text:
Lithium enhances CRTC oligomer formation and the interaction between the CREB coactivators CRTC and CBP--implications for CREB-dependent gene transcription.
Heinrich, Annette; von der Heyde, Anne Sophie; Böer, Ulrike; Phu, Do Thanh; Tzvetkov, Mladen; Oetjen, Elke
Lithium salts are important drugs to treat bipolar disorder. Previous work showed that lithium by enforcing the interaction between the transcription factor CREB and its coactivator CRTC1 enhanced cAMP-stimulated CREB-dependent gene transcription. Both CREB and CRTC have been implicated in neuronal adaptation, which might underlie lithium's therapeutic action. In the present study the mechanisms of lithium action on cAMP-induced CREB-dependent gene transcription were further elucidated. Transient transfection assays revealed that all three CRTC isoforms conferred lithium responsiveness to CREB whereas their intrinsic transcriptional activities remained unchanged by lithium, suggesting a conformational change of CREB or CRTC by lithium. In in vitro protein-protein interaction assays lithium enhanced the interaction between CREB and both coactivators CRTC and CBP. Furthermore, lithium enforced the oligomerization of CRTC, a prerequisite for CREB interaction. For further evaluation it was investigated whether lithium competes with magnesium, which coordinates the conformation of the CREB basic region leucine zipper (bZip). Mutational analysis of the magnesium coordinating lysine-290 within the bZip, in vitro and intracellular interaction assays and luciferase reporter-gene assays revealed that the effect of lithium on the CREB-CRTC interaction or on the transcriptional activity, respectively, was not affected by the mutation, thus excluding a magnesium-lithium competition. However, the CREB-CRTC interaction was strongly increased in lysine-290-mutants thereby extending the CRTC-CREB interaction domain. Taken together the results exclude a competition between lithium and magnesium at the bZip, but suggest that lithium by enforcing the CRTC-oligomer formation and the interaction of CREB-CBP-CRTC enhances cAMP-induced CREB-dependent gene transcription.
CREB-regulated transcription coactivator 1 enhances CREB-dependent gene expression in spinal cord to maintain the bone cancer pain in mice
Liang, Ying; Liu, Yue; Hou, Bailing; Zhang, Wei; Liu, Ming; Sun, Yu-E; Gu, Xiaoping
Background cAMP response element binding protein (CREB)-dependent gene expression plays an important role in central sensitization. CREB-regulated transcription coactivator 1 (CRTC1) dramatically increases CREB-mediated transcriptional activity. Brain-derived neurotrophic factor, N-methyl-d-aspartate receptor subunit 2B, and miRNA-212/132, which are highly CREB responsive, function downstream from CREB/CRTC1 to mediate activity-dependent synaptic plasticity and in turn loops back to amplify CREB/CRTC1 signaling. This study aimed to investigate the role of spinal CRTC1 in the maintenance of bone cancer pain using an RNA interference method. Results Osteosarcoma cells were implanted into the intramedullary space of the right femurs of C3H/HeNCrlVr mice to induce bone cancer pain. Western blotting was applied to examine the expression of spinal phospho-Ser133 CREB and CRTC1. We further investigated effects of repeated intrathecal administration with Adenoviruses expressing CRTC1-small interfering RNA (siRNA) on nociceptive behaviors and on the upregulation of CREB/CRTC1-target genes associated with bone cancer pain. Inoculation of osteosarcoma cells induced progressive mechanical allodynia and spontaneous pain, and resulted in upregulation of spinal p-CREB and CRTC1. Repeated intrathecal administration with Adenoviruses expressing CRTC1-siRNA attenuated bone cancer–evoked pain behaviors, and reduced CREB/CRTC1-target genes expression in spinal cord, including BDNF, NR2B, and miR-212/132. Conclusions Upregulation of CRTC1 enhancing CREB-dependent gene transcription in spinal cord may play an important role in bone cancer pain. Inhibition of spinal CRTC1 expression reduced bone cancer pain. Interruption to the positive feedback circuit between CREB/CRTC1 and its targets may contribute to the analgesic effects. These findings may provide further insight into the mechanisms and treatment of bone cancer pain. PMID:27060162
Enteric bacterial metabolites propionic and butyric acid modulate gene expression, including CREB-dependent catecholaminergic neurotransmission, in PC12 cells--possible relevance to autism spectrum disorders.
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Bistra B Nankova
Full Text Available Alterations in gut microbiome composition have an emerging role in health and disease including brain function and behavior. Short chain fatty acids (SCFA like propionic (PPA, and butyric acid (BA, which are present in diet and are fermentation products of many gastrointestinal bacteria, are showing increasing importance in host health, but also may be environmental contributors in neurodevelopmental disorders including autism spectrum disorders (ASD. Further to this we have shown SCFA administration to rodents over a variety of routes (intracerebroventricular, subcutaneous, intraperitoneal or developmental time periods can elicit behavioral, electrophysiological, neuropathological and biochemical effects consistent with findings in ASD patients. SCFA are capable of altering host gene expression, partly due to their histone deacetylase inhibitor activity. We have previously shown BA can regulate tyrosine hydroxylase (TH mRNA levels in a PC12 cell model. Since monoamine concentration is known to be elevated in the brain and blood of ASD patients and in many ASD animal models, we hypothesized that SCFA may directly influence brain monoaminergic pathways. When PC12 cells were transiently transfected with plasmids having a luciferase reporter gene under the control of the TH promoter, PPA was found to induce reporter gene activity over a wide concentration range. CREB transcription factor(s was necessary for the transcriptional activation of TH gene by PPA. At lower concentrations PPA also caused accumulation of TH mRNA and protein, indicative of increased cell capacity to produce catecholamines. PPA and BA induced broad alterations in gene expression including neurotransmitter systems, neuronal cell adhesion molecules, inflammation, oxidative stress, lipid metabolism and mitochondrial function, all of which have been implicated in ASD. In conclusion, our data are consistent with a molecular mechanism through which gut related environmental signals
Mdm2 controls CREB-dependent transactivation and initiation of adipocyte differentiation
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Hallenborg, Philip; Feddersen, Søren; Francoz, S.;
-binding protein (CREB) coactivator, CREB-regulated transcription coactivator (Crtc2)/TORC2, to the c/ebp delta promoter. Our findings reveal an unexpected role for Mdm2 in the regulation of CREB-dependent transactivation during the initiation of adipogenesis. As Mdm2 is able to promote adipogenesis...
CREB-dependent transcription in astrocytes: signalling pathways, gene profiles and neuroprotective role in brain injury
Pardo Fernández, Luis
A la portada: Institut de Neurociències El estudio de los astrocitos se ha vuelto muy relevante en el ámbito de las neurociencias desde el descubrimiento, a principios de los años 90, de que aquellas "células de soporte" podían responder a la actividad sináptica. Actualmente, está aceptado que los astrocitos poseen la capacidad de modular la transmisión sináptica a través de la liberación de moléculas que actúan tanto en el terminal pre-sináptico como en el post-sináptico, los llamados gli...
Enteric Bacterial Metabolites Propionic and Butyric Acid Modulate Gene Expression, Including CREB-Dependent Catecholaminergic Neurotransmission, in PC12 Cells - Possible Relevance to Autism Spectrum Disorders
Nankova, Bistra B; Agarwal, Raj; MacFabe, Derrick F.; La Gamma, Edmund F.
Alterations in gut microbiome composition have an emerging role in health and disease including brain function and behavior. Short chain fatty acids (SCFA) like propionic (PPA), and butyric acid (BA), which are present in diet and are fermentation products of many gastrointestinal bacteria, are showing increasing importance in host health, but also may be environmental contributors in neurodevelopmental disorders including autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Further to this we have shown SCFA ad...
Selective induction of gene expression and second-messenger accumulation in Dictyostelium discoideum by the partial chemotactic antagonist 8-p-chlorophenylthioadenosine 3',5'-cyclic monophosphate
Peters, Dorien J.M.; Bominaar, Anthony A.; Snaar-Jagalska, B. Ewa; Brandt, Raymond; Haastert, Peter J.M. van; Ceccarelli, Adriano; Williams, Jeffrey G.; Schaap, Pauline
During development of the cellular slime mold Dictyostelium discoideum, cAMP induces chemotaxis and expression of different classes of genes by means of interaction with surface cAMP receptors. We describe a cAMP derivative, 8-p-chlorophenylthioadenosine 3',5'-cyclic monophosphate (8-CPT-cAMP), whic
U.S. Department of Health & Human Services — Gene integrates information from a wide range of species. A record may include nomenclature, Reference Sequences (RefSeqs), maps, pathways, variations, phenotypes,...
Exchange factors directly activated by cAMP mediate melanocortin 4 receptor-induced gene expression
Glas, Evi; Mückter, Harald; Gudermann, Thomas; Breit, Andreas
Gs protein-coupled receptors regulate many vital body functions by activation of cAMP response elements (CRE) via cAMP-dependent kinase A (PKA)-mediated phosphorylation of the CRE binding protein (CREB). Melanocortin 4 receptors (MC4R) are prototypical Gs-coupled receptors that orchestrate the hypothalamic control of food-intake and metabolism. Remarkably, the significance of PKA for MC4R-induced CRE-dependent transcription in hypothalamic cells has not been rigorously interrogated yet. In two hypothalamic cell lines, we observed that blocking PKA activity had only weak or no effects on reporter gene expression. In contrast, inhibitors of exchange factors directly activated by cAMP-1/2 (EPAC-1/2) mitigated MC4R-induced CRE reporter activation and mRNA induction of the CREB-dependent genes c-fos and thyrotropin-releasing hormone. Furthermore, we provide first evidence that extracellular-regulated kinases-1/2 (ERK-1/2) activated by EPACs and not PKA are the elusive CREB kinases responsible for MC4R-induced CREB/CRE activation in hypothalamic cells. Overall, these data emphasize the pivotal role of EPACs rather than PKA in hypothalamic gene expression elicited by a prototypical Gs-coupled receptor. PMID:27612207
Exchange factors directly activated by cAMP mediate melanocortin 4 receptor-induced gene expression.
Glas, Evi; Mückter, Harald; Gudermann, Thomas; Breit, Andreas
Gs protein-coupled receptors regulate many vital body functions by activation of cAMP response elements (CRE) via cAMP-dependent kinase A (PKA)-mediated phosphorylation of the CRE binding protein (CREB). Melanocortin 4 receptors (MC4R) are prototypical Gs-coupled receptors that orchestrate the hypothalamic control of food-intake and metabolism. Remarkably, the significance of PKA for MC4R-induced CRE-dependent transcription in hypothalamic cells has not been rigorously interrogated yet. In two hypothalamic cell lines, we observed that blocking PKA activity had only weak or no effects on reporter gene expression. In contrast, inhibitors of exchange factors directly activated by cAMP-1/2 (EPAC-1/2) mitigated MC4R-induced CRE reporter activation and mRNA induction of the CREB-dependent genes c-fos and thyrotropin-releasing hormone. Furthermore, we provide first evidence that extracellular-regulated kinases-1/2 (ERK-1/2) activated by EPACs and not PKA are the elusive CREB kinases responsible for MC4R-induced CREB/CRE activation in hypothalamic cells. Overall, these data emphasize the pivotal role of EPACs rather than PKA in hypothalamic gene expression elicited by a prototypical Gs-coupled receptor. PMID:27612207
Identification of plasticity-associated genes regulated by Pavlovian fear conditioning in the lateral amygdala.
Ploski, Jonathan E; Park, Kevin W; Ping, Junli; Monsey, Melissa S; Schafe, Glenn E
Most recent studies aimed at defining the cellular and molecular mechanisms of Pavlovian fear conditioning have focused on protein kinase signaling pathways and the transcription factor cAMP-response element binding protein (CREB) that promote fear memory consolidation in the lateral nucleus of the amygdala (LA). Despite this progress, there still remains a paucity of information regarding the genes downstream of CREB that are required for long-term fear memory formation in the LA. We have adopted a strategy of using microarray technology to initially identify genes induced within the dentate gyrus following in vivo long-term potentiation (LTP) followed by analysis of whether these same genes are also regulated by fear conditioning within the LA. In the present study, we first identified 34 plasticity-associated genes that are induced within 30 min following LTP induction utilizing a combination of DNA microarray, qRT-PCR, and in situ hybridization. To determine whether these genes are also induced in the LA following Pavlovian fear conditioning, we next exposed rats to an auditory fear conditioning protocol or to control conditions that do not support fear learning followed by qRT-PCR on mRNA from microdissected LA samples. Finally, we asked whether identified genes induced by fear learning in the LA are downstream of the extracellular-regulated kinase/mitogen-activated protein kinase signaling cascade. Collectively, our findings reveal a comprehensive list of genes that represent the first wave of transcription following both LTP induction and fear conditioning that largely belong to a class of genes referred to as 'neuronal activity dependent genes' that are likely calcium, extracellular-regulated kinase/mitogen-activated protein kinase, and CREB-dependent.
Dynamic O-GlcNAc modification regulates CREB-mediated gene expression and memory formation.
Rexach, Jessica E; Clark, Peter M; Mason, Daniel E; Neve, Rachael L; Peters, Eric C; Hsieh-Wilson, Linda C
The transcription factor cyclic AMP-response element binding protein (CREB) is a key regulator of many neuronal processes, including brain development, circadian rhythm and long-term memory. Studies of CREB have focused on its phosphorylation, although the diversity of CREB functions in the brain suggests additional forms of regulation. Here we expand on a chemoenzymatic strategy for quantifying glycosylation stoichiometries to characterize the functional roles of CREB glycosylation in neurons. We show that CREB is dynamically modified with an O-linked β-N-acetyl-D-glucosamine sugar in response to neuronal activity and that glycosylation represses CREB-dependent transcription by impairing its association with CREB-regulated transcription coactivator (CRTC; also known as transducer of regulated CREB activity). Blocking glycosylation of CREB alters cellular function and behavioral plasticity, enhancing both axonal and dendritic growth and long-term memory consolidation. Our findings demonstrate a new role for O-glycosylation in memory formation and provide a mechanistic understanding of how glycosylation contributes to critical neuronal functions. Moreover, we identify a previously unknown mechanism for the regulation of activity-dependent gene expression, neural development and memory.
miR-130b-3p Upregulation Contributes to the Development of Thyroid Adenomas Targeting CCDC6 Gene
Leone, Vincenza; Langella, Concetta; Esposito, Francesco; De Martino, Marco; Decaussin-Petrucci, Myriam; Chiappetta, Gennaro; Bianco, Antonio; Fusco, Alfredo
We have previously studied the function of microRNAs (miRNAs) in thyroid cells using the differentiated rat thyroid PC Cl 3 cells that need thyrotropin (TSH) for their growth. The miRNA expression profile examination allowed the detection of a set of miRNAs downregulated and upregulated by TSH. Here, we first demonstrated that upregulation of miR-130b-3p occurs through a protein kinase A-cAMP-responsive element binding protein (CREB)-dependent mechanism. Then, we analyzed its expression in human thyroid follicular adenomas, where a constitutive CREB activation is frequently present. miR-130b-3p results in upregulation with a high fold-change in most thyroid follicular adenomas. Then, we identified CCDC6, coding for a protein that interacts with CREB1 leading to the transcriptional repression of CREB1 target genes, as a target of this miRNA. The targeting of CCDC6 by miR-130b-3p likely accounts for the mechanism by which its upregulation contributes to the development of thyroid adenomas increasing CREB1 activity. PMID:26835423
Altered Gene Regulation and Synaptic Morphology in "Drosophila" Learning and Memory Mutants
Guan, Zhuo; Buhl, Lauren K.; Quinn, William G.; Littleton, J. Troy
Genetic studies in "Drosophila" have revealed two separable long-term memory pathways defined as anesthesia-resistant memory (ARM) and long-lasting long-term memory (LLTM). ARM is disrupted in "radish" ("rsh") mutants, whereas LLTM requires CREB-dependent protein synthesis. Although the downstream effectors of ARM and LLTM are distinct, pathways…
The ATF/CREB site is the key element for transcription of the human RNA methyltransferase like 1 (RNMTL1) gene, a newly discovered 17p13.3 gene
Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)
The human RNA methyltransferase like i gene (RNMTL1) is one of thirteen newly discovered geneswithin a 116 Kb segment of the chromosome 17p13.3 that suffers from a high frequent loss of heterozygosityin human hepatocellular carcinoma in China[1-5]. To understand the molecular mechanisms underlyingtranscription control of the RNMTL1 gene in human cancers, we decline using of the conventional approachwhere the cis-elements bound by the known transcription factors are primary targets, and carried out thesystematic analyses to dissect the promoter structure and identify/characterize the key cis-elements thatare responsible for its strong expression in cell. The molecular approaches applied included 1, the primerextension for mapping of the transcription starts; 2, the transient transfection/reporter assays on a largenumber of deletion and site-specific mutants of the promoter segment for defining the minimal promoterand the crucial elements within; and 3, the electrophoresis mobility shift assay with specific antibodies forreconfirming the nature of the transcription factors and their cognate cis-elements. We have shown that theinteraction of an ATF/CREB element (-38 to -31) and its cognate transcription factors play a predominantrole in the promoter activity of the RNMTL1 gene. The secondary DNA structures of the ATF/CREBelement play a more vital role in the protein-DNA interaction. Finally, we reported a novel mechanismunderlying the YY1 mediated transcription repression, namely, the ATF/CREB dependent transcription-repression by YY1 is executed in absence of its own sequence-specific binding.
... correctly, a child can have a genetic disorder. Gene therapy is an experimental technique that uses genes to ... or prevent disease. The most common form of gene therapy involves inserting a normal gene to replace an ...
Functional involvement of Annexin-2 in cAMP induced AQP2 trafficking.
Tamma, G.; Procino, G.; Mola, M.G.; Svelto, M.; Valenti, G.
Annexin-2 is required for the apical transport in epithelial cells. In this study, we investigated the involvement of annexin-2 in cAMP-induced aquaporin-2 (AQP2) translocation to the apical membrane in renal cells. We found that the cAMP-elevating agent forskolin increased annexin-2 abundance in th
Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)
Honjo, T. (Kyoto Univ. (Japan)); Alt, F.W. (Columbia Univ., Dobbs Ferry, NY (USA). Hudson Labs.); Rabbitts, T.H. (Medical Research Council, Cambridge (UK))
This book reports on the structure, function, and expression of the genes encoding antibodies in normal and neoplastic cells. Topics covered are: B Cells; Organization and rearrangement of immunoglobin genes; Immunoglobin genes in disease; Immunoglobin gene expression; and Immunoglobin-related genes.
International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
We prepared probes for isolating functional pieces of the metallothionein locus. The probes enabled a variety of experiments, eventually revealing two mechanisms for metallothionein gene expression, the order of the DNA coding units at the locus, and the location of the gene site in its chromosome. Once the switch regulating metallothionein synthesis was located, it could be joined by recombinant DNA methods to other, unrelated genes, then reintroduced into cells by gene-transfer techniques. The expression of these recombinant genes could then be induced by exposing the cells to Zn2+ or Cd2+. We would thus take advantage of the clearly defined switching properties of the metallothionein gene to manipulate the expression of other, perhaps normally constitutive, genes. Already, despite an incomplete understanding of how the regulatory switch of the metallothionein locus operates, such experiments have been performed successfully
Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)
2005147 CNHK200-hA-a gene-viral therapeutic system and its antitumor effect on lung cancer. WANG Wei-guo(王伟国),et al. Viral & Gene Ther Center, Eastern Hepatobilli Surg Instit 2nd Milit Univ, Shanghai 200438. Chin J Oncol,2005:27(2):69-72. Objective: To develop a novel vector system, which combines the advantages of the gene therapy,
Foreman, Pamela; Goedegebuur, Frits; Van Solingen, Pieter; Ward, Michael
Described herein are novel gene sequences isolated from Trichoderma reesei. Two genes encoding proteins comprising a cellulose binding domain, one encoding an arabionfuranosidase and one encoding an acetylxylanesterase are described. The sequences, CIP1 and CIP2, contain a cellulose binding domain. These proteins are especially useful in the textile and detergent industry and in pulp and paper industry.
