Despite many setbacks over the years recent genetic and immunologic advancements have helped revitalized progress in the xenotransplantation field comments lead investigator Muhammad M. Mohiuddin MD of the Cardiothoracic Surgery
The first advance was the ability to produce genetically engineered pigs as a source of donor organs by NHLBI's collaborator Revivicor Inc. The pigs had the genes that cause adverse immunologic reactions in humans knocked out and human
genes that make the organ more compatible with human physiology were inserted. The second advance was the use of target-specific immunosuppression
In this study researchers compared the survival of hearts from genetically engineered piglets that were organized into different experimental groups based on the genetic modifications introduced.
The gene that synthesizes the enzyme alpha 1-3 galactosidase transferase was knocked out in all piglets
thus eliminating one immunologic rejection target. The pig hearts also expressed one or two human transgenes to prevent blood from clotting.
The transplanted hearts were attached to the circulatory systems of the host baboons but placed in the baboons'abdomens.
The researchers found that in one group with a human gene) the average transplant survival was more than 200 days dramatically surpassing the survival times of the other three groups (average survival 70 days 21 days
This longest-surviving group was the only one that had the human thrombomodulin gene added to the pigs'genome.
Led by Professor Brendan Mackey Director of the Climate Change Response Program at Griffith University in Queensland Australia the authors are experts in forest ecology conservation biology international policy
These forests are home to an extraordinary richness of biodiversity with up to 57 percent of all tropical forest species dependent on primary forest habitat
In the absence of specific policies for primary forest protection in biodiversity and climate change treaties their unique biodiversity values
Most forest-endemic biodiversity needs primary forest for their long-term persistence and large intact forest landscapes are under increasingly pressure from incompatible land use.
3 Prioritize the principle of avoided loss--emphasize policies that seek to avoid any further biodiversity loss and emissions from primary forest deforestation and degradation;
#Plants may use newly discovered molecular language to communicatea Virginia Tech scientist has discovered a potentially new form of plant communication one that allows them to share an extraordinary amount of genetic information with one another.
In the paper Live Eyeworm (Oxyspirura petrowi) extraction in-vitro culture and Transfer for Experimental Studies published in the Journal of Parasitology Kendall describes how these parasitic nematodes ingest blood from the quail
and Aqua Enviro Limited builds upon research originally conducted by Stopford looking at using a mixture of digestates derived from anaerobic digestion and ash from burnt biomass as an alternative to existing crop fertilizers.
and provide additional income to biomass and anaerobic digestion operators. This could make these forms of renewable energy
and biomass energy plants to create a new safe and sustainable source of nutrients for agriculture.
and develop a new market for problematic by-products of the bioenergy industry. The project represents an excellent collaboration between academia
this research has the potential to transform the long-term economic viability of the bioenergy sector by turning by-products
Previous studies by Stopford Energy & Environment have shown that biomass-ash and digestate can be useful nutrient sources for crops in conditions low in nutrients.
The research also involves partnering with industry partners to ensure the resulting product meets the requirements of farmers and bioenergy producers.
#Statistical model predicts performance of hybrid ricegenomic prediction a new field of quantitative genetics is a statistical approach to predicting the value of an economically important trait in a plant such as yield or disease resistance.
Now a research team led by plant geneticists at the University of California Riverside and Huazhong Agricultural University China has used the method to predict the performance of hybrid rice (for example the yield growth-rate and disease resistance).
Rice and maize are two main crops that depend on hybrid breeding said Shizhong Xu a professor of genetics in the UC Riverside Department of Botany
Genomic prediction uses genome-wide markers to predict future individuals or species. These markers are genes
or DNA sequences with known locations on a chromosome. Genomic prediction differs from traditional predictions in that it skips the marker-detection step.
The method simply uses all markers of the entire genome to predict a trait. Classical marker-assisted selection only uses markers that have large effects on the trait Xu explained.
It ignores all markers with small effects. But many economically important traits are controlled by a large number of genes with small effects.
Because the genomic prediction model captures all these small-effect genes predictability is improved vastly. Without genomic prediction breeders must grow all possible crosses in the field to select the best cross (hybrid.
For example for 1000 inbred parents the total number of crosses would be 499500. It is impossible to grow these many crosses in the field Xu said.
