#Unscrambling the genetics of the chickens blue eggresearchers at The University of Nottingham have unscrambled the genetic mutation that gives the distinctive blue eggs laid by some breeds of chickens.
They are the latest foodie fashion and look set to become big business in the baking aisles of all the major supermarkets--the blue egg produced by some chickens is prettier
and some say tastier and cleaner-breaking than the traditional brown one --and now thanks to scientists from The University of Nottingham we know what caused the eggs in some breeds to turn this unusual Colour in a four-year research project just published in the journal PLOS ONE the team from the School of Biology has identified the genetic mutation
which first produced the blue egg in native South american chicken the Mapuche fowl and their European descendants Araucana between 200 and 500 years ago.
The scientists used the unique genetic resources conserved by heritage or'fancy'poultry breeders to identify at fine resolution the exact location of the mutation in the genome in blue egg laying chicken.
This work was followed by further genomic study which revealed the genetic cause of the blue coloured egg shell--surprisingly--an ancient harmless retrovirus in the domestic chicken.
A retrovirus is a virus that unlike most cellular organisms carries its genetic blueprint in the form of ribonucleic acid (RNA.
It reproduces itself in a host cell using a special enzyme called'reverse transcriptase 'which transcribes RNA into deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA).
This makes it possible for genetic material from a retrovirus to become permanently incorporated into the DNA of an infected cell.
It shows the importance of viruses in shaping evolution and diversity of species. It's quite remarkable--retroviruses are considered generally to integrate at random locations in the genome
and so the chance of a retrovirus integrating at more or less the same location in two chicken populations is extremely low.
and E coli bacteria have joined forces to turn tough waste plant material into isobutanol a biofuel that matches gasoline's properties better than ethanol.
We're hoping that biofuels made in such an efficient way can eventually replace current petroleum-based fuels said Xiaoxia Nina Lin assistant professor of chemical engineering and leader of the research.
While much previous research has focused on trying to create a superbug that could tackle the whole job of processing waste plant materials into biofuels Lin
The Lin group put both microbe species into a bioreactor and served up corn stalks and leaves.
The team managed to get 1. 88 grams of isobutanol per liter of fluid in the ecosystem the highest concentration reported to date for turning tough plant materials into biofuels.
or more of biomass annually enough to produce biofuels that could displace 30 percent or more of our current petroleum production.
Can the biochemical effects of pesticides upset entire ecosystems? Professor Heinz KÃ hler and Professor Rita Triebskorn from the University of TÃ bingen's Institute of Evolution and Ecology (Eve) have published a study on the link between pesticides and changing ecological systems
The two ecotoxicologists cite deficits in the research which have prevented recognition of the consequences of biochemical pesticide effects on a species population or on the composition of biological communities.
and ecological changes in biological communities and ecosystems in regions where intensive farming is practiced. An important role is played by number of rare studies combining experimental fieldwork and research on sections of ecosystems as well as a broad selection of chemical and biological analyses.
An interdisciplinary approach can plausibly demonstrate connections between the effects of chemicals in humans and animals and the often indirect consequences on the population community and ecosystem levels.
The links to the effect of pesticides at every level of increasing biological complexity require more thorough research say KÃ hler and Triebskorn.
which led to a decrease in the production of anti-apoptotic genes in the pancreatic cancer cells.
In this case no chemotherapy drug had been added Treatment with the flavonoid also modified gene expression. Certain genes associated with pro-inflammatory cytokines were highly upregulated de Mejia said.
According to Johnson the scientists'in vitro study in Molecular Nutrition and Food Research is the first to show that apigenin treatment can lead to an increase in interleukin 17s in pancreatic cells showing its potential relevance in anti-pancreatic cancer activity.
#The secret of male beauty (in turkeys) The essence of male beauty is down to the way males use their genes rather than
what genes they have according to a new study into the sexual attractiveness of turkeys. Geneticists have puzzled long over why individuals of the same sex show a greater or lesser degree of sexual attractiveness.
In other words-why are some people better looking than others when they re genetically similar? In a new study published today in the journal PLOS Genetics scientists turned to male wild turkeys to solve the problem.