Mota Biosca, Anna
Applications of gene therapy have been evaluated in virtually every oral tissue, and many of these have proved successful at least in animal models. While gene therapy will not be used routinely in the next decade, practitioners of oral medicine should be aware of the potential of this novel type of treatment that doubtless will benefit many patients with oral diseases.
ATP and noradrenaline activate CREB in astrocytes via noncanonical Ca(2+) and cyclic AMP independent pathways.
Carriba, Paulina; Pardo, Luis; Parra-Damas, Arnaldo; Lichtenstein, Mathieu P; Saura, Carlos A; Pujol, Aurora; Masgrau, Roser; Galea, Elena
In neurons, it is well established that CREB contributes to learning and memory by orchestrating the translation of experience into the activity-dependent (i.e., driven by neurotransmitters) transcription of plasticity-related genes. The activity-dependent CREB-triggered transcription requires the concerted action of cyclic AMP/protein kinase A and Ca(2+) /calcineurin via the CREB-regulated transcription co-activator (CRTC). It is not known, however, whether a comparable molecular sequence occurs in astrocytes, despite the unquestionable contribution of these cells to brain plasticity. Here we sought to determine whether and how ATP and noradrenaline cause CREB-dependent transcription in rat cortical astrocyte cultures. Both transmitters induced CREB phosphorylation (Western Blots), CREB-dependent transcription (CRE-luciferase reporter assays), and the transcription of Bdnf, a canonical regulator of synaptic plasticity (quantitative RT-PCR). We indentified a Ca(2+) and diacylglycerol-independent protein kinase C at the uppermost position of the cascade leading to CREB-dependent transcription. Notably, CREB-dependent transcription was partially dependent on ERK1/2 and CRTC, but independent of cyclic AMP/protein kinase A or Ca(2+) /calcineurin. We conclude that ATP and noradrenaline activate CREB-dependent transcription in cortical astrocytes via an atypical protein kinase C. It is of relevance that the signaling involved be starkly different to the one described in neurons since there is no convergence of Ca(2+) and cyclic AMP-dependent pathways on CRTC, which, moreover, exerts a modulatory rather than a central role. Our data thus point to the existence of an alternative, non-neuronal, glia-based role of CREB in plasticity.
Takahashi, Hiroshi
The human capacity for acquiring speech and language must derive, at least in part, from the genome. Recent advance in the field of molecular genetics finally discovered 'Language Gene'. Disruption of FOXP2 gene, the firstly identified 'language gene' causes severe speech and language disorder. To elucidate the anatomical basis of language processing in the brain, we examined the expression pattern of FOXP2/Foxp2 genes in the monkey and rat brains through development. We found the preferential expression of FOXP2/Foxp2 in the striosomal compartment of the developing striatum. Thus, we suggest the striatum, particularly striosomal system may participate in neural information processing for language and speech. Our suggestion is consistent with the declarative/ procedural model of language proposed by Ullman (1997, 2001), which the procedural memory-dependent mental grammar is rooted in the basal ganglia and the frontal cortex, and the declarative memory-dependent mental lexicon is rooted in the temporal lobe. PMID:17432197
... Diet Tips" to find out more! Email * Zipcode Genes and Psoriasis Genes hold the key to understanding ... is responsible for causing psoriatic disease. How do genes work? Genes control everything from height to eye ...
... Meeting Calendar Find an ENT Doctor Near You Genes and Hearing Loss Genes and Hearing Loss Patient ... mutation may only have dystopia canthorum. How Do Genes Work? Genes are a road map for the ...
Vijayachandran, Lakshmi S; Thimiri Govinda Raj, Deepak B; Edelweiss, Evelina; Gupta, Kapil; Maier, Josef; Gordeliy, Valentin; Fitzgerald, Daniel J; Berger, Imre
Most essential activities in eukaryotic cells are catalyzed by large multiprotein assemblies containing up to ten or more interlocking subunits. The vast majority of these protein complexes are not easily accessible for high resolution studies aimed at unlocking their mechanisms, due to their low cellular abundance and high heterogeneity. Recombinant overproduction can resolve this bottleneck and baculovirus expression vector systems (BEVS) have emerged as particularly powerful tools for the provision of eukaryotic multiprotein complexes in high quality and quantity. Recently, synthetic biology approaches have begun to make their mark in improving existing BEVS reagents by de novo design of streamlined transfer plasmids and by engineering the baculovirus genome. Here we present OmniBac, comprising new custom designed reagents that further facilitate the integration of heterologous genes into the baculovirus genome for multiprotein expression. Based on comparative genome analysis and data mining, we herein present a blueprint to custom design and engineer the entire baculovirus genome for optimized production properties using a bottom-up synthetic biology approach. PMID:23328086
Mammen Biju; Ramakrishnan T; Sudhakar Uma; Vijayalakshmi
Genes are specific sequences of bases that encode instructions to make proteins. When genes are altered so that encoded proteins are unable to carry out their normal functions, genetic disorders can result. Gene therapy is designed to introduce genetic material into cells to compensate for abnormal genes or to make a beneficial protein. This article reviews the fundamentals in gene therapy and its various modes of administration with an insight into the role of gene therapy in Periodontics an...
Organization of immunoglobulin genes.
Tonegawa, S; Brack, C; Hozumi, N; Pirrotta, V
The nucleotide-sequence determination of a cloned, embryonic Vlambda gene directly demonstrated that V genes are separate from a corresponding C gene in embryonic cells. Analysis by restriction enzymes of total cellular DNA from various sources strongly suggested that the two separate immunoglobulin genes become continuous during differentiation of B lymphocytes. There seems to be a strict correlation between the joining event and activation of the joined genes. Cloning of more immunoglobulin genes from embryo and plasma cells will not only provide direct demonstration of such a gene-joining event but also help in the elucidation of a possible relationship of the event to gene activation mechanisms.
Imaging gene expression in gene therapy
International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
Full text. Gene therapy can be used to introduce new genes, or to supplement the function of indigenous genes. At the present time, however, there is non-invasive test to demonstrate efficacy of the gene transfer and expression processes. It has been postulated that scintigraphic imaging can offer unique information on both the site at which the transferred gene is expressed, and the degree of expression, both of which are critical issue for safety and clinical efficacy. Many current studies are based on 'suicide gene therapy' of cancer. Cells modified to express these genes commit metabolic suicide in the presence of an enzyme encoded by the transferred gene and a specifically-convertible pro drug. Pro drug metabolism can lead to selective metabolic trapping, required for scintigraphy. Herpes simplex virus type-1 thymidine kinase (H S V-1 t k+) has been use for 'suicide' in vivo tumor gene therapy. It has been proposed that radiolabelled nucleosides can be used as radiopharmaceuticals to detect H S V-1 t k+ gene expression where the H S V-1 t k+ gene serves a reporter or therapeutic function. Animal gene therapy models have been studied using purine-([18 F]F H P G; [18 F]-A C V), and pyrimidine- ([123/131 I]I V R F U; [124/131I]) antiviral nucleosides. Principles of gene therapy and gene therapy imaging will be reviewed and experimental data for [123/131I]I V R F U imaging with the H S V-1 t k+ reporter gene will be presented
Imaging gene expression in gene therapy
Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)
Wiebe, Leonard I. [Alberta Univ., Edmonton (Canada). Noujaim Institute for Pharmaceutical Oncology Research
Full text. Gene therapy can be used to introduce new genes, or to supplement the function of indigenous genes. At the present time, however, there is non-invasive test to demonstrate efficacy of the gene transfer and expression processes. It has been postulated that scintigraphic imaging can offer unique information on both the site at which the transferred gene is expressed, and the degree of expression, both of which are critical issue for safety and clinical efficacy. Many current studies are based on `suicide gene therapy` of cancer. Cells modified to express these genes commit metabolic suicide in the presence of an enzyme encoded by the transferred gene and a specifically-convertible pro drug. Pro drug metabolism can lead to selective metabolic trapping, required for scintigraphy. Herpes simplex virus type-1 thymidine kinase (H S V-1 t k{sup +}) has been use for `suicide` in vivo tumor gene therapy. It has been proposed that radiolabelled nucleosides can be used as radiopharmaceuticals to detect H S V-1 t k{sup +} gene expression where the H S V-1 t k{sup +} gene serves a reporter or therapeutic function. Animal gene therapy models have been studied using purine-([{sup 18} F]F H P G; [{sup 18} F]-A C V), and pyrimidine- ([{sup 123}/{sup 131} I]I V R F U; [{sup 124}/{sup 131I}]) antiviral nucleosides. Principles of gene therapy and gene therapy imaging will be reviewed and experimental data for [{sup 123}/{sup 131I}]I V R F U imaging with the H S V-1 t k{sup +} reporter gene will be presented
Identifying Gene Interaction Enrichment for Gene Expression Data
Jigang Zhang; Jian Li; Hong-Wen Deng
Gene set analysis allows the inclusion of knowledge from established gene sets, such as gene pathways, and potentially improves the power of detecting differentially expressed genes. However, conventional methods of gene set analysis focus on gene marginal effects in a gene set, and ignore gene interactions which may contribute to complex human diseases. In this study, we propose a method of gene interaction enrichment analysis, which incorporates knowledge of predefined gene sets (e.g. gene ...
National Institutes of Health, 2005
This document defines and discusses autism and how genes play a role in the condition. Answers to the following questions are covered: (1) What are genes? (2) What is autism? (3) What causes autism? (4) Why study genes to learn about autism? (5) How do researchers look for the genes involved in autism? (screen the whole genome; conduct cytogenetic…
Essential Bacillus subtilis genes
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Kobayashi, K.; Ehrlich, S.D.; Albertini, A.;
To estimate the minimal gene set required to sustain bacterial life in nutritious conditions, we carried out a systematic inactivation of Bacillus subtilis genes. Among approximate to4,100 genes of the organism, only 192 were shown to be indispensable by this or previous work. Another 79 genes we...
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Mammen Biju
Full Text Available Genes are specific sequences of bases that encode instructions to make proteins. When genes are altered so that encoded proteins are unable to carry out their normal functions, genetic disorders can result. Gene therapy is designed to introduce genetic material into cells to compensate for abnormal genes or to make a beneficial protein. This article reviews the fundamentals in gene therapy and its various modes of administration with an insight into the role of gene therapy in Periodontics and future percepts and the technical and ethical issues of using gene therapy.
Unal, Mehmet; Ozer Unal, Durisehvar
Gene or cell doping is defined by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) as "the non-therapeutic use of genes, genetic elements and/or cells that have the capacity to enhance athletic performance". New research in genetics and genomics will be used not only to diagnose and treat disease, but also to attempt to enhance human performance. In recent years, gene therapy has shown progress and positive results that have highlighted the potential misuse of this technology and the debate of 'gene doping'. Gene therapies developed for the treatment of diseases such as anaemia (the gene for erythropoietin), muscular dystrophy (the gene for insulin-like growth factor-1) and peripheral vascular diseases (the gene for vascular endothelial growth factor) are potential doping methods. With progress in gene technology, many other genes with this potential will be discovered. For this reason, it is important to develop timely legal regulations and to research the field of gene doping in order to develop methods of detection. To protect the health of athletes and to ensure equal competitive conditions, the International Olympic Committee, WADA and International Sports Federations have accepted performance-enhancing substances and methods as being doping, and have forbidden them. Nevertheless, the desire to win causes athletes to misuse these drugs and methods. This paper reviews the current status of gene doping and candidate performance enhancement genes, and also the use of gene therapy in sports medicine and ethics of genetic enhancement.
Anirban Chatterjee; Nidhi Singh; Mini Saluja
GENES are made of DNA - the code of life. They are made up of two types of base pair from different number of hydrogen bonds AT, GC which can be turned into instruction. Everyone inherits genes from their parents and passes them on in turn to their children. Every person′s genes are different, and the changes in sequence determine the inherited differences between each of us. Some changes, usually in a single gene, may cause serious diseases. Gene therapy is ′the use of genes as medicine′. It...
Human Gene Therapy: Genes without Frontiers?
Simon, Eric J.
Describes the latest advancements and setbacks in human gene therapy to provide reference material for biology teachers to use in their science classes. Focuses on basic concepts such as recombinant DNA technology, and provides examples of human gene therapy such as severe combined immunodeficiency syndrome, familial hypercholesterolemia, and…
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Sjoerd eHolwerda
Full Text Available Technological developments and intense research over the last years have led to a better understanding of the three-dimensional structure of the genome and its influence on genome function inside the cell nucleus. We will summarize topological studies performed on four model gene loci: the α- and β-globin gene loci, the antigen receptor loci, the imprinted H19-Igf2 locus and the Hox gene clusters. Collectively, these studies show that regulatory DNA sequences physically contact genes to control their transcription. Proteins set up the three-dimensional configuration of the genome and we will discuss the roles of the key structural organizers CTCF and cohesin, the nuclear lamina and the transcription machinery. Finally, genes adopt non-random positions in the nuclear interior. We will review studies on gene positioning and propose that cell-specific genome conformations can juxtapose a regulatory sequence on one chromosome to a responsive gene on another chromosome to cause altered gene expression in subpopulations of cells.
Lustig, Lawrence R.; Akil, Omar
The purpose of this review is to highlight recent advances in cochlear gene therapy over the past several years. Cochlear gene therapy has undergone tremendous advances over the past decade. Beginning with some groundbreaking work in 2005 documenting hair cell regeneration using virallymediated delivery of the mouse atonal 1 gene, gene therapy is now being explored as a possible treatment for a variety of causes of hearing loss.
Discovering genes underlying QTL
Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)
Vanavichit, Apichart [Kasetsart University, Kamphaengsaen, Nakorn Pathom (Thailand)
A map-based approach has allowed scientists to discover few genes at a time. In addition, the reproductive barrier between cultivated rice and wild relatives has prevented us from utilizing the germ plasm by a map-based approach. Most genetic traits important to agriculture or human diseases are manifested as observable, quantitative phenotypes called Quantitative Trait Loci (QTL). In many instances, the complexity of the phenotype/genotype interaction and the general lack of clearly identifiable gene products render the direct molecular cloning approach ineffective, thus additional strategies like genome mapping are required to identify the QTL in question. Genome mapping requires no prior knowledge of the gene function, but utilizes statistical methods to identify the most likely gene location. To completely characterize genes of interest, the initially mapped region of a gene location will have to be narrowed down to a size that is suitable for cloning and sequencing. Strategies for gene identification within the critical region have to be applied after the sequencing of a potentially large clone or set of clones that contains this gene(s). Tremendous success of positional cloning has been shown for cloning many genes responsible for human diseases, including cystic fibrosis and muscular dystrophy as well as plant disease resistance genes. Genome and QTL mapping, positional cloning: the pre-genomics era, comparative approaches to gene identification, and positional cloning: the genomics era are discussed in the report. (M. Suetake)
Discovering genes underlying QTL
International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
A map-based approach has allowed scientists to discover few genes at a time. In addition, the reproductive barrier between cultivated rice and wild relatives has prevented us from utilizing the germ plasm by a map-based approach. Most genetic traits important to agriculture or human diseases are manifested as observable, quantitative phenotypes called Quantitative Trait Loci (QTL). In many instances, the complexity of the phenotype/genotype interaction and the general lack of clearly identifiable gene products render the direct molecular cloning approach ineffective, thus additional strategies like genome mapping are required to identify the QTL in question. Genome mapping requires no prior knowledge of the gene function, but utilizes statistical methods to identify the most likely gene location. To completely characterize genes of interest, the initially mapped region of a gene location will have to be narrowed down to a size that is suitable for cloning and sequencing. Strategies for gene identification within the critical region have to be applied after the sequencing of a potentially large clone or set of clones that contains this gene(s). Tremendous success of positional cloning has been shown for cloning many genes responsible for human diseases, including cystic fibrosis and muscular dystrophy as well as plant disease resistance genes. Genome and QTL mapping, positional cloning: the pre-genomics era, comparative approaches to gene identification, and positional cloning: the genomics era are discussed in the report. (M. Suetake)
Haworth, Claire M. A.; Meaburn, Emma L.; Harlaar, Nicole; Plomin, Robert
Twin-study research suggests that many (but not all) of the same genes contribute to genetic influence on diverse learning abilities and disabilities, a hypothesis called "generalist genes". This generalist genes hypothesis was tested using a set of 10 DNA markers (single nucleotide polymorphisms [SNPs]) found to be associated with early reading…
A Pilot Study of Gene/Gene and Gene/Environment Interactions in Alzheimer Disease
Ghebranious, Nader; Mukesh, Bickol; Giampietro, Philip F.; Glurich, Ingrid; Mickel, Susan F.; Waring, Stephen C.; Catherine A McCarty
Background: Although some genes associated with increased risk of Alzheimer Disease (AD) have been identified, few data exist related to gene/gene and gene/environment risk of AD. The purpose of this pilot study was to explore gene/gene and gene/environment associations in AD and to obtain data for sample size estimates for larger, more definitive studies of AD.
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Sudip Indu
Full Text Available Gene therapy "the use of genes as medicine" involves the transfer of a therapeutic or working copy of a gene into specific cells of an individual in order to repair a faulty gene copy. The technique may be used to replace a faulty gene, or to introduce a new gene whose function is to cure or to favorably modify the clinical course of a condition. The objective of gene therapy is to introduce new genetic material into target cells while causing no damage to the surrounding healthy cells and tissues, hence the treatment related morbidity is decreased. The delivery system includes a vector that delivers a therapeutic gene into the patient′s target cell. Functional proteins are created from the therapeutic gene causing the cell to return to a normal stage. The vectors used in gene therapy can be viral and non-viral. Gene therapy, an emerging field of biomedicine, is still at infancy and much research remains to be done before this approach to the treatment of condition will realize its full potential.
Modelling prokaryote gene content
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Edward Susko
Full Text Available The patchy distribution of genes across the prokaryotes may be caused by multiple gene losses or lateral transfer. Probabilistic models of gene gain and loss are needed to distinguish between these possibilities. Existing models allow only single genes to be gained and lost, despite the empirical evidence for multi-gene events. We compare birth-death models (currently the only widely-used models, in which only one gene can be gained or lost at a time to blocks models (allowing gain and loss of multiple genes within a family. We analyze two pairs of genomes: two E. coli strains, and the distantly-related Archaeoglobus fulgidus (archaea and Bacillus subtilis (gram positive bacteria. Blocks models describe the data much better than birth-death models. Our models suggest that lateral transfers of multiple genes from the same family are rare (although transfers of single genes are probably common. For both pairs, the estimated median time that a gene will remain in the genome is not much greater than the time separating the common ancestors of the archaea and bacteria. Deep phylogenetic reconstruction from sequence data will therefore depend on choosing genes likely to remain in the genome for a long time. Phylogenies based on the blocks model are more biologically plausible than phylogenies based on the birth-death model.