Knowing the genotypes of the parents makes it possible to immediately know the genotype of the hybrid.
Indeed there is no need to measure the genotype of the hybrid. It is predicted fully by the model.
In genetics dominance describes the joint action of two different alleles (copies) of a gene.
For example if one copy of a gene has a value of 1 and the other copy has a value of 2 the joint effect of the two alleles may be 4 indicating that the two alleles are not additive.
In this case dominance has occurred. Epistasis refers to any type of gene-gene interaction. By incorporating dominance
and epistasis we took into account all available information for prediction Xu said. It led to a more accurate prediction of a trait value.
and genome prediction can be performed to predict disease risk for a person. Xu was joined in the research by Qifa Zhang and his student Dan Zhu at Huazhong Agricultural University China.
Recent advances that allow the precise editing of genomes now raise the possibility that fruit
and other crops might be improved genetically without the need to introduce foreign genes according to researchers writing in the Cell Press publication Trends in Biotechnology on August 13th.
With awareness of what makes these biotechnologies new and different genetically edited fruits might be met with greater acceptance by society at large than genetically modified organisms (GMOS) so far have been especially in Europe they say.
The simple avoidance of introducing foreign genes makes genetically edited crops more natural than transgenic crops obtained by inserting foreign genes said Chidananda Nagamangala Kanchiswamy of Istituto Agrario San Michele in Italy.
For instance changes to the characteristics of fruit might be made via small genetic tweaks designed to increase
Genome editing of fruit has become possible today due to the advent of new tools--CRISPR TALEN and the like--and also because of the extensive and growing knowledge of fruit genomes.
So far editing tools have not been applied to the genetic modification of fruit crops. Most transgenic fruit crop plants have been developed using a plant bacterium to introduce foreign genes
and only papaya has been commercialized in part because of stringent regulation in the European union (EU). The researchers say that genetically edited plants modified through the insertion deletion
or altering of existing genes of interest might even be deemed as nongenetically modified depending on the interpretation of the EU commission and member state regulators.
We would like people to understand that crop breeding through biotechnology is restricted not only to GMOS he said.
Transfer of foreign genes was the first step to improve our crops but GEOS will surge as a natural strategy to use biotechnology for a sustainable agricultural future.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Cell Press. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
It is controlled currently by a combination of insecticides baited traps biological control and releasing sterilised insects to produce nonviable matings known as the Sterile Insect Technique (SIT).
Lead researcher Dr Philip Leftwich from UEAÂ##s school of Biological sciences and Oxitec said: â#oethe Mediterranean fruit fly infests more than 300 types of cultivated and wild fruits vegetables and nuts.
which is both environmentally friendly and effective. â#The Oxitec method works by introducing a female-specific gene into the insects that interrupts development before females reach a reproductive stage.
The next stage of the research will be to gain approval for open-field studies. â#Genetic elimination of field-cage populations of Mediterranean Fruit Fliesâ##is published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society
The research published today in the journal Global Change Biology shows that wood decay rates in the southern UK are reduced by around one quarter due to fragmentation.
Wood decay and the recycling of other biological matter like leaf litter is driven by fungi
Grouse moor management has benefits for biodiversity and for communities. The question however remains as to how the illegal killing can be stopped without losing these benefits.
Without sea otters the undersea sea urchins they prey on would devour the kelp forests resulting in dense areas called sea urchin barrens that have lower biodiversity due to the loss of kelp that provide 3-dimensional habitat
Currently tests to detect these unwanted additives require scientists to check the coffee and those tests are subjective--not quantitative she says.
or identify various additives by simply tasting the coffee. In contrast the new test uses liquid chromatography and statistical tools.
and the University of Edinburgh have found that an animal's ability to endure an internal parasite strongly influences its reproductive success. Reported in the journal PLOS Biology the finding could provide the groundwork for boosting the resilience of humans and livestock to infection.
To measure individual differences in parasite tolerance the researchers used statistical methods that could be extended to studies of disease epidemiology in humans said senior author Andrea Graham an assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology
But biologists are just beginning to appreciate the evolutionary importance of this individual variation. For a long time people assumed that
More recently evolutionary biologists have come to realize that's not the case and so have developed statistical tools to measure variation among hosts in the fitness consequences of infection.