They found that among turkeys that are brothers (and therefore share the majority of their genes)# dominant males show higher expression of genes predominantly found in males
and a lower expression of genes predominantly found in females than their subordinate brothers. Therefore dominant males were both masculinised and defeminised in terms of their gene expression.
A male s attractiveness is a function of how they express their genes rather than the genes themselves.
Professor Judith Mank UCL Department of Genetics Evolution & Environment senior author of the paper said:#
#oesexual attractiveness varies markedly between individuals of the same sex. These differences can have a significant impact on how successful an individual is with the opposite sex.#
#oehere we have shown that male beauty is a result of how you use your genes rather than the difference in the genes themselves.#
#oeeven though humans don t have clear dominant and subordinate types they do exhibit a range of sexual dimorphisms#some individuals are more attractive to the opposite sex than others.#
or submissive but suspect that the concentration of male hormones or androgens may play a role in gene expression.
#oewe expect to find a similar effect in females in that more attractive females may show a higher expression of genes predominantly found in females and lower expression of male genes.#
#New possibilities for efficient biofuel productionlimited availability of fossil fuels stimulates the search for different energy resources.
The use of biofuels is one of the alternatives. Sugars derived from the grain of agricultural crops can be used to produce biofuel
but these crops occupy fertile soils needed for food and feed production. Fast growing plants such as poplar eucalyptus
and can be a sustainable source for biofuel. An international collaboration of plant scientists from VIB and Ghent University (Belgium) the University of Dundee (UK) The James Hutton Institute (UK) and the University of Wisconsin (USA) identified a new gene in the biosynthetic
pathway of lignin a major component of plant secondary cell walls that limits the conversion of biomass to energy.
These findings published online in this week's issue of Science Express pave the way for new initiatives supporting a bio-based economy.
This exciting fundamental discovery provides an alternative pathway for altering lignin in plants and has the potential to greatly increase the efficiency of energy crop conversion for biofuels said Sally M. Benson director of Stanford university's Global Climate and Energy Project.
We have been pleased so to support this team of world leaders in lignin research and to see the highly successful outcome of these projects.
Unfortunately lignin severely reduces the accessibility of sugar molecules for biofuel production. The lignin cement has to be removed via an energy-consuming and environmentally unfriendly process.
Plants with a lower amount of lignin or with lignin that is easier to break down can be a real benefit for biofuel and bioplastics production.
This enzyme caffeoyl shikimate esterase (CSE) fulfils a central role in lignin biosynthesis. Knocking-out the CSE gene resulted in 36%less lignin per gram of stem material.
As a result the direct conversion of cellulose to glucose from un-pretreated plant biomass increased fourfold from 18%in the control plants to 78%in the cse mutant plants.
These new insights published this week online in Science Express can now be used to screen natural populations of energy crops such as poplar eucalyptus switchgrass or other grass species for a nonfunctional CSE gene.
A reduced amount of lignin or an adapted lignin structure can contribute to a more efficient conversion of biomass to energy.
This research was financed co by the multidisciplinary research partnership'Biotechnology for a sustainable economy'of Ghent University the DOE Great lakes Bioenergy Research center and the'Global Climate and Energy Project'(GCEP.
A team of Smithsonian scientists however uncovered overlooked museum specimens of this remarkable animal which took them on a journey from museum cabinets in Chicago to cloud forests in South america to genetics labs in Washington D c. The result:
and was not the project's original goal--completing the first comprehensive study of olingos several species of tree-living carnivores in the genus Bassaricyon was.
To answer that question Helgen called on Roland Kays director of the Biodiversity and Earth Observation Lab at the North carolina Museum of Natural sciences to help organize a field expedition.
Over time the technique should be able to analyze much larger molecules like viruses that contain thousands
Authors include Jonathan Slaght of the Wildlife Conservation Society R. J. Guti rrez of the University of Minnesota and Sergei Surmach of the Institute of Biology and Soils (Russian Academy of Sciences.
Focusing on the avian flu virus strain H5n1 research published today in the journal PLOS ONE identifies key stages in the poultry trade chain which lead to its transmission to other birds animals and humans.