Gene conversion in human rearranged immunoglobulin genes.
Darlow, John M; Stott, David I
Over the past 20 years, many DNA sequences have been published suggesting that all or part of the V(H) segment of a rearranged immunoglobulin gene may be replaced in vivo. Two different mechanisms appear to be operating. One of these is very similar to primary V(D)J recombination, involving the RAG proteins acting upon recombination signal sequences, and this has recently been proven to occur. Other sequences, many of which show partial V(H) replacements with no addition of untemplated nucleotides at the V(H)-V(H) joint, have been proposed to occur by an unusual RAG-mediated recombination with the formation of hybrid (coding-to-signal) joints. These appear to occur in cells already undergoing somatic hypermutation in which, some authors are convinced, RAG genes are silenced. We recently proposed that the latter type of V(H) replacement might occur by homologous recombination initiated by the activity of AID (activation-induced cytidine deaminase), which is essential for somatic hypermutation and gene conversion. The latter has been observed in other species, but not in human Ig genes, so far. In this paper, we present a new analysis of sequences published as examples of the second type of rearrangement. This not only shows that AID recognition motifs occur in recombination regions but also that some sequences show replacement of central sections by a sequence from another gene, similar to gene conversion in the immunoglobulin genes of other species. These observations support the proposal that this type of rearrangement is likely to be AID-mediated rather than RAG-mediated and is consistent with gene conversion.
Evaluating gene × gene and gene × smoking interaction in rheumatoid arthritis using candidate genes in GAW15
Mei Ling; Li Xiaohui; Yang Kai; Cui Jinrui; Fang Belle; Guo Xiuqing; Rotter Jerome I
Abstract We examined the potential gene × gene interactions and gene × smoking interactions in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) using the candidate gene data sets provided by Genetic Analysis Workshop 15 Problem 2. The multifactor dimensionality reduction (MDR) method was used to test gene × gene interactions among candidate genes. The case-only sample was used to test gene × smoking interactions. The best predictive model was the single-locus model with single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs247660...
Delivery Systems in Gene Therapy
Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)
Liu Hu; Anas El-Aneed; Cui Guohui
1 Gene therapy Gene therapy includes the treatment of both genetically based and infectious diseases by introducing genetic materials which have therapeutic effects[1~3]. In its simplest terms, a wild type gene (which is non-functional in the cell leading to disease development) is introduced into the somatic cell lacking this gene to restore the normal gene function in this cell. Many gene therapy strategies, however, utilize genes to destroy specific cells.
Gene Conversion and Evolution of Gene Families: An Overview
Tomoko Ohta
The importance of gene conversion for the evolution of gene families is reviewed. Four problems concerning gene conversion, i.e., concerted evolution, generation of useful variation, deleterious effects, and relation to neofunctionalization, are discussed by surveying reported examples of evolving gene families. Emphasis is given toward understanding interactive effects of gene conversion and natural selection.
Gene promoters dictate histone occupancy within genes.
Perales, Roberto; Erickson, Benjamin; Zhang, Lian; Kim, Hyunmin; Valiquett, Elan; Bentley, David
Spt6 is a transcriptional elongation factor and histone chaperone that reassembles transcribed chromatin. Genome-wide H3 mapping showed that Spt6 preferentially maintains nucleosomes within the first 500 bases of genes and helps define nucleosome-depleted regions in 5' and 3' flanking sequences. In Spt6-depleted cells, H3 loss at 5' ends correlates with reduced pol II density suggesting enhanced transcription elongation. Consistent with its 'Suppressor of Ty' (Spt) phenotype, Spt6 inactivation caused localized H3 eviction over 1-2 nucleosomes at 5' ends of Ty elements. H3 displacement differed between genes driven by promoters with 'open'/DPN and 'closed'/OPN chromatin conformations with similar pol II densities. More eviction occurred on genes with 'closed' promoters, associated with 'noisy' transcription. Moreover, swapping of 'open' and 'closed' promoters showed that they can specify distinct downstream patterns of histone eviction/deposition. These observations suggest a novel function for promoters in dictating histone dynamics within genes possibly through effects on transcriptional bursting or elongation rate.
Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)
The nuclear lamina is an important nuclear structure. The studies on its peptides lamins and genes have made substantial progress in recent years. In this paper, the new achievements in studies of new lamin members and their functions, lamin genes and their origin and differentiation, are reviewed and discussed. Some research areas that deserve to be investigated further are put forward.
Table of Contents Your Genes, Your Choices describes the Human Genome Project, the science behind it, and the ethical, legal, and social issues that are ... Nothing could be further from the truth. Your Genes, Your Choices points out how the progress of ...
The GeneMANIA prediction server: biological network integration for gene prioritization and predicting gene function
Warde-Farley, David; Sylva L. Donaldson; Comes, Ovi; Zuberi, Khalid; Badrawi, Rashad; Chao, Pauline; Franz, Max; Grouios, Chris; Kazi, Farzana; Lopes, Christian Tannus; Maitland, Anson; Mostafavi, Sara; Montojo, Jason; Shao, Quentin; Wright, George
GeneMANIA (http://www.genemania.org) is a flexible, user-friendly web interface for generating hypotheses about gene function, analyzing gene lists and prioritizing genes for functional assays. Given a query list, GeneMANIA extends the list with functionally similar genes that it identifies using available genomics and proteomics data. GeneMANIA also reports weights that indicate the predictive value of each selected data set for the query. Six organisms are currently supported (Arabidopsis t...
Adenovirus Vectors for Gene Therapy, Vaccination and Cancer Gene Therapy
Wold, William S.M.; Toth, Karoly
Adenovirus vectors are the most commonly employed vector for cancer gene therapy. They are also used for gene therapy and as vaccines to express foreign antigens. Adenovirus vectors can be replication-defective; certain essential viral genes are deleted and replaced by a cassette that expresses a foreign therapeutic gene. Such vectors are used for gene therapy, as vaccines, and for cancer therapy. Replication-competent (oncolytic) vectors are employed for cancer gene therapy. Oncolytic vector...
[Is gene technology immoral?].
Halter, H
Since it came into being in the USA in the early 1970s, gene technology has always been fundamentally controversial, especially in the German-speaking countries. The optimistic--or critical--supporters of gene technology are convinced that, in view of gene technology's not otherwise attainable advantages for human and animal health, for food production and other important aims, it would be ethically unacceptable to restrict to the minimum or even ban it. On the other hand, the radical critics are convinced that gene technology, in view of its anthropologically false starting-point, the questionable interests behind it, and above all its unforeseeable, serious negative implications for mankind and environment, is unacceptable on ethical grounds. Critical reflexion on these polarized arguments must start from the question why precisely gene technology is so controversial, and what are the criteria for ethical assessment. These reflexions presuppose that the prior judgement of gene technology as a technology in the ideological field is rooted in life attitudes, history and nature in general, and this is true not only of gene technology's opponents but also its supporters. It is thus a question of one ideology vs. another. Chief importance here attaches to the mankind-nature relationship and the need to take seriously the fundamental ambivalence of all (!) human action with unforeseeable consequences. The conclusion is that neither to demonize nor to glorify gene technology, as a matter of principle, does justice to its wide and varied positive or negative potential. The ethical assessment of gene technology must be differentiated according to the aims and possible implications.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS) PMID:7939540
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Nielsen, Troels T; Nielsen, Jørgen E
Since the first reports that double-stranded RNAs can efficiently silence gene expression in C. elegans, the technology of RNA interference (RNAi) has been intensively exploited as an experimental tool to study gene function. With the subsequent discovery that RNAi could also be applied...... to mammalian cells, the technology of RNAi expanded from being a valuable experimental tool to being an applicable method for gene-specific therapeutic regulation, and much effort has been put into further refinement of the technique. This review will focus on how RNAi has developed over the years and how...
Gene Therapy of Cancerous Diseases
Valenčáková, A.; Dziaková, A.; Hatalová, E.
Gene therapy of cancerous diseases provides new means of curing patients with oncologic illnesses. There are several approaches in treating cancer by gene therapy. Most commonly used methods are: cancer immunogene therapy, suicide gene therapy, application of tumor-suppressor genes, antiangiogenic therapy, mesenchymal stem cells used as vectors, gene directed enzyme/prodrug therapy and bacteria used as anti-cancer agents. Cancer gene immunotherapy uses several immunologic agents for the purp...
... Quizzes Kids' Dictionary of Medical Words En Español What Other Kids Are Reading Back-to-School Butterflies? ... Got Homework? Here's Help White House Lunch Recipes What Is a Gene? KidsHealth > For Kids > What Is ...
U.S. Department of Health & Human Services — Gene Expression Omnibus is a public functional genomics data repository supporting MIAME-compliant submissions of array- and sequence-based data. Tools are provided...
Evidence for homosexuality gene
Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)
Pool, R.
A genetic analysis of 40 pairs of homosexual brothers has uncovered a region on the X chromosome that appears to contain a gene or genes for homosexuality. When analyzing the pedigrees of homosexual males, the researcheres found evidence that the trait has a higher likelihood of being passed through maternal genes. This led them to search the X chromosome for genes predisposing to homosexuality. The researchers examined the X chromosomes of pairs of homosexual brothers for regions of DNA that most or all had in common. Of the 40 sets of brothers, 33 shared a set of five markers in the q28 region of the long arm of the X chromosome. The linkage has a LOD score of 4.0, which translates into a 99.5% certainty that there is a gene or genes in this area that predispose males to homosexuality. The chief researcher warns, however, that this one site cannot explain all instances of homosexuality, since there were some cases where the trait seemed to be passed paternally. And even among those brothers where there was no evidence that the trait was passed paternally, seven sets of brothers did not share the Xq28 markers. It seems likely that homosexuality arises from a variety of causes.
Gene-gene, gene-environment, gene-nutrient interactionsand single nucleotide polymorphisms of inflammatorycytokines
Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)
Inflammation plays a significant role in the etiologyof type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). The rise in thepro-inflammatory cytokines is the essential step inglucotoxicity and lipotoxicity induced mitochondrialinjury, oxidative stress and beta cell apoptosis inT2DM. Among the recognized markers are interleukin(IL)-6, IL-1, IL-10, IL-18, tissue necrosis factor-alpha(TNF-α), C-reactive protein, resistin, adiponectin, tissueplasminogen activator, fibrinogen and heptoglobins.Diabetes mellitus has firm genetic and very strongenvironmental influence; exhibiting a polygenic modeof inheritance. Many single nucleotide polymorphisms(SNPs) in various genes including those of pro and antiinflammatorycytokines have been reported as a riskfor T2DM. Not all the SNPs have been confirmed byunifying results in different studies and wide variationshave been reported in various ethnic groups. Theinter-ethnic variations can be explained by the factthat gene expression may be regulated by gene-gene,gene-environment and gene-nutrient interactions. Thisreview highlights the impact of these interactions ondetermining the role of single nucleotide polymorphismof IL-6, TNF-α, resistin and adiponectin in pathogenesisof T2DM.
The Mycoplasma hominis vaa gene displays a mosaic gene structure
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Boesen, Thomas; Emmersen, Jeppe M. G.; Jensen, Lise T.;
Mycoplasma hominis contains a variable adherence-associated (vaa) gene. To classify variants of the vaa genes, we examined 42 M. hominis isolated by PCR, DNA sequencing and immunoblotting. This uncovered the existence of five gene categories. Comparison of the gene types revealed a modular...
Hox genes and study of Hox genes in crustacean
Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)
HOU Lin; CHEN Zhijuan; XU Mingyu; LIN Shengguo; WANG Lu
Homeobox genes have been discovered in many species. These genes are known to play a major role in specifying regional identity along the anterior-posterior axis of animals from a wide range of phyla.The products of the homeotic genes are a set of evolutionarily conserved transcription factors that control elaborate developmental processes and specify cell fates in metazoans. Crustacean, presenting a variety of body plans not encountered in any other class or phylum of the Metazoa, has been shown to possess a single set of homologous Hox genes like insect. The ancestral crustacean Hox gene complex comprised ten genes: eight homologous to the hometic Hox genes and two related to nonhomeotic genes presented within the insect Hox complexes. The crustacean in particular exhibits an abundant diversity segment specialization and tagmosis. This morphological diversity relates to the Hox genes. In crustacean body plan, different Hox genes control different segments and tagmosis.
GeneCards Version 3: the human gene integrator.
Safran, Marilyn; Dalah, Irina; Alexander, Justin; Rosen, Naomi; Iny Stein, Tsippi; Shmoish, Michael; Nativ, Noam; Bahir, Iris; Doniger, Tirza; Krug, Hagit; Sirota-Madi, Alexandra; Olender, Tsviya; Golan, Yaron; Stelzer, Gil; Harel, Arye; Lancet, Doron
GeneCards (www.genecards.org) is a comprehensive, authoritative compendium of annotative information about human genes, widely used for nearly 15 years. Its gene-centric content is automatically mined and integrated from over 80 digital sources, resulting in a web-based deep-linked card for each of >73,000 human gene entries, encompassing the following categories: protein coding, pseudogene, RNA gene, genetic locus, cluster and uncategorized. We now introduce GeneCards Version 3, featuring a speedy and sophisticated search engine and a revamped, technologically enabling infrastructure, catering to the expanding needs of biomedical researchers. A key focus is on gene-set analyses, which leverage GeneCards' unique wealth of combinatorial annotations. These include the GeneALaCart batch query facility, which tabulates user-selected annotations for multiple genes and GeneDecks, which identifies similar genes with shared annotations, and finds set-shared annotations by descriptor enrichment analysis. Such set-centric features address a host of applications, including microarray data analysis, cross-database annotation mapping and gene-disorder associations for drug targeting. We highlight the new Version 3 database architecture, its multi-faceted search engine, and its semi-automated quality assurance system. Data enhancements include an expanded visualization of gene expression patterns in normal and cancer tissues, an integrated alternative splicing pattern display, and augmented multi-source SNPs and pathways sections. GeneCards now provides direct links to gene-related research reagents such as antibodies, recombinant proteins, DNA clones and inhibitory RNAs and features gene-related drugs and compounds lists. We also portray the GeneCards Inferred Functionality Score annotation landscape tool for scoring a gene's functional information status. Finally, we delineate examples of applications and collaborations that have benefited from the GeneCards suite. Database
GeneCards Version 3: the human gene integrator.
Safran, Marilyn; Dalah, Irina; Alexander, Justin; Rosen, Naomi; Iny Stein, Tsippi; Shmoish, Michael; Nativ, Noam; Bahir, Iris; Doniger, Tirza; Krug, Hagit; Sirota-Madi, Alexandra; Olender, Tsviya; Golan, Yaron; Stelzer, Gil; Harel, Arye; Lancet, Doron
GeneCards (www.genecards.org) is a comprehensive, authoritative compendium of annotative information about human genes, widely used for nearly 15 years. Its gene-centric content is automatically mined and integrated from over 80 digital sources, resulting in a web-based deep-linked card for each of >73,000 human gene entries, encompassing the following categories: protein coding, pseudogene, RNA gene, genetic locus, cluster and uncategorized. We now introduce GeneCards Version 3, featuring a speedy and sophisticated search engine and a revamped, technologically enabling infrastructure, catering to the expanding needs of biomedical researchers. A key focus is on gene-set analyses, which leverage GeneCards' unique wealth of combinatorial annotations. These include the GeneALaCart batch query facility, which tabulates user-selected annotations for multiple genes and GeneDecks, which identifies similar genes with shared annotations, and finds set-shared annotations by descriptor enrichment analysis. Such set-centric features address a host of applications, including microarray data analysis, cross-database annotation mapping and gene-disorder associations for drug targeting. We highlight the new Version 3 database architecture, its multi-faceted search engine, and its semi-automated quality assurance system. Data enhancements include an expanded visualization of gene expression patterns in normal and cancer tissues, an integrated alternative splicing pattern display, and augmented multi-source SNPs and pathways sections. GeneCards now provides direct links to gene-related research reagents such as antibodies, recombinant proteins, DNA clones and inhibitory RNAs and features gene-related drugs and compounds lists. We also portray the GeneCards Inferred Functionality Score annotation landscape tool for scoring a gene's functional information status. Finally, we delineate examples of applications and collaborations that have benefited from the GeneCards suite. Database
Gene therapy for brain tumors.
Bansal, K; Engelhard, H H
"Gene therapy" can be defined as the transfer of genetic material into a patient's cells for therapeutic purposes. To date, a diverse and creative assortment of treatment strategies utilizing gene therapy have been devised, including gene transfer for modulating the immune system, enzyme prodrug ("suicide gene") therapy, oncolytic therapy, replacement/therapeutic gene transfer, and antisense therapy. For malignant glioma, gene-directed prodrug therapy using the herpes simplex virus thymidine kinase gene was the first gene therapy attempted clinically. A variety of different strategies have now been pursued experimentally and in clinical trials. Although, to date, gene therapy for brain tumors has been found to be reasonably safe, concerns still exist regarding issues related to viral delivery, transduction efficiency, potential pathologic response of the brain, and treatment efficacy. Improved viral vectors are being sought, and potential use of gene therapy in combination with other treatments is being investigated.
Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)
The intron is an important component of eukaryotic gene. Extensive studies have been conducted to get a better understanding of its structure and function. This paper presents a brief review of the structure and function of introns in higher plant genes. It is shown that higher plant introns possess structural properties shared by all eukaryotic introns, however, they also exhibit a striking degree of diversity. The process of intron splicing in higher plant genes involves interaction between multiple cis-acting elements and trans-acting factors, such as 5′ splicing site, 3′ splicing site and many protein factors. The process of intron splicing is an important level at which gene expression is regulated. Especially alternative splicing of intron can regulate time and space of gene expression. In addition, some introns in higher plant genes also regulate gene expression by affecting the pattern of gene expression, enhancing the level of gene expression and driving the gene expression.
Radionuclide reporter gene imaging for cardiac gene therapy
Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)
Inubushi, Masayuki [Hokkaido University Graduate School of Medicine, Department of Molecular Imaging, Sapporo (Japan); Tamaki, Nagara [Hokkaido University Graduate School of Medicine, Department of Nuclear Medicine, Sapporo (Japan)
In the field of cardiac gene therapy, angiogenic gene therapy has been most extensively investigated. The first clinical trial of cardiac angiogenic gene therapy was reported in 1998, and at the peak, more than 20 clinical trial protocols were under evaluation. However, most trials have ceased owing to the lack of decisive proof of therapeutic effects and the potential risks of viral vectors. In order to further advance cardiac angiogenic gene therapy, remaining open issues need to be resolved: there needs to be improvement of gene transfer methods, regulation of gene expression, development of much safer vectors and optimisation of therapeutic genes. For these purposes, imaging of gene expression in living organisms is of great importance. In radionuclide reporter gene imaging, ''reporter genes'' transferred into cell nuclei encode for a protein that retains a complementary ''reporter probe'' of a positron or single-photon emitter; thus expression of the reporter genes can be imaged with positron emission tomography or single-photon emission computed tomography. Accordingly, in the setting of gene therapy, the location, magnitude and duration of the therapeutic gene co-expression with the reporter genes can be monitored non-invasively. In the near future, gene therapy may evolve into combination therapy with stem/progenitor cell transplantation, so-called cell-based gene therapy or gene-modified cell therapy. Radionuclide reporter gene imaging is now expected to contribute in providing evidence on the usefulness of this novel therapeutic approach, as well as in investigating the molecular mechanisms underlying neovascularisation and safety issues relevant to further progress in conventional gene therapy. (orig.)