While the PLOS Biology findings provide strong evidence that natural selection favors infection tolerance they do raise questions such as how the tolerance is generated
The data in this study did not permit the researchers to detect a genetic component to tolerance.
If genetics do play a role she suspects multiple genes may interact with environmental factors to determine tolerance;
Understanding the genetic underpinnings of nematode tolerance could someday guide efforts to boost tolerance in livestock by identifying
and selectively breeding those animals that exhibit a heightened parasite tolerance said David Schneider an associate professor of microbiology and immunology at Stanford university.
#Regulations needed to identify potentially invasive biofuel cropsif the hottest new plant grown as a biofuel crop is approved based solely on its greenhouse gas emission profile its potential as the next invasive species may not be discovered until it's too late.
In response to this need to prevent such invasions researchers at the University of Illinois have developed both a set of regulatory definitions and provisions and a list of 49 low-risk biofuel plants from
Lauren Quinn an invasive plant ecologist at U of I's Energy Biosciences Institute recognized that most of the news about invasive biofuel crops was negative
She and her colleagues set out to create a list of low-risk biofuel crops that can be grown safely for conversion to ethanol
and Maryland) that have any laws relating to how bioenergy crops can be grown and that include any language about invasive species
In approving new biofuel products Quinn said that the EPA doesn't formally consider invasiveness at all--just greenhouse gas emissions related to their production.
and Pennisetum purpurem (napier grass) despite public criticism added U of I professor of agricultural law A. Bryan Endres who co-authored the research to define legislative language for potentially invasive bioenergy feedstocks.
The team of researchers used fundamental biological ecological and management principles to develop definitions for terminology commonly used to describe invasive species. Our definition of invasive is'a population exhibiting a net negative impact
and requires some understanding of the biology of these plants. Quinn said that ideally the definitions
or genotype Quinn said. That's fine for the low-risk sterile types but could mean higher-risk fertile types could be approved without additional oversight.
which includes 49 questions that must be asked about a particular species based on its biology ecology
Quinn stressed that the native plants that are included in the white list are recommended only as the native genotypes grown in their native region
and California but future genotypes that may be bred with more invasive characteristics such as rapid growth or prolific seed production may have higher risk.
legislative language for potentially invasive bioenergy feedstocks was published in an issue of GCB Bioenergy. Co-authors include Elise Scott and James Mccubbins from the Energy Biosciences Institute A. Bryan Endres and Thomas Voigt from the University of Illinois and Jacob Barney from Virginia Tech.
Bioenergy feedstocks at low risk for invasion in the U s.:A'white list'approach was published in Bioenergy Research.
Co-authors include Aviva Glaser from the National Wildlife Federation Doria Gordon from the Nature Conservancy and Deah Lieurance and Luke Flory from the University of Florida.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by University of Illinois College of Agricultural Consumer and Environmental sciences (ACES.
Appearing in the August 7th online edition of the journal Conservation Biology the paper says that
The immunological and anti-inflammatory properties of human milk are especially important for the critically ill infants in our intensive care units said Diane L. Spatz Ph d. R n b. C. FAAN nurse researcher
Vaccines are the best way to completely eradicate an epidemic threat like Ebola says Matthias Schnell Ph d. Director of the Jefferson Vaccine Center and Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at Thomas Jefferson University.
Dr. Schnell and his team have developed a vaccine that activates the immune system to produce large amounts of antibodies against three virus strains
It includes the Zaire strain of Ebola virus that is currently spreading across West Africa as well as the Sudan strain and the Marburg virus a virus in the same family as Ebola
Although they do not confer the long-lasting immunity of a vaccine antibodies attach to virus particles
and help chaperone them out of the blood before they can infect more cells It's like a sponge that mops up a lot of the virus in the body says Schnell.
It gives the immune system the time it needs to build a response to the virus that has infected already cells.
if the virus mutates. If money were no object we could have the first batch of serum ready for human testing in four to six months says Dr. Schnell.
and Institute for Genomic Biology director Gene Robinson who also led the new analysis . When he and his colleagues looked at brain gene activity in honey bees after they had faced down an intruder the team found that some metabolic genes were suppressed.
These genes play a key role in the most efficient type of energy generation in cells a process called oxidative phosphorylation.