However the way that the virus transmits from poultry to humans has been understood poorly. The UEA research team adopted a system widely used in the food production industry known as Hazard Analysis of Critical Control Points (HACCP)
which pose high risks for the transmission of HPAI viruses in human and poultry populations:
which act as huge reservoirs for the virus at bird vaccination centres and at cock fighting contests.
The research was led by Dr Diana Bell and Dr Kelly Edmunds from UEA's school of Biological sciences.
The report in the journal Global Change Biology is one of the first to compare the agricultural projections generated by empirical models
For instance a paper posted Aug 7 by Global Change Biology --and includes second author and 2011 Princeton graduate Ryan Huynh--challenges predictions that higher global temperatures will result in the widespread extinction of cold-blooded forest creatures particularly lizards.
Biophysicists zoom in on pore-forming toxina new study by Rice university biophysicists offers the most comprehensive picture yet of the molecular-level action of melittin the principal toxin in bee venom.
so that they can perform photosynthesis. From this they were able to determine how much biomass the ecosystem in question accumulates during or after an extreme weather event.
The above story is provided based on materials by Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
This demonstrates the adverse effects of added sugars at human-relevant levels says University of Utah biology professor Wayne Potts the study's senior author He says previous studies using other tests
--Males on the added-sugar diet produced 25 percent fewer offspring than control males as determined by genetic analysis of the offspring.
and soft tissue infections in humans originally came from cattle according to a study to be published in mbio the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology.
The researchers who conducted the genetic analysis of strains of Staphylococcus aureus known as CC97 say these strains developed resistance to methicillin after they crossed over into humans around forty years ago.
The researchers sequenced the genomes of 43 different CC97 isolates from humans cattle and other animals and plotted their genetic relationships in a phylogenetic tree.
Corresponding author Ross Fitzgerald of the Roslin Institute and the University of Edinburgh in Scotland says strains of CC97 found in cows appear to be the ancestors of CC97 strains from humans.
After they made the jump the human CC97 strains acquired some new capabilities says Fitzgerald thanks to genes encoded on portable pieces of DNA called mobile genetic elements.
the bovine strains have their own mobile genetic elements. Perhaps the most problematic new capability the human strains acquired is the ability to resist methicillin an important antibiotic for fighting staphylococcal infections.
The above story is provided based on materials by American Society for Microbiology. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
This research provides dramatic evidence of the significant influence the land-based biosphere can have on the amplitude amount of change in seasonal trends of carbon dioxide exchange says Sylvia Edgerton program director in NSF's Division of Atmospheric
And all wood-and biomass-burning stoves were replaced with cleaner modern stoves that use electricity or natural gas for energy.
author and U-M graduate student Andres Baeza who works in the laboratory of Mercedes Pascual in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.
and characterized by an enhanced environmental malaria risk despite intensive mosquito control efforts said Pascual the Rosemary Grant Collegiate Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at U-M and a Howard
Researchers from the Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute at Cedars-Sinai the Division of Surgical Oncology at UCLA and the Molecular biology Institute at UCLA also participated in the study.
and less responsive to treatment than others because the overactive HER2 gene makes excessive amounts of a protein that promotes cancer growth.
But Herceptin is an antibody to the HER2 gene--it naturally seeks out this protein--so the research team used key parts of Herceptin to guide the nanodrug into HER2-positive cancer cells.
We genetically prepared a new'fusion gene'that consists of an immune-stimulating protein interleukin-2
and a gene of Herceptin said Julia Y. Ljubimova MD Phd professor of neurosurgery and biomedical sciences and director of the Nanomedicine Research center.
Ljubimova led the study with Manuel Penichet MD Phd associate professor of surgery microbiology immunology and molecular genetics at the University of California Los angeles David Geffen School of medicine.
Ljubimova said the UCLA collaborators developed the fusion gene and Cedars-Sinai chemists Eggehard Holler Phd professor in the Department of Neurosurgery and Hui Ding Phd assistant professor performed the technically difficult task of attaching it to the nanoplatform.
We believe this is the first time a drug has been designed for nano-immunology anticancer treatment Ljubimova said.
In a study published this week in the journal Biological Invasions U s. Forest Service entomologist Andrew Liebhold
and recover from EAB invasion with research on the insect ash trees'resistance to EAB and biological control.