A review on microcephaly genes
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Irshad S.
Full Text Available This review aims to summarize the recent findings regarding microcephaly genes. We have discussed the molecular genetics studies of microcephaly genes including a comprehensive appraisal of the seven mapped loci (MCPH1–MCPH7, their corresponding genes and protein products of the genes, their likely role in normal brain development and the details of the mutations reported in these genes.
Gene therapy: progress and predictions
Collins, Mary; Thrasher, Adrian
The first clinical gene delivery, which involved insertion of a marker gene into lymphocytes from cancer patients, was published 25 years ago. In this review, we describe progress since then in gene therapy. Patients with some inherited single-gene defects can now be treated with their own bone marrow stem cells that have been engineered with a viral vector carrying the missing gene. Patients with inherited retinopathies and haemophilia B can also be treated by local or systemic injection of ...
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
M. W. J. van Passel
Full Text Available The gene-dense chromosomes of archaea and bacteria were long thought to be devoid of pseudogenes, but with the massive increase in available genome sequences, whole genome comparisons between closely related species have identified mutations that have rendered numerous genes inactive. Comparative analyses of sequenced archaeal genomes revealed numerous pseudogenes, which can constitute up to 8.6% of the annotated coding sequences in some genomes. The largest proportion of pseudogenes is created by gene truncations, followed by frameshift mutations. Within archaeal genomes, large numbers of pseudogenes contain more than one inactivating mutation, suggesting that pseudogenes are deleted from the genome more slowly in archaea than in bacteria. Although archaea seem to retain pseudogenes longer than do bacteria, most archaeal genomes have unique repertoires of pseudogenes.
Correlating Expression Data with Gene Function Using Gene Ontology
Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)
LIU,Qi; DENG,Yong; WANG,Chuan; SHI,Tie-Liu; LI,Yi-Xue
Clustering is perhaps one of the most widely used tools for microarray data analysis. Proposed roles for genes of unknown function are inferred from clusters of genes similarity expressed across many biological conditions.However, whether function annotation by similarity metrics is reliable or not and to what extent the similarity in gene expression patterns is useful for annotation of gene functions, has not been evaluated. This paper made a comprehensive research on the correlation between the similarity of expression data and of gene functions using Gene Ontology. It has been found that although the similarity in expression patterns and the similarity in gene functions are significantly dependent on each other, this association is rather weak. In addition, among the three categories of Gene Ontology, the similarity of expression data is more useful for cellular component annotation than for biological process and molecular function. The results presented are interesting for the gene functions prediction research area.
Springer, Mark S; Gatesy, John
Higher-level relationships among placental mammals are mostly resolved, but several polytomies remain contentious. Song et al. (2012) claimed to have resolved three of these using shortcut coalescence methods (MP-EST, STAR) and further concluded that these methods, which assume no within-locus recombination, are required to unravel deep-level phylogenetic problems that have stymied concatenation. Here, we reanalyze Song et al.'s (2012) data and leverage these re-analyses to explore key issues in systematics including the recombination ratchet, gene tree stoichiometry, the proportion of gene tree incongruence that results from deep coalescence versus other factors, and simulations that compare the performance of coalescence and concatenation methods in species tree estimation. Song et al. (2012) reported an average locus length of 3.1 kb for the 447 protein-coding genes in their phylogenomic dataset, but the true mean length of these loci (start codon to stop codon) is 139.6 kb. Empirical estimates of recombination breakpoints in primates, coupled with consideration of the recombination ratchet, suggest that individual coalescence genes (c-genes) approach ∼12 bp or less for Song et al.'s (2012) dataset, three to four orders of magnitude shorter than the c-genes reported by these authors. This result has general implications for the application of coalescence methods in species tree estimation. We contend that it is illogical to apply coalescence methods to complete protein-coding sequences. Such analyses amalgamate c-genes with different evolutionary histories (i.e., exons separated by >100,000 bp), distort true gene tree stoichiometry that is required for accurate species tree inference, and contradict the central rationale for applying coalescence methods to difficult phylogenetic problems. In addition, Song et al.'s (2012) dataset of 447 genes includes 21 loci with switched taxonomic names, eight duplicated loci, 26 loci with non-homologous sequences that are
Springer, Mark S; Gatesy, John
Higher-level relationships among placental mammals are mostly resolved, but several polytomies remain contentious. Song et al. (2012) claimed to have resolved three of these using shortcut coalescence methods (MP-EST, STAR) and further concluded that these methods, which assume no within-locus recombination, are required to unravel deep-level phylogenetic problems that have stymied concatenation. Here, we reanalyze Song et al.'s (2012) data and leverage these re-analyses to explore key issues in systematics including the recombination ratchet, gene tree stoichiometry, the proportion of gene tree incongruence that results from deep coalescence versus other factors, and simulations that compare the performance of coalescence and concatenation methods in species tree estimation. Song et al. (2012) reported an average locus length of 3.1 kb for the 447 protein-coding genes in their phylogenomic dataset, but the true mean length of these loci (start codon to stop codon) is 139.6 kb. Empirical estimates of recombination breakpoints in primates, coupled with consideration of the recombination ratchet, suggest that individual coalescence genes (c-genes) approach ∼12 bp or less for Song et al.'s (2012) dataset, three to four orders of magnitude shorter than the c-genes reported by these authors. This result has general implications for the application of coalescence methods in species tree estimation. We contend that it is illogical to apply coalescence methods to complete protein-coding sequences. Such analyses amalgamate c-genes with different evolutionary histories (i.e., exons separated by >100,000 bp), distort true gene tree stoichiometry that is required for accurate species tree inference, and contradict the central rationale for applying coalescence methods to difficult phylogenetic problems. In addition, Song et al.'s (2012) dataset of 447 genes includes 21 loci with switched taxonomic names, eight duplicated loci, 26 loci with non-homologous sequences that are
Vertebrate gene predictions and the problem of large genes
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Wang, Jun; Li, ShengTing; Zhang, Yong;
To find unknown protein-coding genes, annotation pipelines use a combination of ab initio gene prediction and similarity to experimentally confirmed genes or proteins. Here, we show that although the ab initio predictions have an intrinsically high false-positive rate, they also have a consistently...... low false-negative rate. The incorporation of similarity information is meant to reduce the false-positive rate, but in doing so it increases the false-negative rate. The crucial variable is gene size (including introns)--genes of the most extreme sizes, especially very large genes, are most likely to...
Suicide genes or p53 gene and p53 target genes as targets for cancer gene therapy by ionizing radiation
International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
Radiotherapy has some disadvantages due to the severe side-effect on the normal tissues at a curative dose of ionizing radiation (IR). Similarly, as a new developing approach, gene therapy also has some disadvantages, such as lack of specificity for tumors, limited expression of therapeutic gene, potential biological risk. To certain extent, above problems would be solved by the suicide genes or p53 gene and its target genes therapies targeted by ionizing radiation. This strategy not only makes up the disadvantage from radiotherapy or gene therapy alone, but also promotes success rate on the base of lower dose. By present, there have been several vectors measuring up to be reaching clinical trials. This review focused on the development of the cancer gene therapy through suicide genes or p53 and its target genes mediated by IR. (authors)
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Vilmos Soós
Full Text Available Smoke can break dormancy and promote seed germination of many plant species. We investigated changes in the gene expression changes after imbibition of light-sensitive Lactuca sativa L. cv. Grand Rapids achenes with dilute smoke water compared to water control samples kept in dark or continuous light. Although no difference was detected in the smoke water vs. water control samples germinated in light, smoke water treatment resulted in the differential display of several expressed sequence tags (ESTs when compared to water control samples kept in dark. The most pronounced fragments isolated correspond to known genes with functions related to cell wall expansion, abscisic acid regulation, regulation of translation, the cell division cycle, carbohydrate metabolism and desiccation tolerance. These data clearly indicate that the smoke water, which stimulates germination of light-sensitive Grand Rapids lettuce seeds in the dark, rapidly affects genes that are essential for cell division, cell wall expansion and mobilization and utilization of nutrients for the resumption of embryo growth. Although the master genes remained unknown, our hope is that the using of maize microarray will reveal the whole molecular background of smoke action.
Ultrasound mediated gene transfection
Williamson, Rene G.; Apfel, Robert E.; Brandsma, Janet L.
Gene therapy is a promising modality for the treatment of a variety of human diseases both inherited and acquired, such as cystic fibrosis and cancer. The lack of an effective, safe method for the delivery of foreign genes into the cells, a process known as transfection, limits this effort. Ultrasound mediated gene transfection is an attractive method for gene delivery since it is a noninvasive technique, does not introduce any viral particles into the host and can offer very good temporal and spatial control. Previous investigators have shown that sonication increases transfection efficiency with and without ultrasound contrast agents. The mechanism is believed to be via a cavitation process where collapsing bubble nuclei permeabilize the cell membrane leading to increased DNA transfer. The research is focused on the use of pulsed wave high frequency focused ultrasound to transfect DNA into mammalian cells in vitro and in vivo. A better understanding of the mechanism behind the transfection process is also sought. A summary of some in vitro results to date will be presented, which includes the design of a sonication chamber that allows us to model the in vivo case more accurately.
Old genes experience stronger translational selection than young genes.
Yin, Hongyan; Ma, Lina; Wang, Guangyu; Li, Mengwei; Zhang, Zhang
Selection on synonymous codon usage for translation efficiency and/or accuracy has been identified as a widespread mechanism in many living organisms. However, it remains unknown whether translational selection associates closely with gene age and acts differentially on genes with different evolutionary ages. To address this issue, here we investigate the strength of translational selection acting on different aged genes in human. Our results show that old genes present stronger translational selection than young genes, demonstrating that translational selection correlates positively with gene age. We further explore the difference of translational selection in duplicates vs. singletons and in housekeeping vs. tissue-specific genes. We find that translational selection acts comparably in old singletons and old duplicates and stronger translational selection in old genes is contributed primarily by housekeeping genes. For young genes, contrastingly, singletons experience stronger translational selection than duplicates, presumably due to redundant function of duplicated genes during their early evolutionary stage. Taken together, our results indicate that translational selection acting on a gene would not be constant during all stages of evolution, associating closely with gene age. PMID:27259662
Genes2FANs: connecting genes through functional association networks
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Dannenfelser Ruth
Full Text Available Abstract Background Protein-protein, cell signaling, metabolic, and transcriptional interaction networks are useful for identifying connections between lists of experimentally identified genes/proteins. However, besides physical or co-expression interactions there are many ways in which pairs of genes, or their protein products, can be associated. By systematically incorporating knowledge on shared properties of genes from diverse sources to build functional association networks (FANs, researchers may be able to identify additional functional interactions between groups of genes that are not readily apparent. Results Genes2FANs is a web based tool and a database that utilizes 14 carefully constructed FANs and a large-scale protein-protein interaction (PPI network to build subnetworks that connect lists of human and mouse genes. The FANs are created from mammalian gene set libraries where mouse genes are converted to their human orthologs. The tool takes as input a list of human or mouse Entrez gene symbols to produce a subnetwork and a ranked list of intermediate genes that are used to connect the query input list. In addition, users can enter any PubMed search term and then the system automatically converts the returned results to gene lists using GeneRIF. This gene list is then used as input to generate a subnetwork from the user's PubMed query. As a case study, we applied Genes2FANs to connect disease genes from 90 well-studied disorders. We find an inverse correlation between the counts of links connecting disease genes through PPI and links connecting diseases genes through FANs, separating diseases into two categories. Conclusions Genes2FANs is a useful tool for interpreting the relationships between gene/protein lists in the context of their various functions and networks. Combining functional association interactions with physical PPIs can be useful for revealing new biology and help form hypotheses for further experimentation. Our
Industrial scale gene synthesis.
Notka, Frank; Liss, Michael; Wagner, Ralf
The most recent developments in the area of deep DNA sequencing and downstream quantitative and functional analysis are rapidly adding a new dimension to understanding biochemical pathways and metabolic interdependencies. These increasing insights pave the way to designing new strategies that address public needs, including environmental applications and therapeutic inventions, or novel cell factories for sustainable and reconcilable energy or chemicals sources. Adding yet another level is building upon nonnaturally occurring networks and pathways. Recent developments in synthetic biology have created economic and reliable options for designing and synthesizing genes, operons, and eventually complete genomes. Meanwhile, high-throughput design and synthesis of extremely comprehensive DNA sequences have evolved into an enabling technology already indispensable in various life science sectors today. Here, we describe the industrial perspective of modern gene synthesis and its relationship with synthetic biology. Gene synthesis contributed significantly to the emergence of synthetic biology by not only providing the genetic material in high quality and quantity but also enabling its assembly, according to engineering design principles, in a standardized format. Synthetic biology on the other hand, added the need for assembling complex circuits and large complexes, thus fostering the development of appropriate methods and expanding the scope of applications. Synthetic biology has also stimulated interdisciplinary collaboration as well as integration of the broader public by addressing socioeconomic, philosophical, ethical, political, and legal opportunities and concerns. The demand-driven technological achievements of gene synthesis and the implemented processes are exemplified by an industrial setting of large-scale gene synthesis, describing production from order to delivery.
Genes contributing to prion pathogenesis
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Tamgüney, Gültekin; Giles, Kurt; Glidden, David V;
incubation times, indicating that the conversion reaction may be influenced by other gene products. To identify genes that contribute to prion pathogenesis, we analysed incubation times of prions in mice in which the gene product was inactivated, knocked out or overexpressed. We tested 20 candidate genes...... show that many genes previously implicated in prion replication have no discernible effect on the pathogenesis of prion disease. While most genes tested did not significantly affect survival times, ablation of the amyloid beta (A4) precursor protein (App) or interleukin-1 receptor, type I (Il1r1...
Entrez Gene: gene-centered information at NCBI.
Maglott, Donna; Ostell, Jim; Pruitt, Kim D; Tatusova, Tatiana
Entrez Gene (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=gene) is NCBI's database for gene-specific information. Entrez Gene includes records from genomes that have been completely sequenced, that have an active research community to contribute gene-specific information or that are scheduled for intense sequence analysis. The content of Entrez Gene represents the result of both curation and automated integration of data from NCBI's Reference Sequence project (RefSeq), from collaborating model organism databases and from other databases within NCBI. Records in Entrez Gene are assigned unique, stable and tracked integers as identifiers. The content (nomenclature, map location, gene products and their attributes, markers, phenotypes and links to citations, sequences, variation details, maps, expression, homologs, protein domains and external databases) is provided via interactive browsing through NCBI's Entrez system, via NCBI's Entrez programing utilities (E-Utilities), and for bulk transfer by ftp. PMID:17148475
Tumor-specific gene expression patterns with gene expression profiles
Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)
RUAN Xiaogang; LI Yingxin; LI Jiangeng; GONG Daoxiong; WANG Jinlian
Gene expression profiles of 14 common tumors and their counterpart normal tissues were analyzed with machine learning methods to address the problem of selection of tumor-specific genes and analysis of their differential expressions in tumor tissues. First, a variation of the Relief algorithm, "RFE_Relief algorithm" was proposed to learn the relations between genes and tissue types. Then, a support vector machine was employed to find the gene subset with the best classification performance for distinguishing cancerous tissues and their counterparts. After tissue-specific genes were removed, cross validation experiments were employed to demonstrate the common deregulated expressions of the selected gene in tumor tissues. The results indicate the existence of a specific expression fingerprint of these genes that is shared in different tumor tissues, and the hallmarks of the expression patterns of these genes in cancerous tissues are summarized at the end of this paper.
Optimal Reference Genes for Gene Expression Normalization in Trichomonas vaginalis.
dos Santos, Odelta; de Vargas Rigo, Graziela; Frasson, Amanda Piccoli; Macedo, Alexandre José; Tasca, Tiana
Trichomonas vaginalis is the etiologic agent of trichomonosis, the most common non-viral sexually transmitted disease worldwide. This infection is associated with several health consequences, including cervical and prostate cancers and HIV acquisition. Gene expression analysis has been facilitated because of available genome sequences and large-scale transcriptomes in T. vaginalis, particularly using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR), one of the most used methods for molecular studies. Reference genes for normalization are crucial to ensure the accuracy of this method. However, to the best of our knowledge, a systematic validation of reference genes has not been performed for T. vaginalis. In this study, the transcripts of nine candidate reference genes were quantified using qRT-PCR under different cultivation conditions, and the stability of these genes was compared using the geNorm and NormFinder algorithms. The most stable reference genes were α-tubulin, actin and DNATopII, and, conversely, the widely used T. vaginalis reference genes GAPDH and β-tubulin were less stable. The PFOR gene was used to validate the reliability of the use of these candidate reference genes. As expected, the PFOR gene was upregulated when the trophozoites were cultivated with ferrous ammonium sulfate when the DNATopII, α-tubulin and actin genes were used as normalizing gene. By contrast, the PFOR gene was downregulated when the GAPDH gene was used as an internal control, leading to misinterpretation of the data. These results provide an important starting point for reference gene selection and gene expression analysis with qRT-PCR studies of T. vaginalis.
Optimal Reference Genes for Gene Expression Normalization in Trichomonas vaginalis.
dos Santos, Odelta; de Vargas Rigo, Graziela; Frasson, Amanda Piccoli; Macedo, Alexandre José; Tasca, Tiana
Trichomonas vaginalis is the etiologic agent of trichomonosis, the most common non-viral sexually transmitted disease worldwide. This infection is associated with several health consequences, including cervical and prostate cancers and HIV acquisition. Gene expression analysis has been facilitated because of available genome sequences and large-scale transcriptomes in T. vaginalis, particularly using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR), one of the most used methods for molecular studies. Reference genes for normalization are crucial to ensure the accuracy of this method. However, to the best of our knowledge, a systematic validation of reference genes has not been performed for T. vaginalis. In this study, the transcripts of nine candidate reference genes were quantified using qRT-PCR under different cultivation conditions, and the stability of these genes was compared using the geNorm and NormFinder algorithms. The most stable reference genes were α-tubulin, actin and DNATopII, and, conversely, the widely used T. vaginalis reference genes GAPDH and β-tubulin were less stable. The PFOR gene was used to validate the reliability of the use of these candidate reference genes. As expected, the PFOR gene was upregulated when the trophozoites were cultivated with ferrous ammonium sulfate when the DNATopII, α-tubulin and actin genes were used as normalizing gene. By contrast, the PFOR gene was downregulated when the GAPDH gene was used as an internal control, leading to misinterpretation of the data. These results provide an important starting point for reference gene selection and gene expression analysis with qRT-PCR studies of T. vaginalis. PMID:26393928
Optimal Reference Genes for Gene Expression Normalization in Trichomonas vaginalis.