It was a counterintuitive finding because these genes were regulated down Robinson said. You tend to think of aggression as requiring more energy not less.
In the new study postdoctoral researcher Clare Rittschof used drugs to suppress key steps in oxidative phosphorylation in the bee brains.
Using advanced fly genetics the team found this effect only when oxidative phosphorylation was reduced in neurons but not in neighboring cells known as glia.
and a synthesis of what is known about the effects of fire on forest ecosystem services such as water quantity and quality air quality and biodiversity.
In a Phd project at the National Food Institute Technical University of Denmark the latest technologies within whole genome sequencing were exploited to develop new methods to identify genes which are important for the survival of MRSA in pigs.
In her Phd project at the National Food Institute Phd student Mette Theilgaard exploited the latest technologies within whole genome sequencing
which can identify genes important for the survival of MRSA in pigs. High-throughput approaches can identify those genes in the total gene pool of the bacteria
which are essential or the presence of which is advantageous for the bacteria under some given circumstances.
By studying which genes are essential for the bacteria in pigs it may be possible for researchers to identify the factors important for the bacterium to colonise on pigs.
We still don't know which specific genetic factors in this MRSA type facilitate the spread from animals to humans.
They do this by changing their genes either by mutating or by transferring resistance genes among themselves.
It is therefore important not to overconsume antibiotics but only to use the necessary amount.
And now new findings out of the genetics professor's lab promise to advance that technology even further.
His team also presented its results this month at the annual meeting of the American Society of Plant Biologists in Portland Oregon.
which uses light as a tool to drive biological change. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by University of Wisconsin-Madison.
After eating 300 g of lean red meat per day for four weeks study participants had a 30 percent increase in the levels of certain genetic molecules called mir-17-92
In this respect adapted management strategies such as increased biodiversity and optimized thinning interventions in Europe's forests can buffer these carbon losses and support the climate change mitigation function of forests.
Researchers at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell biology and Genetics show that supplying D-lactate
or glycolate two products of the gene DJ-1 can stop and even counteract this process:
Teymuras Kurzchalia and Tony Hyman both have labs at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell biology
and Genetics with rather different research programs--but both happened to stumble upon the gene DJ-1 and joined forces.
This gene originally thought of as an oncogene has been linked to Parkinson's disease since 2003. Recent studies showed that DJ-1 belongs to a novel glyxolase family.
The major function of these genes is assumed to detoxify aggressive aldehyde by-products from mitochondrial metabolism. The Dresden research team now showed that the products of DJ-1 D-lactate
Scientists analyze how influenza-related proteins help infect cellsa flu virus acts like a Trojan horse as it attacks
The discovery detailed this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows the path taken by hemagglutinin a glycoprotein that rides the surface of the influenza virus as it releases fusion peptides to invade a host cell.
but none have explained experimental observations as well as the new work led by biophysicist Josã Onuchic at Rice
and biochemists Qinghua Wang at Baylor and Jianpeng Ma who has a joint appointment at the two institutions.
and they are the prime focus of study for Onuchic and his colleagues at Rice's Center for Theoretical Biological Physics (CTBP).
so the genetic material will be injected into the human cell. Hemagglutinin is recognized by polysaccharide receptors on host cells
Ma said frequent mutations to the cap help the virus avoid antibodies; this is the reason people need flu shots every year.
We're targeting the part that the virus cannot afford to change. Therefore it provides more hope for developing therapeutic agents he said.
He said the membrane fusion mechanism is shared widely among many biological systems which makes influenza a good model for studying other diseases.
and Olga K. Wiess Professor of Physics and Astronomy and co-director of the CTBP based at Rice's Bioscience Research Collaborative.
Ma is a professor of bioengineering at Rice and the Lodwick T. Bolin Professor of Biochemistry at Baylor.
Wang is an assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at Baylor. The National Science Foundation (NSF) the Welch Foundation the National institutes of health the Gillson-Longenbaugh Foundation and the Cancer Prevention Research Institute of Texas supported the research.
It has long been known that biomass burning--burning forests to create agricultural lands burning savannah as a ritual slash
Atmospheres is based on a three-dimensional computer model simulation of the impacts of biomass burning. His findings indicate that burning biomass is playing a much bigger role in climate change
and human health issues than previously thought. We calculate that 5 to 10 percent of worldwide air pollution mortalities are due to biomass burning Jacobson said.
