changes in DNA packaging (epigenetics) to develop a new model for homosexuality. reduced androgen sensitivity in XX fetuses and enhanced sensitivity in XY fetuses, and that this difference is most feasibly caused by numerous sex-specific epigenetic modifications (“epi-marks”) originating in...

Former APA Pres. Dr. Nicolas Cummings Discusses Gay Change, Epigenetics, Neutrinos, & Political Correctness. - RPVNetwork

Epigenetics: How Our Experiences Affect Our Offspring New research suggests that people's experiences, not just their genes, can affect the biological legacy of their offspring By The Week Staff January 20, 2013 Isn't our genetic legacy hardwired? From Mendel and Darwin in the 19th century to Watson and Crick in the 20th, scientists have shown that chromosomes passed from parent to child form a genetic blueprint for development. But in a quiet scientific revolution, researchers have in recent years come to realize that genes aren't a fixed, predetermined program simply passed from one generation to the next. Instead, genes can...

X-rays may not heal broken bones, but low doses of ionizing radiation may spark other health benefits, a new study of mice suggests. Radiation in high doses has well-known harmful effects. Scientists had thought low doses would do less extensive damage but could add up to big problems later. But radiation acts differently at low doses, producing health benefits for mice with an unusual genetic makeup, Randy Jirtle of the University of Wisconsin–Madison and colleagues report online November 1 in the FASEB Journal. Antioxidant vitamins, such as vitamins C and E, erased those health gains. “What goes on at high...

Enlarge Image Risk factor. Smoking may cause chemical modifications of DNA. Credit: Hemera/Thinkstock Cigarettes leave you with more than a smoky scent on your clothes and fingernails. A new study has found strong evidence that tobacco use can chemically modify and affect the activity of genes known to increase the risk of developing cancer. The finding may give researchers a new tool to assess cancer risk among people who smoke. DNA isn't destiny. Chemical compounds that affect the functioning of genes can bind to our genetic material, turning certain genes on or off. These so-called epigenetic modifications can influence...

Thousand of epigenetic switches in the liver control whether genes turn on or off in response to circadian cycles. The figure illustrates daily changes, every six hours, in five different...When it's dark, and we start to fall asleep, most of us think we're tired because our bodies need rest. Yet circadian rhythms affect our bodies not just on a global scale, but at the level of individual organs, and even genes. Now, scientists at the Salk Institute have determined the specific genetic switches that sync liver activity to the circadian cycle. Their finding gives further insight into the mechanisms behind...

A new study has outlined for the first time a biological mechanism by which zinc deficiency can develop with age, leading to a decline of the immune system and increased inflammation associated with many health problems, including cancer, heart disease, autoimmune disease and diabetes. The research was done by scientists in the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University and the OSU College of Public Health and Human Sciences. It suggests that it's especially important for elderly people to get adequate dietary intake of zinc, since they may need more of it at this life stage when their ability to...

Changes to metabolism disrupt cells' ability to differentiate. The mystery of how mutations in a gene called isocitrate dehydrogenase 1 (IDH1) cause brain cancer and leukaemia is beginning to be unravelled. Researchers have discovered that the mutations cause the production of an enzyme that can reconfigure on–off switches across the genome and stop cells from differentiating. The findings, published in three papers today in Nature1–3, could be used in the development of drugs for cancers with these mutations — a search that is already under way in many pharmaceutical companies. Some cancer patients could benefit from new treatments that target...