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Odelta dos Santos
Full Text Available Trichomonas vaginalis is the etiologic agent of trichomonosis, the most common non-viral sexually transmitted disease worldwide. This infection is associated with several health consequences, including cervical and prostate cancers and HIV acquisition. Gene expression analysis has been facilitated because of available genome sequences and large-scale transcriptomes in T. vaginalis, particularly using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR, one of the most used methods for molecular studies. Reference genes for normalization are crucial to ensure the accuracy of this method. However, to the best of our knowledge, a systematic validation of reference genes has not been performed for T. vaginalis. In this study, the transcripts of nine candidate reference genes were quantified using qRT-PCR under different cultivation conditions, and the stability of these genes was compared using the geNorm and NormFinder algorithms. The most stable reference genes were α-tubulin, actin and DNATopII, and, conversely, the widely used T. vaginalis reference genes GAPDH and β-tubulin were less stable. The PFOR gene was used to validate the reliability of the use of these candidate reference genes. As expected, the PFOR gene was upregulated when the trophozoites were cultivated with ferrous ammonium sulfate when the DNATopII, α-tubulin and actin genes were used as normalizing gene. By contrast, the PFOR gene was downregulated when the GAPDH gene was used as an internal control, leading to misinterpretation of the data. These results provide an important starting point for reference gene selection and gene expression analysis with qRT-PCR studies of T. vaginalis.
Dominance from the perspective of gene-gene and gene-chemical interactions.
Gladki, Arkadiusz; Zielenkiewicz, Piotr; Kaczanowski, Szymon
In this study, we used genetic interaction (GI) and gene-chemical interaction (GCI) data to compare mutations with different dominance phenotypes. Our analysis focused primarily on Saccharomyces cerevisiae, where haploinsufficient genes (HI; genes with dominant loss-of-function mutations) were found to be participating in gene expression processes, namely, the translation and regulation of gene transcription. Non-ribosomal HI genes (mainly regulators of gene transcription) were found to have more GIs and GCIs than haplosufficient (HS) genes. Several properties seem to lead to the enrichment of interactions, most notably, the following: importance, pleiotropy, gene expression level and gene expression variation. Importantly, after these properties were appropriately considered in the analysis, the correlation between dominance and GI/GCI degrees was still observed. Strikingly, for the GCIs of heterozygous strains, haploinsufficiency was the only property significantly correlated with the number of GCIs. We found ribosomal HI genes to be depleted in GIs/GCIs. This finding can be explained by their high variation in gene expression under different genetic backgrounds and environmental conditions. We observed the same distributions of GIs among non-ribosomal HI, ribosomal HI and HS genes in three other species: Schizosaccharomyces pombe, Drosophila melanogaster and Homo sapiens. One potentially interesting exception was the lack of significant differences in the degree of GIs between non-ribosomal HI and HS genes in Schizosaccharomyces pombe. PMID:26613610
Dominance from the perspective of gene-gene and gene-chemical interactions.
Gladki, Arkadiusz; Zielenkiewicz, Piotr; Kaczanowski, Szymon
In this study, we used genetic interaction (GI) and gene-chemical interaction (GCI) data to compare mutations with different dominance phenotypes. Our analysis focused primarily on Saccharomyces cerevisiae, where haploinsufficient genes (HI; genes with dominant loss-of-function mutations) were found to be participating in gene expression processes, namely, the translation and regulation of gene transcription. Non-ribosomal HI genes (mainly regulators of gene transcription) were found to have more GIs and GCIs than haplosufficient (HS) genes. Several properties seem to lead to the enrichment of interactions, most notably, the following: importance, pleiotropy, gene expression level and gene expression variation. Importantly, after these properties were appropriately considered in the analysis, the correlation between dominance and GI/GCI degrees was still observed. Strikingly, for the GCIs of heterozygous strains, haploinsufficiency was the only property significantly correlated with the number of GCIs. We found ribosomal HI genes to be depleted in GIs/GCIs. This finding can be explained by their high variation in gene expression under different genetic backgrounds and environmental conditions. We observed the same distributions of GIs among non-ribosomal HI, ribosomal HI and HS genes in three other species: Schizosaccharomyces pombe, Drosophila melanogaster and Homo sapiens. One potentially interesting exception was the lack of significant differences in the degree of GIs between non-ribosomal HI and HS genes in Schizosaccharomyces pombe.
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Full Text Available Background: The subject of this paper is gene doping, which should be understood as "he non-therapeutic use of cells, genes, genetic elements, or of the modulation of gene expression, having the capacity to improve athletic performance". The authors of this work, based on the review of literature and previous research, make an attempt at wider characterization of gene doping and the discussion of related potential threats.Methods: This is a comprehensive survey of literature on the latest applications of molecular biology in medicine. The analysis involves a dozen scientific databases examined in order to find genes used in gene therapy and potentially useful in gene doping. Results: The obtained results enable better recognition of gene doping and indicate genes used in medicine that could be used in gene doping. This paper describes potential effects of their use and associated risk, and predicts the possible developments of gene doping in the future. Conclusion: Gene doping is undoubtedly a part of modern sport. Although WADA included gene doping on the list of banned methods as early as 2004, as previously stated above, it has not managed to develop efficient methods of detection.
On atavisms and atavistic genes.
Cantú, J M; Ruiz, C
The authors propose the term atavistic to designate a gene producing an ancestral phenotype (atavism). Several examples are presented, and the possible origin of atavistic genes, as well as their pathological implications discussed. PMID:3879145
Genes That Influence Blood Pressure
... Research Matters NIH Research Matters September 26, 2011 Genes that Influence Blood Pressure In one of the ... 16 previously unknown variations. Six were found in genes already suspected of regulating blood pressure. The remaining ...
Genes and human brain evolution
Geschwind, Daniel H.; Konopka, Genevieve
Several genes were duplicated during human evolution. It seems that one such duplication gave rise to a gene that may have helped to make human brains bigger and more adaptable than those of our ancestors.
Gene Testing for Hereditary Ataxia
FAQ NATIONAL ATAXIA FOUNDATION FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT... Gene Testing for Hereditary Ataxia This fact sheet provides an overview of gene testing for ataxia. It also addresses commonly asked ...
Gene therapy in gastric cancer
Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)
Xu Chang-tai; Guo Xue-gang; Pan Bo-rong
@@ 1 Introduction We have reviewed the gene therapy in gastrointestinal diseases[1]. Gastric cancer is common in China[2~20] ,and its early diagnosis andtreatment are still difficult up to now[13~36]. The expression of anexogenous gene introduced by gene therapy into patients with gliomascan be monitored non- invasively by positron- emission tomography[4]. In recent years, gene study in cancer is a hotspot, and great progress hasbeen achieved[33~41].
Human housekeeping genes are compact
Eisenberg, Eli; Erez Y. Levanon
We identify a set of 575 human genes that are expressed in all conditions tested in a publicly available database of microarray results. Based on this common occurrence, the set is expected to be rich in "housekeeping" genes, showing constitutive expression in all tissues. We compare selected aspects of their genomic structure with a set of background genes. We find that the introns, untranslated regions and coding sequences of the housekeeping genes are shorter, indicating a selection for co...
Hernandez-Alcoceba, R. (Rubén); B. Sangro; Prieto, J.
The application of gene transfer technologies to the treatment of cancer has led to the development of new experimental approaches like gene directed enzyme/pro-drug therapy (GDEPT), inhibition of oncogenes and restoration of tumor-suppressor genes. In addition, gene therapy has a big impact on other fields like cancer immunotherapy, anti-angiogenic therapy and virotherapy. These strategies are being evaluated for the treatment of primary and metastatic liver cancer and some of them have reac...
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
A. G. Sáez
Full Text Available La posibilidad de secuenciar y manipular los genes sigue abriendo fronteras en el estudio de las especies y la especiación. En tiempos recientes particularmente en dos direcciones. Por un lado, la secuenciación del gen COI (y otros en miles de muestras de forma sistemática y masiva, el llamado "DNA barcoding", está revelando una gran cantidad de biodiversidad, en buena medida previamente no sospechada y correspondiente a especies crípticas (morfológicamente irreconocibles. En segundo lugar, el estudio de los genes responsables de los cambios morfológicos nos está haciendo volver a dar una creciente importancia a la selección como motor de la especiación y de la evolución, incluso en presencia de dosis importantes de flujo génico.
Gene-gene and gene-environmental interactions of childhood asthma: a multifactor dimension reduction approach.
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Ming-Wei Su
Full Text Available BACKGROUND: The importance of gene-gene and gene-environment interactions on asthma is well documented in literature, but a systematic analysis on the interaction between various genetic and environmental factors is still lacking. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We conducted a population-based, case-control study comprised of seventh-grade children from 14 Taiwanese communities. A total of 235 asthmatic cases and 1,310 non-asthmatic controls were selected for DNA collection and genotyping. We examined the gene-gene and gene-environment interactions between 17 single-nucleotide polymorphisms in antioxidative, inflammatory and obesity-related genes, and childhood asthma. Environmental exposures and disease status were obtained from parental questionnaires. The model-free and non-parametrical multifactor dimensionality reduction (MDR method was used for the analysis. A three-way gene-gene interaction was elucidated between the gene coding glutathione S-transferase P (GSTP1, the gene coding interleukin-4 receptor alpha chain (IL4Ra and the gene coding insulin induced gene 2 (INSIG2 on the risk of lifetime asthma. The testing-balanced accuracy on asthma was 57.83% with a cross-validation consistency of 10 out of 10. The interaction of preterm birth and indoor dampness had the highest training-balanced accuracy at 59.09%. Indoor dampness also interacted with many genes, including IL13, beta-2 adrenergic receptor (ADRB2, signal transducer and activator of transcription 6 (STAT6. We also used likelihood ratio tests for interaction and chi-square tests to validate our results and all tests showed statistical significance. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: The results of this study suggest that GSTP1, INSIG2 and IL4Ra may influence the lifetime asthma susceptibility through gene-gene interactions in schoolchildren. Home dampness combined with each one of the genes STAT6, IL13 and ADRB2 could raise the asthma risk.
Gene therapy for mucopolysaccharidosis
Ponder, Katherine P.; Haskins, Mark E.
Mucopolysaccharidoses (MPS) are due to deficiencies in activities of lysosomal enzymes that degrade glycosaminoglycans. Some attempts at gene therapy for MPS in animal models have involved intravenous injection of vectors derived from an adeno-associated virus (AAV), adenovirus, retrovirus or a plasmid, which primarily results in expression in liver and secretion of the relevant enzyme into blood. Most vectors can correct disease in liver and spleen, although correction in other organs includ...
Engineering prokaryotic gene circuits
Michalodimitrakis, Konstantinos; Isalan, Mark
Engineering of synthetic gene circuits is a rapidly growing discipline, currently dominated by prokaryotic transcription networks, which can be easily rearranged or rewired to give different output behaviours. In this review, we examine both a rational and a combinatorial design of such networks and discuss progress on using in vitro evolution techniques to obtain functional systems. Moving beyond pure transcription networks, more and more networks are being implemented at the level of RNA, t...
Gene Porter Bridwell served as the director of the Marshall Space Flight Center from January 6, 1994 until February 3, 1996, when he retired from NASA after thirty-four years service. Bridwell, a Marshall employee since 1962, had been Marshall's Space Shuttle Projects Office Director and Space Station Redesign Team deputy manager. Under Bridwell, Marshall worked to develop its role as a Center of Excellence for propulsion and for providing access to space.
Gene therapy of cancer and development of therapeutic target gene
Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)
Kim, Chang Min; Kwon, Hee Chung
We applied HSV-tk/GCV strategy to orthotopic rat hepatoma model and showed anticancer effects of hepatoma. The increased expression of Lac Z gene after adenovirus-mediated gene delivery throughout hepatic artery was thought that is increased the possibility of gene therapy for curing hepatoma. With the construction of kGLP-laboratory, it is possible to produce a good quantity and quality of adenovirus in lage-scale production and purification of adenovirus vector. Also, the analysis of hepatoma related genes by PCR-LOH could be used for the diagnosis of patients and the development of therapeutic gene.
Gene therapy of cancer and development of therapeutic target gene
International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
We applied HSV-tk/GCV strategy to orthotopic rat hepatoma model and showed anticancer effects of hepatoma. The increased expression of Lac Z gene after adenovirus-mediated gene delivery throughout hepatic artery was thought that is increased the possibility of gene therapy for curing hepatoma. With the construction of kGLP-laboratory, it is possible to produce a good quantity and quality of adenovirus in lage-scale production and purification of adenovirus vector. Also, the analysis of hepatoma related genes by PCR-LOH could be used for the diagnosis of patients and the development of therapeutic gene
Ascidian gene-expression profiles
William R Jeffery
With the advent of gene-expression profiling, a large number of genes can now be investigated simultaneously during critical stages of development. This approach will be particularly informative in studies of ascidians, basal chordates whose genomes and embryology are uniquely suited for mapping developmental gene networks.
Compositional gradients in Gramineae genes
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Wong, Gane Ka-Shu; Wang, Jun; Tao, Lin;
In this study, we describe a property of Gramineae genes, and perhaps all monocot genes, that is not observed in eudicot genes. Along the direction of transcription, beginning at the junction of the 5'-UTR and the coding region, there are gradients in GC content, codon usage, and amino-acid usage...
Decationized polyplexes for gene delivery
Novo, L.; Mastrobattista, E.; Nostrum, van C.F.; Lammers, T.G.G.M.; Hennink, W.E.
Gene therapy has received much attention in the field of drug delivery. Synthetic, nonviral gene delivery systems have gained increasing attention as vectors for gene therapy mainly due to a favorable immunogenicity profile and ease of manufacturing as compared to viral vectors. The great majority o
Independent Gene Discovery and Testing
Palsule, Vrushalee; Coric, Dijana; Delancy, Russell; Dunham, Heather; Melancon, Caleb; Thompson, Dennis; Toms, Jamie; White, Ashley; Shultz, Jeffry
A clear understanding of basic gene structure is critical when teaching molecular genetics, the central dogma and the biological sciences. We sought to create a gene-based teaching project to improve students' understanding of gene structure and to integrate this into a research project that can be implemented by instructors at the secondary level…
Gene therapy for thyroid cancer
International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
Gene therapy for thyroid cancer include immunotherapy, suicide gene therapy, tumor suppressor replacement, 131I therapy by sodium/iodide symporter and antisense therapy and so on. Gene therapy has wide perspectives, but there are many problems need to be solved for clinical application
Kou, Zhongyang; Wang, Xin; Yuan, Renshun; Chen, Huabin; Zhi, Qiaoming; Gao, Ling; Wang, Bin; Guo, Zhaoji; Xue, Xiaofeng; Cao, Wei; Guo, Liang
A new class of two-dimensional (2D) nanomaterial, transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) such as MoS2, MoSe2, WS2, and WSe2 which have fantastic physical and chemical properties, has drawn tremendous attention in different fields recently. Herein, we for the first time take advantage of the great potential of MoS2 with well-engineered surface as a novel type of 2D nanocarriers for gene delivery and therapy of cancer. In our system, positively charged MoS2-PEG-PEI is synthesized with lipoic acid-modified polyethylene glycol (LA-PEG) and branched polyethylenimine (PEI). The amino end of positively charged nanomaterials can bind to the negatively charged small interfering RNA (siRNA). After detection of physical and chemical characteristics of the nanomaterial, cell toxicity was evaluated by 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay. Polo-like kinase 1 (PLK1) was investigated as a well-known oncogene, which was a critical regulator of cell cycle transmission at multiple levels. Through knockdown of PLK1 with siRNA carried by novel nanovector, qPCR and Western blot were used to measure the interfering efficiency; apoptosis assay was used to detect the transfection effect of PLK1. All results showed that the novel nanocarrier revealed good biocompatibility, reduced cytotoxicity, as well as high gene-carrying ability without serum interference, thus would have great potential for gene delivery and therapy.
Extracting gene-gene interactions through curve fitting.
Das, Ranajit; Mitra, Sushmita; Murthy, C A
This paper presents a simple and novel curve fitting approach for generating simple gene regulatory subnetworks from time series gene expression data. Microarray experiments simultaneously generate massive data sets and help immensely in the large-scale study of gene expression patterns. Initial biclustering reduces the search space in the high-dimensional microarray data. The least-squares error between fitting of gene pairs is minimized to extract a set of gene-gene interactions, involving transcriptional regulation of genes. The higher error values are eliminated to retain only the strong interacting gene pairs in the resultant gene regulatory subnetwork. Next the algorithm is extended to a generalized framework to enhance its capability. The methodology takes care of the higher-order dependencies involving multiple genes co-regulating a single gene, while eliminating the need for user-defined parameters. It has been applied to the time-series Yeast data, and the experimental results biologically validated using standard databases and literature. PMID:22997274
Identification of Significant Association and Gene-Gene Interaction of GABA Receptor Subunit Genes in Autism
Ma, D Q; Whitehead, P. L.; Menold, M M; Martin, E. R.; Ashley-Koch, A. E.; Mei, H; Ritchie, M. D.; Delong, G R; Abramson, R.K.; Wright, H. H.; Cuccaro, M. L.; Hussman, J. P.; Gilbert, J.R.; Pericak-Vance, M A
Autism is a common neurodevelopmental disorder with a significant genetic component. Existing research suggests that multiple genes contribute to autism and that epigenetic effects or gene-gene interactions are likely contributors to autism risk. However, these effects have not yet been identified. Gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), the primary inhibitory neurotransmitter in the adult brain, has been implicated in autism etiology. Fourteen known autosomal GABA receptor subunit genes were studied...
Gene Network Biological Validity Based on Gene-Gene Interaction Relevance
Francisco Gómez-Vela; Norberto Díaz-Díaz
In recent years, gene networks have become one of the most useful tools for modeling biological processes. Many inference gene network algorithms have been developed as techniques for extracting knowledge from gene expression data. Ensuring the reliability of the inferred gene relationships is a crucial task in any study in order to prove that the algorithms used are precise. Usually, this validation process can be carried out using prior biological knowledge. The metabolic pathways stored in...
Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)
Ruben Hernandez-Alcoceba; Bruno Sangro; Jesus Prieto
The application of gene transfer technologies to the treatment of cancer has led to the development of new experimental approaches like gene directed enzyme/prodrug therapy (GDEPT), inhibition of oncogenes and restoration of tumor-suppressor genes. In addition,gene therapy has a big impact on other fields like cancer immunotherapy, anti-angiogenic therapy and virotherapy.These strategies are being evaluated for the treatment of primary and metastatic liver cancer and some of them have reached clinical phases. We present a review on the basis and the actual status of gene therapy approaches applied to liver cancer.
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Korf Ian
Full Text Available Abstract Background Computational gene prediction continues to be an important problem, especially for genomes with little experimental data. Results I introduce the SNAP gene finder which has been designed to be easily adaptable to a variety of genomes. In novel genomes without an appropriate gene finder, I demonstrate that employing a foreign gene finder can produce highly inaccurate results, and that the most compatible parameters may not come from the nearest phylogenetic neighbor. I find that foreign gene finders are more usefully employed to bootstrap parameter estimation and that the resulting parameters can be highly accurate. Conclusion Since gene prediction is sensitive to species-specific parameters, every genome needs a dedicated gene finder.
The Caenorhabditis chemoreceptor gene families
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Robertson Hugh M
Full Text Available Abstract Background Chemoreceptor proteins mediate the first step in the transduction of environmental chemical stimuli, defining the breadth of detection and conferring stimulus specificity. Animal genomes contain families of genes encoding chemoreceptors that mediate taste, olfaction, and pheromone responses. The size and diversity of these families reflect the biology of chemoperception in specific species. Results Based on manual curation and sequence comparisons among putative G-protein-coupled chemoreceptor genes in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, we identified approximately 1300 genes and 400 pseudogenes in the 19 largest gene families, most of which fall into larger superfamilies. In the related species C. briggsae and C. remanei, we identified most or all genes in each of the 19 families. For most families, C. elegans has the largest number of genes and C. briggsae the smallest number, suggesting changes in the importance of chemoperception among the species. Protein trees reveal family-specific and species-specific patterns of gene duplication and gene loss. The frequency of strict orthologs varies among the families, from just over 50% in two families to less than 5% in three families. Several families include large species-specific expansions, mostly in C. elegans and C. remanei. Conclusion Chemoreceptor gene families in Caenorhabditis species are large and evolutionarily dynamic as a result of gene duplication and gene loss. These dynamics shape the chemoreceptor gene complements in Caenorhabditis species and define the receptor space available for chemosensory responses. To explain these patterns, we propose the gray pawn hypothesis: individual genes are of little significance, but the aggregate of a large number of diverse genes is required to cover a large phenotype space.
