Josh: Certainly this study needs to be repeated and verified by other parties, since the traditional understanding of aging is not so much the “rusting out” of cells, but rather, the irreparable damage of their DNA. Eukaryotic cells, like those in animals, have telomeres on the ends of the chromosomes. These telomeres shorten every time the cell divides, but an enzyme called telomerase makes them longer again. However, telomerase gets turned off, or at least gets very down regulated, as our cells mature and we age. Thus, the cells can only divide a fixed number of times before the telomeres disappear and DNA damage occurs. In almost all cancer cells, telomerase has been re-activated, allowing the cells to divide indefinitely.

Age may not be rust after all. Specific genetic instructions drive aging in worms, report researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine. Their discovery contradicts the prevailing theory that aging is a buildup of tissue damage akin to rust, and implies science might eventually halt or even reverse the ravages of age.

“We were really surprised,” said Stuart Kim, PhD, professor of developmental biology and of genetics, who is the senior author of the research. … Continue Reading »

Josh: While this is certainly an important genetic variation to find, I’m wondering if doctors would be able to use this information if they tested their patients. What could be done differently in treating high levels of triglycerides? This would be much more useful if a drug existed to treat this specific cause of elevated plasma TG levels.

A genetic variant found almost exclusively in individuals of Asian descent increases the risk of elevated triglycerides over four-fold, reports a comprehensive study in the August Journal of Lipid Research. In fact, all 11 subjects who carried both copies of this rare variant for apolipoprotein A-V had extremely high and dangerous triglyceride levels in their blood.

Apolipoprotein A-V is a recently discovered lipid-binding protein that likely plays an important role in metabolizing triglycerides. Some population studies with groups in China and Taiwan indicate that a polymorphism in the APOA5 gene (553 G>T shift) is associated with elevated plasma TG levels, which like cholesterol, increase the risk of heart disease. … Continue Reading »

Josh: The authors of this paper draw a conclusion that this has to be inherited genetically. However, they did not find a gene or set of genes that would be responsible. Perhaps the parents are more “aloof” because they’ve had to adapt and learn to understand their autistic children’s emotional state. I see no reason why this couldn’t be explained by environmental factors, since the children are born into the environment of their parents. The paper is focused on analyzing the phenotypes, which may or may not have genetic causes. Granted, statistics is an area I know little about, but I feel the data to make this conclusion simply isn’t there.

Some parents of children with autism evaluate facial expressions differently than the rest of us – and in a way that is strikingly similar to autistic patients themselves, according to new research by psychiatrist Dr. Joe Piven of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and neuroscientist Ralph Adolphs, Ph.D., of the California Institute of Technology.

Piven, Adolphs and colleague Michael Spezio, Ph.D., formerly of Caltech but now at Scripps College in Claremont, Calif., collaborated to study 42 parents of children with autism, a complex developmental disability that affects an individual’s ability to interact socially and communicate with others. Based on psychological testing, 15 of the parents were classified as being socially aloof. … Continue Reading »

Kevin: This builds on earlier studies about the Piraha showing they have the numbers zero, one and many.

An Amazonian language with only 300 speakers has no word to express the concept of “one” or any other specific number, according to a new study from an MIT-led team.

The team, led by MIT professor of brain and cognitive sciences Edward Gibson, found that members of the Piraha tribe in remote northwestern Brazil use language to express relative quantities such as “some” and “more,” but not precise numbers.

It is often assumed that counting is an innate part of human cognition, said Gibson, “but here is a group that does not count. They could learn, but it’s not useful in their culture, so they’ve never picked it up.” … Continue Reading »

Josh: If we can learn how to selectively disable/enable these specific points on HS1, then it would really help in cancer treatment. However, a lot of precautions have to be taken; incorrectly “programming” HS1 could lead to the NK (natural killer) cells attacking the body and doing more harm than good.

Medical science may be a significant step closer to climbing into the driver’s seat of an important class of immune cells, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis report in Nature Immunology.

The researchers showed that a single protein, HS1, enables key functions of natural killer (NK) cells, which kill early cancers and fight off viral infections. The protein allows the NK cells to pursue their targets, latch on to them and configure the cellular machinery it uses to kill them. … Continue Reading »

Josh: This opens the doors for doctors provide genetic testing to new borns and babies still in the womb to diagnose mitochondrial diseases. Already, in this study, they found one mutation that is a cause of complex I disease.

Imagine trying to figure out how your car’s power train works from just a few of its myriad components: It would be nearly impossible. Scientists have long faced a similar challenge in understanding cells’ tiny powerhouses — called “mitochondria” — from scant knowledge of their molecular parts.

Now, an international team of researchers has created the most comprehensive “parts list” to date for mitochondria, a compendium that includes nearly 1,100 proteins. By mining this critical resource, the researchers have already gained deep insights into the biological roles and evolutionary histories of several key proteins. In addition, this careful cataloging has identified a mutation in a novel protein-coding gene as the cause behind one devastating mitochondrial disease. A full description of the work appears in the July 11 print edition of the journal Cell. … Continue Reading »

Josh: This is pure speculation, but perhaps this was introduced from viruses. The article states that the hammerhead ribozyme was previously only believed to be found in plant viruses, but they are probably also found in other viruses. Mammals inherited a lot of techniques used for gene regulation from viruses or defense from viruses (such as microRNAs).

Researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, have discovered a type of gene regulation never before observed in mammals–a “ribozyme” that controls the activity of an important family of genes in several different species.

The findings, published July 9 in the journal Nature, describe a new and surprising role for the so-called hammerhead ribozyme, an unusual molecule previously associated with obscure virus-like plant pathogens called viroids. The UCSC researchers found the ribozyme embedded within certain genes in mice, rats, horses, platypuses, and several other mammals. The genes are involved in the immune response and bone metabolism. … Continue Reading »

Josh: In research, everyone makes mistakes. Sometimes, these mistakes can cost hours, days, or even weeks of work. By allowing a long, usually overnight process to take place in a mere minute, it allows researchers to recover from mistakes much faster. Not only that, but it should also allow more samples to be prepared simultaneously, also cutting down the time required.

Many coaches inspire better performance by pressuring their teams. Now, proteomics researchers are using pressure to improve the performance of their analyses. In a simple solution to a time-consuming problem, the researchers have found that adding pressure early in their protocol squeezes four hours of waiting into a minute.

“We were really happy to see how well it worked,” said biochemist Daniel Lopez-Ferrer, a post-doctoral researcher at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. “We’re determining when and how to incorporate it into our analyses.” Lopez-Ferrer and his colleagues reported their findings in July 8, 2008 Journal of Proteome Research. … Continue Reading »