'Bill Fagan professor of biology at the University of Maryland finds hope in the team's discoveries.
#First probable person to person transmission of new bird flu virus in China; But H7n9 is not able to spread efficiently between humansthe first report of probable person to person transmission of the new avian influenza A (H7n9) virus in Eastern China has just been published.
The findings provide the strongest evidence yet of H7n9 transmission between humans but the authors stress that its ability to transmit itself is limited and non-sustainable.
Avian influenza A (H7n9) virus was identified recently in Eastern China. As of 30 june 2013 133 cases have been reported resulting in 43 deaths.
Currently no definite evidence indicates sustained human-to-human transmission of the H7n9 virus. The study reports a family cluster of two patients (father and daughter) with H7n9 virus infection in Eastern China in March 2013.
Two almost genetically identical virus strains were isolated from each patient suggesting transmission from father to daughter.
and tested for influenza virus. Of these one (a son in law who helped care for the father) had mild illness but all contacts tested negative for H7n9 infection.
but say that the most likely explanation for this family cluster of two cases with H7n9 infection is that the virus transmitted directly from the index patient to his daughter.
But they stress that the virus has gained not the ability to transmit itself sustained from person to person efficiently.
To our best knowledge this is the first report of probable transmissibility of the novel virus person to person with detailed epidemiological clinical and virological data.
Our findings reinforce that the novel virus possesses the potential for pandemic spread. So does this imply that H7n9 has come one step closer towards adapting fully to humans ask James Rudge
and does not necessarily indicate that the virus is on course to develop sustained transmission among humans.
because there was no definite evidence to show that the novel virus can transmit person-to-person plus she
whether the novel avian influenza virus possesses the capability to transmit person-to-person. She concludes that the infection of the daughter is likely to have resulted from her father during unprotected exposure
and suggest that the virus possesses the ability to transmit person-to-person in this cluster. She does add
--and gradually spreading in the state said UC Davis entomology professor James Carey an international authority on fruit-fly invasion biology
and in any region worldwide said insect population biologist George Roderick the William Muriece Hoskins professor
and chair of the Division of Organisms and Environment at UC Berkeley and an expert on biological invasions who is affiliated not with the new study.
The strength of the study lies in the use of multiple lines of evidence--population modeling molecular genetics ecological trapping border control/airport detections
Carey collaborated with lead study author Nikos Papadopoulos an entomologist at the University of Thessaly Greece and Richard Plant a UC Davis professor emeritus of plant sciences and biological and agricultural engineering.
Papadopoulos the study's lead author and an internationally renowned expert on fruit-fly demography and invasion biology was formerly a postdoctoral fellow
This unique dataset can provide many fundamental answers regarding many aspects of invasion biology and related global policy.
This'lag time'which is such a hallmark of invasion biology explains why California can be harboring very small established populations of these pests with only periodic captures that reveal their presence.
In the scientific arena Carey recommends that genetic analyses be developed for all of the fruit-fly species identified in the state to determine
Invasion biology expert Roderick from UC Berkeley projects that the new study will have a sustaining impact on both science and policy.
Researchers in the University of Arizona's department of ecology and evolutionary biology have found that
For example even though a piã on pine tree looks very different from a maple tree there are similar general ecological biological and physical principles that have resulted in a similar branching architecture across those species over the course of evolution.
In an article published recently in the journal Bioscience research ecologists John Campbell and Lindsey Rustad of the U s. Forest Service's Northern Research Station and colleagues make a case for incorporating automated quality control and quality assurance procedures in sensor networks.
But research by a team of University of Maryland biologists shows the timber rattlesnake indirectly benefits humankind by keeping Lyme disease in check.
Habitat loss road kills and people killing them out of fear are the big issues said University of Maryland Associate Biology Prof.
and conservation biology will answer reporters'questions in the ESA press room after the session ends.
which fruits are harvested said Orou Gaoue the study's lead author and assistant professor of ecology evolution and conservation biology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
The above story is provided based on materials by National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis (NIMBIOS.
#Study of gene expression has revealed first steps of evolution in gene regulation in micea study of gene expression led by scientists at the EMBL-European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI)
and the University of Cambridge has revealed the first steps of evolution in gene regulation in mice.