Genes and Disease: Prader-Willi Syndrome
... MD): National Center for Biotechnology Information (US); 1998-. Genes and Disease [Internet]. Show details National Center for ... Willi syndrome. PDF version of this page (220K) Gene sequence Genome view see gene locations Entrez Gene ...
Gene Therapy and Children (For Parents)
... Story" 5 Things to Know About Zika & Pregnancy Gene Therapy and Children KidsHealth > For Parents > Gene Therapy ... that don't respond to conventional therapies. About Genes Our genes help make us unique. Inherited from ...
Sáez, Alberto G.
La posibilidad de secuenciar y manipular los genes sigue abriendo fronteras en el estudio de las especies y la especiación. En tiempos recientes particularmente en dos direcciones. Por un lado, la secuenciación del gen COI (y otros) en miles de muestras de forma sistemática y masiva, el llamado "DNA barcoding", está revelando una gran cantidad de biodiversidad, en buena medida previamente no sospechada y correspondiente a especies crípticas (morfológicamente irreconocibles). En segundo lug...
Ben-Hur, Asa; Siegelmann, Hava T.
Genetic regulatory networks have the complex task of controlling all aspects of life. Using a model of gene expression by piecewise linear differential equations we show that this process can be considered as a process of computation. This is demonstrated by showing that this model can simulate memory bounded Turing machines. The simulation is robust with respect to perturbations of the system, an important property for both analog computers and biological systems. Robustness is achieved using a condition that ensures that the model equations, that are generally chaotic, follow a predictable dynamics.
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
The present invention relates to an isolated polynucleotide encoding at least a part of calmodulin and an isolated polypeptide comprising at least a part of a calmodulin protein, wherein the polynucleotide and the polypeptide comprise at least one mutation associated with a cardiac disorder. The ...... the binding of calmodulin to ryanodine receptor 2 and use of such compound in a treatment of an individual having a cardiac disorder. The invention further provides a kit that can be used to detect specific mutations in calmodulin encoding genes....
The GeneMANIA prediction server: biological network integration for gene prioritization and predicting gene function.
Warde-Farley, David; Donaldson, Sylva L; Comes, Ovi; Zuberi, Khalid; Badrawi, Rashad; Chao, Pauline; Franz, Max; Grouios, Chris; Kazi, Farzana; Lopes, Christian Tannus; Maitland, Anson; Mostafavi, Sara; Montojo, Jason; Shao, Quentin; Wright, George; Bader, Gary D; Morris, Quaid
GeneMANIA (http://www.genemania.org) is a flexible, user-friendly web interface for generating hypotheses about gene function, analyzing gene lists and prioritizing genes for functional assays. Given a query list, GeneMANIA extends the list with functionally similar genes that it identifies using available genomics and proteomics data. GeneMANIA also reports weights that indicate the predictive value of each selected data set for the query. Six organisms are currently supported (Arabidopsis thaliana, Caenorhabditis elegans, Drosophila melanogaster, Mus musculus, Homo sapiens and Saccharomyces cerevisiae) and hundreds of data sets have been collected from GEO, BioGRID, Pathway Commons and I2D, as well as organism-specific functional genomics data sets. Users can select arbitrary subsets of the data sets associated with an organism to perform their analyses and can upload their own data sets to analyze. The GeneMANIA algorithm performs as well or better than other gene function prediction methods on yeast and mouse benchmarks. The high accuracy of the GeneMANIA prediction algorithm, an intuitive user interface and large database make GeneMANIA a useful tool for any biologist. PMID:20576703
Gene expression analysis identifies global gene dosage sensitivity in cancer
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Fehrmann, Rudolf S. N.; Karjalainen, Juha M.; Krajewska, Malgorzata;
Many cancer-associated somatic copy number alterations (SCNAs) are known. Currently, one of the challenges is to identify the molecular downstream effects of these variants. Although several SCNAs are known to change gene expression levels, it is not clear whether each individual SCNA affects gene...... expression. We reanalyzed 77,840 expression profiles and observed a limited set of 'transcriptional components' that describe well-known biology, explain the vast majority of variation in gene expression and enable us to predict the biological function of genes. On correcting expression profiles...... for these components, we observed that the residual expression levels (in 'functional genomic mRNA' profiling) correlated strongly with copy number. DNA copy number correlated positively with expression levels for 99% of all abundantly expressed human genes, indicating global gene dosage sensitivity. By applying...
Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)
QIU Zhe-fu; HAN De-min; ZHANG Luo; ZHANG Wei
Tumor suppressor gene plays an important role in maintaining the homeostasis between cell loss and growth. Fragile in maintaining the homeostasis between cell loss and growth. Fragile histidine triad (FHIT) gene found recently was studied in a deep going way; it becomes the focus as a result of its roleof ep going way; it becomes the focus as a result of its roleof anti-tumor in human various type of tissue. Due to the high efficiency of FHIT gene benefiting the anti-tumor, it is proposed gh efficiency of FHIT gene benefiting the anti-tumor, it is proposed as a candidate of tumor suppressor gene though there are several opposite opinions.several opposite opinions. We stress the summary of some properties of FHIT gene on proapoptosis according to the published data which showed gene on proapoptosis according to the published data which showed the stronger proapoptotic function of FHIT gene; the apoptosis induced by FHIT depends on the expression level and status of ene; the apoptosis induced by FHIT depends on the expression level and status of FHIT; and FHIT gene can alternate the cell cycling properties and reduce the tumorigenic potential; the apoptotic process e can alternate the cell cycling properties and reduce the tumorigenic potential; the apoptotic process induced by FHIT has no relation to p53 gene. In a ward, in consideration of its multiple functions against malignancies, FHIT in consideration of its multiple functions against malignancies, FHIT gene deserves attention and exploration as a selective target for searching the mechanism of tumorigenesis and clinical et for searching the mechanism of tumorigenesis and clinical therapeutic applications in further.le histidine triad (FHIT) gene; Apoptosis; Tumorigenesis; Tumor suppressor gene deserves attention and exploration as a selective target for searching the mechanism of tumorigenesis and clinical therapeutic applications in further.
Identifying Driver Genes in Cancer by Triangulating Gene Expression, Gene Location, and Survival Data
Rouam, Sigrid; Miller, Lance D; Karuturi, R Krishna Murthy
Driver genes are directly responsible for oncogenesis and identifying them is essential in order to fully understand the mechanisms of cancer. However, it is difficult to delineate them from the larger pool of genes that are deregulated in cancer (ie, passenger genes). In order to address this problem, we developed an approach called TRIAngulating Gene Expression (TRIAGE through clinico-genomic intersects). Here, we present a refinement of this approach incorporating a new scoring methodology to identify putative driver genes that are deregulated in cancer. TRIAGE triangulates – or integrates – three levels of information: gene expression, gene location, and patient survival. First, TRIAGE identifies regions of deregulated expression (ie, expression footprints) by deriving a newly established measure called the Local Singular Value Decomposition (LSVD) score for each locus. Driver genes are then distinguished from passenger genes using dual survival analyses. Incorporating measurements of gene expression and weighting them according to the LSVD weight of each tumor, these analyses are performed using the genes located in significant expression footprints. Here, we first use simulated data to characterize the newly established LSVD score. We then present the results of our application of this refined version of TRIAGE to gene expression data from five cancer types. This refined version of TRIAGE not only allowed us to identify known prominent driver genes, such as MMP1, IL8, and COL1A2, but it also led us to identify several novel ones. These results illustrate that TRIAGE complements existing tools, allows for the identification of genes that drive cancer and could perhaps elucidate potential future targets of novel anticancer therapeutics. PMID:25949096
Hamet, Pavel; Tremblay, Johanne
According to developmental genetics theories, aging is a genetically programmed and controlled continuum of development and maturation. Being dynamic and malleable processes, development and aging are controlled not only by genes but also by environmental and epigenetic influences that predominate in the second half of life. Genetic mutations affect many phenotypes in flies, worms, rodents, and humans which share several diseases or their equivalents, including cancer, neurodegeneration, and infectious disorders as well as their susceptibility to them. Life span and stress resistance are closely linked. Oxidative stress actually constitutes a defined hypothesis of aging in that macromolecule oxidative damage accumulates with age and tends to be associated with life expectancy. DNA methylation, a force in the regulation of gene expression, is also one of the biomarkers of genetic damage. The mitotic clock of aging is marked, if not guided, by telomeres, essential genetic elements stabilizing natural chromosomic ends. The dream of humans to live longer, healthy lives is being tested by attempts to modify longevity in animal models, frequently by dietary manipulation. The quest continues to understand the mechanisms of healthy aging, one of the most compelling areas of research in the 21st century. PMID:14577056
Wang, Feng; Vandepoele, Klaas; Van Lijsebettens, Mieke
Tetraspanins represent a four-transmembrane protein superfamily with a conserved structure and amino acid residues that are present in mammals, insects, fungi and plants. Tetraspanins interact with each other or with other membrane proteins to form tetraspanin-enriched microdomains that play important roles in development, pathogenesis and immune responses via facilitating cell-cell adhesion and fusion, ligand binding and intracellular trafficking. Here, we emphasize evolutionary aspects within the plant kingdom based on genomic sequence information. A phylogenetic tree based on 155 tetraspanin genes of 11 plant species revealed ancient and fast evolving clades. Tetraspanins were only present in multicellular plants, were often duplicated in the plant genomes and predicted by the electronic Fluorescent Pictograph for gene expression analysis to be either functionally redundant or divergent. Tetraspanins contain a large extracellular loop with conserved cysteines that provide the binding sites for the interactions. The Arabidopsis thaliana TETRASPANIN1/TORNADO2/EKEKO has a function in leaf and root patterning and TETRASPANIN3 was identified in the plasmodesmatal proteome, suggesting a role in cell-cell communication during plant development.
Immunity-related genes and gene families in Anopheles gambiae.
Christophides, George K; Zdobnov, Evgeny; Barillas-Mury, Carolina; Birney, Ewan; Blandin, Stephanie; Blass, Claudia; Brey, Paul T; Collins, Frank H; Danielli, Alberto; Dimopoulos, George; Hetru, Charles; Hoa, Ngo T; Hoffmann, Jules A; Kanzok, Stefan M; Letunic, Ivica; Levashina, Elena A; Loukeris, Thanasis G; Lycett, Gareth; Meister, Stephan; Michel, Kristin; Moita, Luis F; Müller, Hans-Michael; Osta, Mike A; Paskewitz, Susan M; Reichhart, Jean-Marc; Rzhetsky, Andrey; Troxler, Laurent; Vernick, Kenneth D; Vlachou, Dina; Volz, Jennifer; von Mering, Christian; Xu, Jiannong; Zheng, Liangbiao; Bork, Peer; Kafatos, Fotis C
We have identified 242 Anopheles gambiae genes from 18 gene families implicated in innate immunity and have detected marked diversification relative to Drosophila melanogaster. Immune-related gene families involved in recognition, signal modulation, and effector systems show a marked deficit of orthologs and excessive gene expansions, possibly reflecting selection pressures from different pathogens encountered in these insects' very different life-styles. In contrast, the multifunctional Toll signal transduction pathway is substantially conserved, presumably because of counterselection for developmental stability. Representative expression profiles confirm that sequence diversification is accompanied by specific responses to different immune challenges. Alternative RNA splicing may also contribute to expansion of the immune repertoire. PMID:12364793
Gene-targeting pharmaceuticals for single-gene disorders.
Beaudet, Arthur L; Meng, Linyan
The concept of orphan drugs for treatment of orphan genetic diseases is perceived enthusiastically at present, and this is leading to research investment on the part of governments, disease-specific foundations and industry. This review attempts to survey the potential to use traditional pharmaceuticals as opposed to biopharmaceuticals to treat single-gene disorders. The available strategies include the use of antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs) to alter splicing or knock-down expression of a transcript, siRNAs to knock-down gene expression and drugs for nonsense mutation read-through. There is an approved drug for biallelic knock-down of the APOB gene as treatment for familial hypercholesterolemia. Both ASOs and siRNAs are being explored to knock-down the transthyretin gene to prevent the related form of amyloidosis. The use of ASOs to alter gene-splicing to treat spinal muscular atrophy is in phase 3 clinical trials. Work is progressing on the use of ASOs to activate the normally silent paternal copy of the imprinted UBE3A gene in neurons as a treatment for Angelman syndrome. A gene-activation or gene-specific ramp-up strategy would be generally helpful if such could be developed. There is exciting theoretical potential for converting biopharmaceutical strategies such gene correction and CRISPR-Cas9 editing to a synthetic pharmaceutical approach. PMID:26628634
Gene polymorphisms in chronic periodontitis
Laine, Marja L; Loos, Bruno G.; Crielaard, W.
We aimed to conduct a review of the literature for gene polymorphisms associated with chronic periodontitis (CP) susceptibility. A comprehensive search of the literature in English was performed using the keywords: periodontitis, periodontal disease, combined with the words genes, mutation, or polymorphism. Candidate gene polymorphism studies with a case-control design and reported genotype frequencies in CP patients were searched and reviewed. There is growing evidence that polymorphisms in ...
Pfaff, Donald W.
With assays of hormone-sensitive behaviors, it is possible to demonstrate both direct and indirect actions of genes on mammalian social behaviors. Direct effects of estrogen receptor gene expression and progesterone receptor gene expression figure prominently in well analyzed neuroendocrine mechanisms for sex behavior, operating through a neural circuit that has been delineated. Indirect effects, notably the consequences of sexual differentiation, display complex d...
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Debrabant, Birgit; Soerensen, Mette
Abstract We discuss the use of modified Kolmogorov-Smirnov (KS) statistics in the context of gene set analysis and review corresponding null and alternative hypotheses. Especially, we show that, when enhancing the impact of highly significant genes in the calculation of the test statistic...... parameter and the genesis and distribution of the gene-level statistics, and illustrate the effects of differential weighting in a real-life example....
Gene therapy in pancreatic cancer
Liu, Si-Xue; Xia, Zhong-Sheng; Zhong, Ying-Qiang
Pancreatic cancer (PC) is a highly lethal disease and notoriously difficult to treat. Only a small proportion of PC patients are eligible for surgical resection, whilst conventional chemoradiotherapy only has a modest effect with substantial toxicity. Gene therapy has become a new widely investigated therapeutic approach for PC. This article reviews the basic rationale, gene delivery methods, therapeutic targets and developments of laboratory research and clinical trials in gene therapy of PC...
Testing for gene-gene interaction with AMMI models.
Barhdadi, Amina; Dubé, Marie-Pierre
Studies have shown that many common diseases are influenced by multiple genes and their interactions. There is currently a strong interest in testing for association between combinations of these genes and disease, in particular because genes that affect the risk of disease only in the presence of another genetic variant may not be detected in marginal analysis. In this paper we propose the use of additive main effect and multiplicative interaction (AMMI) models to detect and to quantify gene-gene interaction effects for a quantitative trait. The objective of the present research is to demonstrate the practical advantages of these models to describe complex interaction between two unlinked loci. Although gene-gene interactions have often been defined as a deviance from additive genetic effects, the residual term has generally not been appropriately treated. The AMMI models allow for the analysis of a two way factorial data structure and combine the analysis of variance of the two main genotype effects with a principal component analysis of the residual multiplicative interaction. The AMMI models for gene-gene interaction presented here allow for the testing of non additivity between the two loci, and also describe how their interaction structure fits the existing non-additivity. Moreover, these models can be used to identify the specific two genotypes combinations that contribute to the significant gene-gene interaction. We describe the use of the biplot to display the structure of the interaction and evaluate the performance of the AMMI and the special cases of the AMMI previously described by Tukey and Mandel with simulated data sets. Our simulated study showed that the AMMI model is as powerful as general linear models when the interaction is not modeled in the presence of marginal effects. However, in the presence of pure epitasis, i.e. in the absence of marginal effects, the AMMI method was not found to be superior to other tested regression methods.
A genetic ensemble approach for gene-gene interaction identification
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Ho Joshua WK
Full Text Available Abstract Background It has now become clear that gene-gene interactions and gene-environment interactions are ubiquitous and fundamental mechanisms for the development of complex diseases. Though a considerable effort has been put into developing statistical models and algorithmic strategies for identifying such interactions, the accurate identification of those genetic interactions has been proven to be very challenging. Methods In this paper, we propose a new approach for identifying such gene-gene and gene-environment interactions underlying complex diseases. This is a hybrid algorithm and it combines genetic algorithm (GA and an ensemble of classifiers (called genetic ensemble. Using this approach, the original problem of SNP interaction identification is converted into a data mining problem of combinatorial feature selection. By collecting various single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP subsets as well as environmental factors generated in multiple GA runs, patterns of gene-gene and gene-environment interactions can be extracted using a simple combinatorial ranking method. Also considered in this study is the idea of combining identification results obtained from multiple algorithms. A novel formula based on pairwise double fault is designed to quantify the degree of complementarity. Conclusions Our simulation study demonstrates that the proposed genetic ensemble algorithm has comparable identification power to Multifactor Dimensionality Reduction (MDR and is slightly better than Polymorphism Interaction Analysis (PIA, which are the two most popular methods for gene-gene interaction identification. More importantly, the identification results generated by using our genetic ensemble algorithm are highly complementary to those obtained by PIA and MDR. Experimental results from our simulation studies and real world data application also confirm the effectiveness of the proposed genetic ensemble algorithm, as well as the potential benefits of
ERGDB: Estrogen Responsive Genes Database.
Tang, Suisheng; Han, Hao; Bajic, Vladimir B
ERGDB is an integrated knowledge database dedicated to genes responsive to estrogen. Genes included in ERGDB are those whose expression levels are experimentally proven to be either up-regulated or down-regulated by estrogen. Genes included are identified based on publications from the PubMed database and each record has been manually examined, evaluated and selected for inclusion by biologists. ERGDB aims to be a unified gateway to store, search, retrieve and update information about estrogen responsive genes. Each record contains links to relevant databases, such as GenBank, LocusLink, Refseq, PubMed and ATCC. The unique feature of ERGDB is that it contains information on the dependence of gene reactions on experimental conditions. In addition to basic information about the genes, information for each record includes gene functional description, experimental methods used, tissue or cell type, gene reaction, estrogen exposure time and the summary of putative estrogen response elements if the gene's promoter sequence was available. Through a web interface at http://sdmc.i2r.a-star.edu.sg/ergdb/ cgi-bin/explore.pl users can either browse or query ERGDB. Access is free for academic and non-profit users. PMID:14681475
Manuck, Stephen B; McCaffery, Jeanne M
With the advent of increasingly accessible technologies for typing genetic variation, studies of gene-environment (G×E) interactions have proliferated in psychological research. Among the aims of such studies are testing developmental hypotheses and models of the etiology of behavioral disorders, defining boundaries of genetic and environmental influences, and identifying individuals most susceptible to risk exposures or most amenable to preventive and therapeutic interventions. This research also coincides with the emergence of unanticipated difficulties in detecting genetic variants of direct association with behavioral traits and disorders, which may be obscured if genetic effects are expressed only in predisposing environments. In this essay we consider these and other rationales for positing G×E interactions, review conceptual models meant to inform G×E interpretations from a psychological perspective, discuss points of common critique to which G×E research is vulnerable, and address the role of the environment in G×E interactions.
Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)
Hongli Wang; Dongsheng Fan; Yingshuang Zhang
Angiogenin is associated with the pathogenesis of diabetic peripheral neuropathy. Here, we se-quenced the coding region of the angiogenin gene in genomic DNA from 207 patients with type 2 diabetes mel itus (129 diabetic peripheral neuropathy patients and 78 diabetic non-neuropathy pa-tients) and 268 healthy controls. Al subjects were from the Han population of northern China. No mutations were found. We then compared the genotype and allele frequencies of the angiogenin synonymous single nucleotide polymorphism rs11701 between the diabetic peripheral neuropathy patients and controls, and between the diabetic neuropathy and non-neuropathy patients, using a case-control design. We detected no statistical y significant genetic associations. Angiogenin may not be associated with genetic susceptibility to diabetic peripheral neuropathy in the Han population of northern China.
Are TMEM genes potential candidate genes for panic disorder?
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
NO, Gregersen; Buttenschøn, Henriette Nørmølle; Hedemand, Anne;
We analysed single nucleotide polymorphisms in two transmembrane genes (TMEM98 and TMEM132E) in panic disorder (PD) patients and control individuals from the Faroe Islands, Denmark and Germany. The genes encode single-pass membrane proteins and are located within chromosome 17q11.2-q12...
Wang, Dan; Gao, Guangping
Safe and effective gene delivery is a prerequisite for successful gene therapy. In the early age of human gene therapy, setbacks due to problematic gene delivery vehicles plagued the exciting therapeutic outcome. However, gene delivery technologies rapidly evolved ever since. With the advancement of gene delivery techniques, gene therapy clinical trials surged during the past decade. As the first gene therapy product has obtained regulatory approval and reached clinic, human gene therapy fina...
Classifying genes to the correct Gene Ontology Slim term in Saccharomyces cerevisiae using neighbouring genes with classification learning
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Tsatsoulis Costas
Full Text Available Abstract Background There is increasing evidence that gene location and surrounding genes influence the functionality of genes in the eukaryotic genome. Knowing the Gene Ontology Slim terms associated with a gene gives us insight into a gene's functionality by informing us how its gene product behaves in a cellular context using three different ontologies: molecular function, biological process, and cellular component. In this study, we analyzed if we could classify a gene in Saccharomyces cerevisiae to its correct Gene Ontology Slim term using information about its location in the genome and information from its nearest-neighbouring genes using classification learning. Results We performed experiments to establish that the MultiBoostAB algorithm using the J48 classifier could correctly classify Gene Ontology Slim terms of a gene given information regarding the gene's location and information from its nearest-neighbouring genes for training. Different neighbourhood sizes were examined to determine how many nearest neighbours should be included around each gene to provide better classification rules. Our results show that by just incorporating neighbour information from each gene's two-nearest neighbours, the percentage of correctly classified genes to their correct Gene Ontology Slim term for each ontology reaches over 80% with high accuracy (reflected in F-measures over 0.80 of the classification rules produced. Conclusions We confirmed that in classifying genes to their correct Gene Ontology Slim term, the inclusion of neighbour information from those genes is beneficial. Knowing the location of a gene and the Gene Ontology Slim information from neighbouring genes gives us insight into that gene's functionality. This benefit is seen by just including information from a gene's two-nearest neighbouring genes.
Erg gene: a human gene related to the ets oncogene
Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)
Reddy, E.S.P.; Rao, V.N.; Papas, T.S.
The authors have isolated a cDNA clone representing the complete coding sequence of a human gene named erg, related to the ets oncogene. Nucleotide sequence analysis of this cDNA (4.6 kilobases long) revealed that this gene encodes a 363-residue protein whose predicted amino acid sequence showed a homology of approx. = 40% and 70% to two domains corresponding to the 5' and 3' regions of v-ets oncogene, respectively. A 3.2- to 3.6-kilobase and approx. = 5-kilobase transcript of the erg gene, which differ in size from those of the previously described Hu-ets 1 and Hu-ets 2 genes, were observed in different cells. These results suggest that the erg gene is a member of the ets oncogen family.
Gene-Gene and Gene-Environment Interactions in Ulcerative Colitis
Wang, Ming-Hsi; FIOCCHI, CLAUDIO; Zhu, Xiaofeng; Ripke, Stephan; Kamboh, M. Ilyas; Rebert, Nancy; Duerr, Richard H.; Achkar, Jean-Paul
Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified at least 133 ulcerative colitis (UC) associated loci. The role of genetic factors in clinical practice is not clearly defined. The relevance of genetic variants to disease pathogenesis is still uncertain because of not characterized gene-gene and gene-environment interactions. We examined the predictive value of combining the 133 UC risk loci with genetic interactions in an ongoing inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) GWAS. The Wellcome Trust...
Evidence Based Selection of Housekeeping Genes
de Jonge, Hendrik J.M.; Fehrmann, Rudolf S. N.; Eveline S. J. M. de Bont; Hofstra, Robert M. W.; Gerbens, Frans; Kamps, Willem A.; Vries, Elisabeth G. E.; van der Zee, Ate G.J.; te Meerman, Gerard J.; ter Elst, Arja
For accurate and reliable gene expression analysis, normalization of gene expression data against housekeeping genes (reference or internal control genes) is required. It is known that commonly used housekeeping genes (e.g. ACTB, GAPDH, HPRT1, and B2M) vary considerably under different experimental conditions and therefore their use for normalization is limited. We performed a meta-analysis of 13,629 human gene array samples in order to identify the most stable expressed genes. Here we show n...
Advancement and prospects of tumor gene therapy
Zhang, Chao; Wang, Qing-Tao; Liu, He; Zhang, Zhen-Zhu; Huang, Wen-Lin
Gene therapy is one of the most attractive fields in tumor therapy. In past decades, significant progress has been achieved. Various approaches, such as viral and non-viral vectors and physical methods, have been developed to make gene delivery safer and more efficient. Several therapeutic strategies have evolved, including gene-based (tumor suppressor genes, suicide genes, antiangiogenic genes, cytokine and oxidative stress-based genes) and RNA-based (antisense oligonucleotides and RNA inter...
Candidate gene prioritization with Endeavour.
Tranchevent, Léon-Charles; Ardeshirdavani, Amin; ElShal, Sarah; Alcaide, Daniel; Aerts, Jan; Auboeuf, Didier; Moreau, Yves
Genomic studies and high-throughput experiments often produce large lists of candidate genes among which only a small fraction are truly relevant to the disease, phenotype or biological process of interest. Gene prioritization tackles this problem by ranking candidate genes by profiling candidates across multiple genomic data sources and integrating this heterogeneous information into a global ranking. We describe an extended version of our gene prioritization method, Endeavour, now available for six species and integrating 75 data sources. The performance (Area Under the Curve) of Endeavour on cross-validation benchmarks using 'gold standard' gene sets varies from 88% (for human phenotypes) to 95% (for worm gene function). In addition, we have also validated our approach using a time-stamped benchmark derived from the Human Phenotype Ontology, which provides a setting close to prospective validation. With this benchmark, using 3854 novel gene-phenotype associations, we observe a performance of 82%. Altogether, our results indicate that this extended version of Endeavour efficiently prioritizes candidate genes. The Endeavour web server is freely available at https://endeavour.esat.kuleuven.be/. PMID:27131783
Candidate genes for behavioural ecology
Fitzpatrick, M.J.; Ben-Sahar, Y.; Smid, H.M.; Vet, L.E.M.; Robinson, G.E.; Sokolowski, M.B.
In spite of millions of years of evolutionary divergence, the conservation of gene function is common across distant lineages. As such, genes that are known to influence behaviour in one organism are likely to influence similar behaviours in other organisms. Recent studies of the evolution of behavi
Gene polymorphisms in chronic periodontitis
M.L. Laine; B.G. Loos; W. Crielaard
We aimed to conduct a review of the literature for gene polymorphisms associated with chronic periodontitis (CP) susceptibility. A comprehensive search of the literature in English was performed using the keywords: periodontitis, periodontal disease, combined with the words genes, mutation, or polym
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Vesth, Tammi Camilla; Brandl, Julian; Andersen, Mikael Rørdam
Secondary metabolites of fungi are receiving an increasing amount of interest due to their prolific bioactivities and the fact that fungal biosynthesis of secondary metabolites often occurs from co-regulated and co-located gene clusters. This makes the gene clusters attractive for synthetic biology...
Determining Semantically Related Significant Genes.
Taha, Kamal
GO relation embodies some aspects of existence dependency. If GO term xis existence-dependent on GO term y, the presence of y implies the presence of x. Therefore, the genes annotated with the function of the GO term y are usually functionally and semantically related to the genes annotated with the function of the GO term x. A large number of gene set enrichment analysis methods have been developed in recent years for analyzing gene sets enrichment. However, most of these methods overlook the structural dependencies between GO terms in GO graph by not considering the concept of existence dependency. We propose in this paper a biological search engine called RSGSearch that identifies enriched sets of genes annotated with different functions using the concept of existence dependency. We observe that GO term xcannot be existence-dependent on GO term y, if x- and y- have the same specificity (biological characteristics). After encoding into a numeric format the contributions of GO terms annotating target genes to the semantics of their lowest common ancestors (LCAs), RSGSearch uses microarray experiment to identify the most significant LCA that annotates the result genes. We evaluated RSGSearch experimentally and compared it with five gene set enrichment systems. Results showed marked improvement.
Multifunctional nanorods for gene delivery
Salem, Aliasger K.; Searson, Peter C.; Leong, Kam W.
The goal of gene therapy is to introduce foreign genes into somatic cells to supplement defective genes or provide additional biological functions, and can be achieved using either viral or synthetic non-viral delivery systems. Compared with viral vectors, synthetic gene-delivery systems, such as liposomes and polymers, offer several advantages including ease of production and reduced risk of cytotoxicity and immunogenicity, but their use has been limited by the relatively low transfection efficiency. This problem mainly stems from the difficulty in controlling their properties at the nanoscale. Synthetic inorganic gene carriers have received limited attention in the gene-therapy community, the only notable example being gold nanoparticles with surface-immobilized DNA applied to intradermal genetic immunization by particle bombardment. Here we present a non-viral gene-delivery system based on multisegment bimetallic nanorods that can simultaneously bind compacted DNA plasmids and targeting ligands in a spatially defined manner. This approach allows precise control of composition, size and multifunctionality of the gene-delivery system. Transfection experiments performed in vitro and in vivo provide promising results that suggest potential in genetic vaccination applications.
Gene electrotransfer in clinical trials
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Gehl, Julie
Electroporation is increasingly being used for delivery of chemotherapy to tumors. Likewise, gene delivery by electroporation is rapidly gaining momentum for both vaccination purposes and for delivery of genes coding for other therapeutic molecules, such as chronic diseases or cancer. This chapte...
Phytochrome-regulated Gene Expression
Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)
Peter H. Quail
Identification of all genes involved in the phytochrome (phy)-mediated responses of plants to their light environment is an important goal in providing an overall understanding of light-regulated growth and development. This article highlights and integrates the central findings of two recent comprehensive studies in Arabidopsis that have identified the genome-wide set of phy-regulated genes that respond rapidly to red-light signals upon first exposure of dark-grown seedlings, and have tested the functional relevance to normal seedling photomorphogenesis of an initial subset of these genes. The data: (a) reveal considerable complexity in the channeling of the light signals through the different phy-family members (phyA to phyE) to responsive genes; (b) identify a diversity of transcription-factor-encoding genes as major early, if not primary, targets of phy signaling, and, therefore, as potentially important regulators in the transcriptional-network hierarchy; and (c) identify auxin-related genes as the dominant class among rapidly-regulated, hormone-related genes. However, reverse-genetic functional profiling of a selected subset of these genes reveals that only a limited fraction are necessary for optimal phy-induced seedling deetiolation.
Nonviral Vectors for Gene Delivery
Baoum, Abdulgader Ahmed
The development of nonviral vectors for safe and efficient gene delivery has been gaining considerable attention recently. An ideal nonviral vector must protect the gene against degradation by nuclease in the extracellular matrix, internalize the plasma membrane, escape from the endosomal compartment, unpackage the gene at some point and have no detrimental effects. In comparison to viruses, nonviral vectors are relatively easy to synthesize, less immunogenic, low in cost, and have no limitation in the size of a gene that can be delivered. Significant progress has been made in the basic science and applications of various nonviral gene delivery vectors; however, the majority of nonviral approaches are still inefficient and often toxic. To this end, two nonviral gene delivery systems using either biodegradable poly(D,L-lactide- co-glycolide) (PLG) nanoparticles or cell penetrating peptide (CPP) complexes have been designed and studied using A549 human lung epithelial cells. PLG nanoparticles were optimized for gene delivery by varying particle surface chemistry using different coating materials that adsorb to the particle surface during formation. A variety of cationic coating materials were studied and compared to more conventional surfactants used for PLG nanoparticle fabrication. Nanoparticles (˜200 nm) efficiently encapsulated plasmids encoding for luciferase (80-90%) and slowly released the same for two weeks. After a delay, moderate levels of gene expression appeared at day 5 for certain positively charged PLG particles and gene expression was maintained for at least two weeks. In contrast, gene expression mediated by polyethyleneimine (PEI) ended at day 5. PLG particles were also significantly less cytotoxic than PEI suggesting the use of these vehicles for localized, sustained gene delivery to the pulmonary epithelium. On the other hand, a more simple method to synthesize 50-200 nm complexes capable of high transfection efficiency or high gene knockdown was
Gene expression in colorectal cancer
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Birkenkamp-Demtroder, Karin; Christensen, Lise Lotte; Olesen, Sanne Harder;
Understanding molecular alterations in colorectal cancer (CRC) is needed to define new biomarkers and treatment targets. We used oligonucleotide microarrays to monitor gene expression of about 6,800 known genes and 35,000 expressed sequence tags (ESTs) on five pools (four to six samples in each...... pool) of total RNA from left-sided sporadic colorectal carcinomas. We compared normal tissue to carcinoma tissue from Dukes' stages A-D (noninvasive to distant metastasis) and identified 908 known genes and 4,155 ESTs that changed remarkably from normal to tumor tissue. Based on intensive filtering 226...... known genes and 157 ESTs were found to be highly relevant for CRC. The alteration of known genes was confirmed in >70% of the cases by array analysis of 25 single samples. Two-way hierarchical average linkage cluster analysis clustered normal tissue together with Dukes' A, clustered Dukes' B with Dukes...
Homeobox gene expression in Brachiopoda
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Altenburger, Andreas; Martinez, Pedro; Wanninger, Andreas
The molecular control that underlies brachiopod ontogeny is largely unknown. In order to contribute to this issue we analyzed the expression pattern of two homeobox containing genes, Not and Cdx, during development of the rhynchonelliform (i.e., articulate) brachiopod Terebratalia transversa....... Not is a homeobox containing gene that regulates the formation of the notochord in chordates, while Cdx (caudal) is a ParaHox gene involved in the formation of posterior tissues of various animal phyla. The T. transversa homolog, TtrNot, is expressed in the ectoderm from the beginning of gastrulation until...... formation. TtrNot expression is absent in unfertilized eggs, in embryos prior to gastrulation, and in settled individuals during and after metamorphosis. Comparison with the expression patterns of Not genes in other metazoan phyla suggests an ancestral role for this gene in gastrulation and germ layer...
Delivery systems for gene therapy
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Shrikant Mali
Full Text Available The structure of DNA was unraveled by Watson and Crick in 1953, and two decades later Arber, Nathans and Smith discovered DNA restriction enzymes, which led to the rapid growth in the field of recombinant DNA technology. From expressing cloned genes in bacteria to expressing foreign DNA in transgenic animals, DNA is now slated to be used as a therapeutic agent to replace defective genes in patients suffering from genetic disorders or to kill tumor cells in cancer patients. Gene therapy provides modern medicine with new perspectives that were unthinkable two decades ago. Progress in molecular biology and especially, molecular medicine is now changing the basics of clinical medicine. A variety of viral and non-viral possibilities are available for basic and clinical research. This review summarizes the delivery routes and methods for gene transfer used in gene therapy.
Function analysis of unknown genes
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Rogowska-Wrzesinska, A.
This thesis entitled "Function analysis of unknown genes" presents the use of proteome analysis for the characterisation of yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) genes and their products (proteins especially those of unknown function). This study illustrates that proteome analysis can be used...... to describe different aspects of molecular biology of the cell, to study changes that occur in the cell due to overexpression or deletion of a gene and to identify various protein modifications. The biological questions and the results of the described studies show the diversity of the information that can...... genes and proteins. It reports the first global proteome database collecting 36 yeast single gene deletion mutants and selecting over 650 differences between analysed mutants and the wild type strain. The obtained results show that two-dimensional gel electrophoresis and mass spectrometry based proteome...
GeneMANIA Prediction Server 2013 Update
Zuberi, Khalid; Franz, Max; Rodriguez, Harold; Montojo, Jason; Lopes, Christian Tannus; Bader, Gary D.; Morris, Quaid
GeneMANIA (http://www.genemania.org) is a flexible user-friendly web interface for generating hypotheses about gene function, analyzing gene lists and prioritizing genes for functional assays. Given a query gene list, GeneMANIA extends the list with functionally similar genes that it identifies using available genomics and proteomics data. GeneMANIA also reports weights that indicate the predictive value of each selected data set for the query. GeneMANIA can also be used in a function predict...
Gene expression profiling: can we identify the right target genes?
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
J. E. Loyd
Full Text Available Gene expression profiling allows the simultaneous monitoring of the transcriptional behaviour of thousands of genes, which may potentially be involved in disease development. Several studies have been performed in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF, which aim to define genetic links to the disease in an attempt to improve the current understanding of the underlying pathogenesis of the disease and target pathways for intervention. Expression profiling has shown a clear difference in gene expression between IPF and normal lung tissue, and has identified a wide range of candidate genes, including those known to encode for proteins involved in extracellular matrix formation and degradation, growth factors and chemokines. Recently, familial pulmonary fibrosis cohorts have been examined in an attempt to detect specific genetic mutations associated with IPF. To date, these studies have identified families in which IPF is associated with mutations in the gene encoding surfactant protein C, or with mutations in genes encoding components of telomerase. Although rare and clearly not responsible for the disease in all individuals, the nature of these mutations highlight the importance of the alveolar epithelium in disease pathogenesis and demonstrate the potential for gene expression profiling in helping to advance the current understanding of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.
Genes and gene networks implicated in aggression related behaviour.