That means that it causes the premature deaths of about 250000 people each year. Carbon of course is associated with global warming.
or human-created carbon dioxide emissions excluding biomass burning now stand at more than 39 billion tons annually.
That incorporates everything associated with non-biomass-burning human activity from coal-fired power plants to automobile emissions from concrete factories to cattle feedlots.
--or about 18 percent of all anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions-comes from biomass burning. But Jacobson's research also demonstrates that it isn't just the CO2 from biomass burning that's the problem.
Black carbon and brown carbon maximize the thermal impacts of such fires. They essentially allow biomass burning to cause much more global warming per unit weight than other human-associated carbon sources.
Black and brown carbon particles increase atmospheric warming in three ways. First they enter the minuscule water droplets that form clouds.
Finally Jacobson said carbon particles released from burning biomass settle on snow and ice contributing to further warming.
and CO2 emissions generated by biomass combustion to derive a net effect. Jacobson said the sum of warming caused by all anthropogenic greenhouse gases--CO2 methane nitrous oxide chlorofluorocarbons
Of that net gain we've calculated that biomass burning accounts for about 0. 4 C. Jacobson's model also tracks the impact of the direct heat produced by combusting biomass.
The direct heat generated by burning biomass is significant and contributes to cloud evaporation by decreasing relative humidity Jacobson said.
We've determined that 7 percent of the total net warming caused by biomass burning--that is 7 percent of the 0. 4 C net warming gain--can be attributed to the direct heat caused by the fires.
Biomass burning also includes the combustion of agricultural and lumber waste for energy production. Such power generation often is promoted as a sustainable alternative to burning fossil fuels.
The bottom line is that biomass burning is neither clean nor climate-neutral he said. If you're serious about addressing global warming you have to deal with biomass burning as well.
Exposure to biomass burning particles is associated strongly with cardiovascular disease respiratory illness lung cancer asthma and low birth weights.
As the rate of biomass burning increases so do the impacts to human health. Story Source:
The above story is provided based on materials by Stanford School of engineering. The original article was written by Glen Martin. Note:
The study was conducted by Gene Towne research associate and the Konza Prairie Biological Station fire chief and Joseph Craine research assistant professor both in the Division of Biology.
The PLOS ONE study uses 20 years'worth of burning data collected at the university's Konza Prairie Biological Station.
Mammals and amphibians are particularly sensitive to the effects of high-intensity logging according to researchers in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on July 31 who conducted a meta-analysis of almost 50 previously published studies from around the world.
We hope that this study will help make selective logging more biodiversity friendly in the future. Individually those previously published studies had presented an inconclusive
as a result of the disturbance are replaced by other more generalist species. Burivalova calls on logging companies to respect logging intensity thresholds that take biodiversity into account.
The current logging quotas are designed predominantly to manage the forest for sustainable timber production such that a forest will eventually regenerate its timber stock Burivalova says They are managed typically not for maintaining faunal biodiversity.
#Study advances DNA revolution, tells butterflies evolutionary historyby tracing nearly 3000 genes to the earliest common ancestor of butterflies
This project advances biodiversity research by providing an evolutionary foundation for a very diverse group of insects with nearly 160000 described species said Akito Kawahara lead author
Biological sciences the study builds the evolutionary framework for future ecological and genetics research of insects Kawahara said.
There is a DNA revolution taking place Kawahara said. This is an important time in the history of science
Kawahara said the yearlong study is one of the first to utilize a massive amount of genetic data to answer questions about the history of butterflies and moths.
Using next-generation sequencing a method used to rapidly process large amounts of DNA scientists developed an initial sample of 46 species that represent many of the most bio diverse groups of moths and butterflies.
They also combined 33 new transcriptomes a set of RNA molecules with 13 genomes both
of which hold genetic material for organisms. The researchers identified 2696 genes by breaking down the DNA down and piecing it back together Kawahara said.
Daniel Rubinoff entomologist and director of the University of Hawaii Insect Museum said the new study will help scientists conclusively pinpoint where butterflies belong in evolutionary history--a question that has troubled long researchers.
Overtext Web Module V3.0 Alpha
Copyright Semantic-Knowledge, 1994-2011