Published in the journal Cell the research has implications for the study of differences in gene regulation between people.
We found an impressive amount of variation between these apparently very similar mice in terms of transcription-factor binding which is an important indicator of gene-regulation activity says Paul Flicek of EMBL-EBI.
The team studied gene expression in five very closely related mouse species in order to pinpoint changes at the very earliest stages of evolution.
To do this they compared the way that three transcription factors (TFS) bind to genes to control
In this study instead of comparing leaf and fruit shapes the team looked at gene regulation in mice that had diverged only recently from one another.
in order to ensure genetic and evolutionary stability. The researchers contrasted their findings with gene-regulation data from another model organism Drosophila to see where the similarities lay.
They found that there were a lot more differences between closely related mouse strains than there are between distantly related fruit-fly strains.
what we can expect to learn about mammalian genetic regulation from fruit flies. The study could help scientists understand how gene regulation differs from one person to the next explaining why genes that cause disease in some people don't have that effect in others.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by European Molecular biology Laboratory (EMBL. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
Journal Reference e
#Climate change occurring ten times faster than at any time in past 65 million yearsthe planet is undergoing one of the largest changes in climate
The findings come from a review of climate research by Noah Diffenbaugh an associate professor of environmental Earth system science and Chris Field a professor of biology and of environmental Earth system science and the director
and the number of cohorts that appeared each season we had no clear understanding of the difference between distinct and continuous reproduction said Ottar N. Bjã¸rnstad professor of entomology biology and statistics Penn State.
The researchers who also include William A. Nelson associate professor of biology Queens University Canada currently on sabbatical at Penn State and Takehiko Yamanaka senior researcher National Institute for Agro-Environmental sciences Tsukuba
The model is developed to represent the biology of the insect said Nelson. It is developed realistic fully and parameterized independently of the field data.
#Existing cropland could feed four billion more by dropping biofuels and animal feedthe world's croplands could feed 4 billion more people than they do now just by shifting from producing animal feed
and biofuels to producing exclusively food for human consumption according to new research from the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota.
In addition crops are increasingly being used for biofuels rather than food production. This study sought to quantify the benefit to food security that would accrue
A pair of studies appearing online on August 1 in the journal Current Biology a Cell Press publication now identifies the genetic differences that underpin the differences in smell sensitivity and perception in different individuals.
They then searched through the subjects'genomes for areas of the DNA that differed between people who could smell a given compound
This approach--known as a genome-wide association study--is used widely to identify genetic differences. The researchers led by Sara Jaeger Jeremy Mcrae
and Richard Newcomb of Plant and Food Research in New zealand found that for four of the ten odors tested there was indeed a genetic association suggesting that differences in the genetic make-up determine
We were surprised how many odors had associated genes with them. If this extends to other odors then we might expect everyone to have their own unique set of smells that they are sensitive to.
So which are the genes that determine our ability to perceive certain odors? Mcrae and colleagues found that the genetic variants associated all lie in
or near genes that encode so-called odorant or olfactory receptors. The odorant receptor molecules sit on the surface of sensory nerve cells in our nose.
When they bind a chemical compound drifting through the air the nerve cell sends an impulse to the brain leading ultimately to the perception of a smell.
and colleagues managed to pinpoint the exact mutation (a change in the DNA sequence) in the odorant receptor gene OR5A1 that underlies the sensitivity to smell the compound
and perform your own ad hoc genetic test. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Cell Press.
and even rarer in its native Sumatra where the deforestation of equatorial rainforests has wreaked havoc on its habitat said UCSB biology greenhouse manager Danica Taber.
Staff at the UCSB biology greenhouse had the foresight to contact the U s. Botanic Garden in Washington D c. to secure pollen from its plant (nicknamed Mortimer in social media that bloomed July 21.
and pollination systems said Scott Hodges professor in the Department of Ecology Evolution and Marine Biology.
This is a tremendous opportunity to show students and the general public about plant diversity and biology in general.
Further after a few years the plants would produce bioenergy (in the form of tree trimmings) to support the power production required for the desalination and irrigation systems.
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