High-throughput genetic analysis can help dissect the mechanism of disease inheritance
Many genetic variants have been found to have a linkage with genetic diseases, but the understanding of their functional roles in causing diseases are still limited. An international research team, including a biomedical scientist from City University of Hong Kong (CityU), has developed a high-throughput biological assay technique which enabled them to conduct a systematic analysis on the impact of nearly 100,000 genetic variants on the binding of transcription factors to DNA.
Their findings provided valuable data for finding key biomarkers of type 2 diabetes for diagnostics and treatments. And they believe that the new technique can be applied to studies of variants associated with other genetic diseases.
T lymphocytes, or T cells, are an important component of our immune system. They can recognize foreign proteins, so-called antigens, as peptide fragments - for instance, those derived from viruses or cancer cells.
Study identifies major flaws in iBMEC-based models of the blood-brain barrier
A type of cell derived from human stem cells that has been widely used for brain research and drug development may have been leading researchers astray for years, according to a study from scientists at Weill Cornell Medicine and Columbia University Irving Medical Center.
The cell, known as an induced Brain Microvascular Endothelial Cell (iBMEC), was first described by other researchers in 2012, and has been used to model the special lining of capillaries in the brain that is called the blood-brain barrier.
Many brain diseases, including brain cancers as well as degenerative and genetic disorders, could be much more treatable if researchers could get drugs across this barrier. For that and other reasons, iBMEC-based models of the barrier have been embraced as an important standard tool in brain research.
Plants depend on LEAFY protein that enables cells to change their fate
Cells don t express all the genes they contain all the time. The portion of our genome that encodes eye color, for example, doesn t need to be turned on in liver cells. In plants, genes encoding the structure of a flower can be turned off in cells that will form a leaf.
These unneeded genes are kept from becoming active by being stowed in dense chromatin, a tightly packed bundle of genetic material laced with proteins.
In a new study in the journal
Nature Communications, biologists from the University of Pennsylvania identified a protein that enables plant cells to reach these otherwise inaccessible genes in order to switch between different identities.
EGR1 protein acts as a master regulator of inflammation in macrophages, study suggests
Scientists at The Wistar Institute discovered that Early Growth Response 1 (EGR1), a protein that turns on and off specific genes during blood cell development, inhibits expression of pro-inflammatory genes in macrophages. As part of their function to protect the body against pathogens, macrophages play a major role in initiation, maintenance, and resolution of inflammation. The discovery expands the understanding of how macrophages are set off and deactivated in the inflammatory process, which is critical in many normal and pathological conditions. These findings were published online in the journal