Malki, Karim; Pain, Oliver; Du Rietz, Ebba; Tosto, Maria Grazia; Paya-Cano, Jose; Sandnabba, Kenneth N; de Boer, Sietse; Schalkwyk, Leonard C; Sluyter, Frans
Aggressive behaviour is a major cause of mortality and morbidity. Despite of moderate heritability estimates, progress in identifying the genetic factors underlying aggressive behaviour has been limited. There are currently three genetic mouse models of high and low aggression created using selective breeding. This is the first study to offer a global transcriptomic characterization of the prefrontal cortex across all three genetic mouse models of aggression. A systems biology approach has been applied to transcriptomic data across the three pairs of selected inbred mouse strains (Turku Aggressive (TA) and Turku Non-Aggressive (TNA), Short Attack Latency (SAL) and Long Attack Latency (LAL) mice and North Carolina Aggressive (NC900) and North Carolina Non-Aggressive (NC100)), providing novel insight into the neurobiological mechanisms and genetics underlying aggression. First, weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) was performed to identify modules of highly correlated genes associated with aggression. Probe sets belonging to gene modules uncovered by WGCNA were carried forward for network analysis using ingenuity pathway analysis (IPA). The RankProd non-parametric algorithm was then used to statistically evaluate expression differences across the genes belonging to modules significantly associated with aggression. IPA uncovered two pathways, involving NF-kB and MAPKs. The secondary RankProd analysis yielded 14 differentially expressed genes, some of which have previously been implicated in pathways associated with aggressive behaviour, such as Adrbk2. The results highlighted plausible candidate genes and gene networks implicated in aggression-related behaviour. PMID:25142712
Progress of gene targeting in mouse
Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)
Gene targeting is a powerful approach of study- ing the genefunction in vivo. Specific genetic modifications, including simple gene disruption, point mutations, large chromosomal deletions and rearrangements, targeted incor- poration of foreign genes, could be introduced into the mouse genome by gene targeting. Recent studies make it possible to do the gene targeting with temporal and spatial control.
Genes, Economics, and Happiness.
De Neve, Jan-Emmanuel; Christakis, Nicholas A; Fowler, James H; Frey, Bruno S
We explore the influence of genetic variation on subjective well-being by employing a twin design and genetic association study. In a nationally-representative twin sample, we first show that about 33% of the variation in life satisfaction is explained by genetic variation. Although previous studies have shown that baseline happiness is significantly heritable, little research has considered molecular genetic associations with subjective well-being. We study the relationship between a functional polymorphism on the serotonin transporter gene (5-HTTLPR) and life satisfaction. We initially find that individuals with the longer, transcriptionally more efficient variant of this genotype report greater life satisfaction (n=2,545, p=0.012). However, our replication attempts on independent samples produce mixed results indicating that more work needs to be done to better understand the relationship between this genotype and subjective well-being. This work has implications for how economists think about the determinants of utility, and the extent to which exogenous shocks might affect individual well-being.
Farrelly, C
The way people think about equality as a value will influence how they think genetic interventions should be regulated. In this paper the author uses the taxonomy of equality put forth by Derek Parfit and applies this to the issue of genetic interventions. It is argued that telic egalitarianism is untenable and that deontic egalitarianism collapses into prioritarianism. The priority view maintains that it is morally more important to benefit the people who are worse off. Once this precision has been given to the concerns egalitarians have, a number of diverse issues must be considered before determining what the just regulation of genetic interventions would be. Consideration must be given to the current situation of the least advantaged, the fiscal realities behind genetic interventions, the budget constraints on other social programmes egalitarians believe should receive scarce public funds, and the interconnected nature of genetic information. These considerations might lead egalitarians to abandon what they take to be the obvious policy recommendations for them to endorse regarding the regulation of gene therapies and enhancements. PMID:15574450
Genes, Economics, and Happiness.
De Neve, Jan-Emmanuel; Christakis, Nicholas A; Fowler, James H; Frey, Bruno S
We explore the influence of genetic variation on subjective well-being by employing a twin design and genetic association study. In a nationally-representative twin sample, we first show that about 33% of the variation in life satisfaction is explained by genetic variation. Although previous studies have shown that baseline happiness is significantly heritable, little research has considered molecular genetic associations with subjective well-being. We study the relationship between a functional polymorphism on the serotonin transporter gene (5-HTTLPR) and life satisfaction. We initially find that individuals with the longer, transcriptionally more efficient variant of this genotype report greater life satisfaction (n=2,545, p=0.012). However, our replication attempts on independent samples produce mixed results indicating that more work needs to be done to better understand the relationship between this genotype and subjective well-being. This work has implications for how economists think about the determinants of utility, and the extent to which exogenous shocks might affect individual well-being. PMID:24349601
Gene Electrotransfer: A Mechanistic Perspective.
Rosazza, Christelle; Meglic, Sasa Haberl; Zumbusch, Andreas; Rols, Marie-Pierre; Miklavcic, Damijan
Gene electrotransfer is a powerful method of DNA delivery offering several medical applications, among the most promising of which are DNA vaccination and gene therapy for cancer treatment. Electroporation entails the application of electric fields to cells which then experience a local and transient change of membrane permeability. Although gene electrotransfer has been extensively studied in in vitro and in vivo environments, the mechanisms by which DNA enters and navigates through cells are not fully understood. Here we present a comprehensive review of the body of knowledge concerning gene electrotransfer that has been accumulated over the last three decades. For that purpose, after briefly reviewing the medical applications that gene electrotransfer can provide, we outline membrane electropermeabilization, a key process for the delivery of DNA and smaller molecules. Since gene electrotransfer is a multipart process, we proceed our review in describing step by step our current understanding, with particular emphasis on DNA internalization and intracellular trafficking. Finally, we turn our attention to in vivo testing and methodology for gene electrotransfer. PMID:27029943
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
J. Peter W. Young
Full Text Available Genes have been in the scientific vocabulary for a hundred years. The term "gene" was proposed by the Danish plant scientist Wilhelm Johannsen in the first decade of the 20th century. For Johannsen, the gene remained an abstract concept, "free of any hypothesis" [1], but others were already pointing to chromosomes as the likely location of genes. The science of genetics was born at that time, and genes were rapidly connected with mutations, with patterns of inheritance, with development, with quantitative traits, with evolution and with biochemical pathways. All this was achieved without knowledge of the physical nature of genes, but this changed in mid-century with the discoveries of molecular biology. DNA was revealed as the genetic material, and the mechanisms were elucidated by which the information was encoded, and propagated, and linked to the phenotype. However, the concept of a "gene" did not become clearer. Quite the reverse, as the units of mutation, of recombination, of inheritance, of expression, of regulation, etc. did not necessarily coincide. [...
Linking Genes to Cardiovascular Diseases: Gene Action and Gene-Environment Interactions.
Pasipoularides, Ares
A unique myocardial characteristic is its ability to grow/remodel in order to adapt; this is determined partly by genes and partly by the environment and the milieu intérieur. In the "post-genomic" era, a need is emerging to elucidate the physiologic functions of myocardial genes, as well as potential adaptive and maladaptive modulations induced by environmental/epigenetic factors. Genome sequencing and analysis advances have become exponential lately, with escalation of our knowledge concerning sometimes controversial genetic underpinnings of cardiovascular diseases. Current technologies can identify candidate genes variously involved in diverse normal/abnormal morphomechanical phenotypes, and offer insights into multiple genetic factors implicated in complex cardiovascular syndromes. The expression profiles of thousands of genes are regularly ascertained under diverse conditions. Global analyses of gene expression levels are useful for cataloging genes and correlated phenotypes, and for elucidating the role of genes in maladies. Comparative expression of gene networks coupled to complex disorders can contribute insights as to how "modifier genes" influence the expressed phenotypes. Increasingly, a more comprehensive and detailed systematic understanding of genetic abnormalities underlying, for example, various genetic cardiomyopathies is emerging. Implementing genomic findings in cardiology practice may well lead directly to better diagnosing and therapeutics. There is currently evolving a strong appreciation for the value of studying gene anomalies, and doing so in a non-disjointed, cohesive manner. However, it is challenging for many-practitioners and investigators-to comprehend, interpret, and utilize the clinically increasingly accessible and affordable cardiovascular genomics studies. This survey addresses the need for fundamental understanding in this vital area.
GeneNet: a database on structure and functional organisation of gene networks
Ananko, E A; Podkolodny, N. L.; Stepanenko, I. L.; Ignatieva, E. V.; Podkolodnaya, O. A.; Kolchanov, N. A.
The GeneNet database is designed for accumulation of information on gene networks. Original technology applied in GeneNet enables description of not only a gene network structure and functional relationships between components, but also metabolic and signal transduction pathways. Specialised software, GeneNet Viewer, automatically displays the graphical diagram of gene networks described in the database. Current release 3.0 of GeneNet database contains descriptions of 25 gene networks, 945 pr...
Genes Might Explain Hispanics' Added Longevity
... page: https://medlineplus.gov/news/fullstory_160528.html Genes Might Explain Hispanics' Added Longevity Differences in 'genetic ... Services, or federal policy. More Health News on: Genes and Gene Therapy Hispanic American Health Recent Health ...
Personalized Medicine: Matching Treatments to Your Genes
... disclaimer . Subscribe Personalized Medicine Matching Treatments to Your Genes You're one of a kind. It's not ... personalized medicine begins with the unique set of genes you inherited from your parents. Genes are stretches ...
Basics on Genes and Genetic Disorders
... Help a Friend Who Cuts? The Basics on Genes and Genetic Disorders KidsHealth > For Teens > The Basics ... such as treating health problems. What Is a Gene? To understand how genes work, let's review some ...
Gene Therapy for Diseases and Genetic Disorders
... Mentor Submit Your Press Release Donate Home ASGCT Gene Therapy for Diseases Gene Therapy has made important ... Among the most notable advancements are the following: Gene Therapy for Genetic Disorders Severe Combined Immune Deficiency ( ...
The Ensembl gene annotation system.
Aken, Bronwen L; Ayling, Sarah; Barrell, Daniel; Clarke, Laura; Curwen, Valery; Fairley, Susan; Fernandez Banet, Julio; Billis, Konstantinos; García Girón, Carlos; Hourlier, Thibaut; Howe, Kevin; Kähäri, Andreas; Kokocinski, Felix; Martin, Fergal J; Murphy, Daniel N; Nag, Rishi; Ruffier, Magali; Schuster, Michael; Tang, Y Amy; Vogel, Jan-Hinnerk; White, Simon; Zadissa, Amonida; Flicek, Paul; Searle, Stephen M J
The Ensembl gene annotation system has been used to annotate over 70 different vertebrate species across a wide range of genome projects. Furthermore, it generates the automatic alignment-based annotation for the human and mouse GENCODE gene sets. The system is based on the alignment of biological sequences, including cDNAs, proteins and RNA-seq reads, to the target genome in order to construct candidate transcript models. Careful assessment and filtering of these candidate transcripts ultimately leads to the final gene set, which is made available on the Ensembl website. Here, we describe the annotation process in detail.Database URL: http://www.ensembl.org/index.html. PMID:27337980
Correction of gene expression data
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Darbani Shirvanehdeh, Behrooz; Stewart, C. Neal, Jr.; Noeparvar, Shahin;
This report investigates for the first time the potential inter-treatment bias source of cell number for gene expression studies. Cell-number bias can affect gene expression analysis when comparing samples with unequal total cellular RNA content or with different RNA extraction efficiencies....... For maximal reliability of analysis, therefore, comparisons should be performed at the cellular level. This could be accomplished using an appropriate correction method that can detect and remove the inter-treatment bias for cell-number. Based on inter-treatment variations of reference genes, we introduce...
Panspermia and horizontal gene transfer
Klyce, Brig
Evidence that extremophiles are hardy and ubiquitous is helping to make panspermia a respectable theory. But even if life on Earth originally came from space, biologists assume that the subsequent evolution of life is still governed by the darwinian paradigm. In this review we show how panspermia could amend darwinism and point to a cosmic source for, not only extremophiles but, all of life. This version of panspermia can be called "strong panspermia." To support this theory we will discuss recent evidence pertaining to horizontal gene transfer, viruses, genes apparently older than the Earthly evolution of the features they encode, and primate-specific genes without identifiable precursors.
[Pathogenicity and pneumococcal capsular genes].
García, E; García, P; López, R
Pneumococci remain to be one of the most prominent human pathogens. Increasing efforts are being dedicated to the development of improved vaccines with wider specificity. Since a clear understanding of the genetics of capsular types in Streptococcus pneumoniae is missing, our efforts are oriented to characterize, at the molecular level, the genes involved in capsular polysaccharide biosynthesis. We have cloned and sequenced a chromosomal DNA fragment of a clinical isolate of type 3 pneumococcus and showed that it contains a type 3 specific gene as well as genes common to other serotypes.
Parsimonious selection of useful genes in microarray gene expression data
González Navarro, Félix Fernando; Belanche Muñoz, Luis Antonio
Machine Learning methods have of late made significant efforts to solving multidisciplinary problems in the field of cancer classification in microarray gene expression data. These tasks are characterized by a large number of features and a few observations, making the modeling a non-trivial undertaking. In this work we apply entropic filter methods for gene selection, in combination with several off-the-shelf classifiers. The introduction of bootstrap resampling techniques permits the achiev...
Integrating Gene Ontology and Blast to predict gene functions
Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)
WANG Cheng-gang; MO Zhi-hong
A GoBlast system was built to predict gene function by integrating Blast search and Gene Ontology (GO) annotations together. The operation system was based on Debian Linux 3.1, with Apache as the web server and Mysql database as the data storage system. FASTA files with GO annotations were taken as the sequence source for blast alignment, which were formatted by wu-formatdb program. The GoBlast system includes three Bioperl modules in Perl: a data input module, a data process module and a data output module. A GoBlast query starts with an amino acid or nucleotide sequence. It ends with an output in an html page, presenting high scoring gene products which are of a high homology to the queried sequence and listing associated GO terms beside respective gene poducts. A simple click on a GO term leads to the detailed explanation of the specific gene function. This avails gene function prediction by Blast. GoBlast can be a very useful tool for functional genome research and is available for free at http://bioq.org/goblast.
Viral vectors for vascular gene therapy
Fischer, Lukas; Preis, Meir; Weisz, Anat; Koren, Belly; Lewis, Basil S; Flugelman, Moshe Y
Vascular gene therapy is the focus of multiple experimental and clinical research efforts. While several genes with therapeutic potential have been identified, the best method of gene delivery is unknown. Viral vectors have the capacity to transfer genes at high efficiency rates. Several viral-based vectors have been used in experimental vascular gene therapy for in vivo and ex vivo gene transfer. Adenoviral-based vectors are being used for the induction of angiogenesis in phase 1 and 2 clini...
Evolution of the nuclear receptor gene superfamily.
Laudet, V; Hänni, C; Coll, J.; F. Catzeflis; Stéhelin, D
Nuclear receptor genes represent a large family of genes encoding receptors for various hydrophobic ligands such as steroids, vitamin D, retinoic acid and thyroid hormones. This family also contains genes encoding putative receptors for unknown ligands. Nuclear receptor gene products are composed of several domains important for transcriptional activation, DNA binding (C domain), hormone binding and dimerization (E domain). It is not known whether these genes have evolved through gene duplica...
Evolution of alternative splicing after gene duplication
Su, Zhixi; Wang, Jianmin; Yu, Jun; Huang, Xiaoqiu; Gu, Xun
Alternative splicing and gene duplication are two major sources of proteomic function diversity. Here, we study the evolutionary trend of alternative splicing after gene duplication by analyzing the alternative splicing differences between duplicate genes. We observed that duplicate genes have fewer alternative splice (AS) forms than single-copy genes, and that a negative correlation exists between the mean number of AS forms and the gene family size. Interestingly, we found that the loss of ...
MADS-box gene evolution - structure and transcription patterns
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Johansen, Bo; Pedersen, Louise Buchholt; Skipper, Martin;
Mads-box genes, ABC model, Evolution, Phylogeny, Transcription patterns, Gene structure, Conserved motifs......Mads-box genes, ABC model, Evolution, Phylogeny, Transcription patterns, Gene structure, Conserved motifs...
The evolution of resistance gene in plants
Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)
BEN Haiyan; LIU Xuemin; LI Lijun; LIU Li
Resistance genes enable plants to fight against plant pathogens. Plant resistance genes (R gene) are organized complexly in genome. Some resistance gene sequence data enable an insight into R gene structure and gene evolution. Some sites like Leucine-Rich Repeat (LRR) are of specific interest since homologous recombination can happen. Crossing over, transposon insertion and excision and mutation can produce new specificity. Three models explaining R gene evolution were discussed. More information needed for dissection of R gene evolution though some step can be inferred from genetic and sequence analysis.
Gene Therapy for Parkinson's Disease
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Rachel Denyer
Full Text Available Current pharmacological and surgical treatments for Parkinson's disease offer symptomatic improvements to those suffering from this incurable degenerative neurological disorder, but none of these has convincingly shown effects on disease progression. Novel approaches based on gene therapy have several potential advantages over conventional treatment modalities. These could be used to provide more consistent dopamine supplementation, potentially providing superior symptomatic relief with fewer side effects. More radically, gene therapy could be used to correct the imbalances in basal ganglia circuitry associated with the symptoms of Parkinson's disease, or to preserve or restore dopaminergic neurons lost during the disease process itself. The latter neuroprotective approach is the most exciting, as it could theoretically be disease modifying rather than simply symptom alleviating. Gene therapy agents using these approaches are currently making the transition from the laboratory to the bedside. This paper summarises the theoretical approaches to gene therapy for Parkinson's disease and the findings of clinical trials in this rapidly changing field.
Gene discovery in Triatoma infestans
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
de Burgos Nelia
Full Text Available Abstract Background Triatoma infestans is the most relevant vector of Chagas disease in the southern cone of South America. Since its genome has not yet been studied, sequencing of Expressed Sequence Tags (ESTs is one of the most powerful tools for efficiently identifying large numbers of expressed genes in this insect vector. Results In this work, we generated 826 ESTs, resulting in an increase of 47% in the number of ESTs available for T. infestans. These ESTs were assembled in 471 unique sequences, 151 of which represent 136 new genes for the Reduviidae family. Conclusions Among the putative new genes for the Reduviidae family, we identified and described an interesting subset of genes involved in development and reproduction, which constitute potential targets for insecticide development.
Gene therapy in lung transplantation.
Sato, Masaaki; Keshavjee, Shaf
Lung transplantation is effective life-saving therapy for the treatment of a variety of end-stage lung diseases. However, the application of lung transplantation is hindered by multiple factors such as the shortage of organ donors, early graft failure and chronic graft dysfunction. These problems are related to various lung injuries before and after transplantation including donor brain-death-related lung injury, ischemia, reperfusion and immune-mediated injuries. Gene transfection presents a potential molecular therapeutic solution to modify the transplanted organ such that it is better able to deal with these obstacles. In fact, in many ways lung transplantation is an ideal situation for gene therapy in that: 1) the targeted injuries are predictable (e.g. IR injury), 2) only transient gene expression is needed in many instances, 3) the immunosuppressive regimen necessary to prevent rejection of the transplanted organ attenuates vector-induced inflammation and the immune response to the vectors or the transgene products, and thus effectively augments and prolongs gene expression; 4) the anatomical structure of the lung enables trans-airway access and local gene delivery - as well as re-transfection. A number of issues need to be considered to develop a strategy of gene delivery in lung transplantation: administration route (intra-airway, trans-vascular, intravenous, intramuscular), timing (donor in-vivo, ex-vivo organ transfection or recipient), vector selection and gene selection. Based on our work and the work of others, over the last decade, we present the state of art of in gene therapy in lung transplantation and exciting future directions in the field. PMID:16918334
Shuffling Yeast Gene Expression Data
Bilke, Sven
A new method to sort gene expression patterns into functional groups is presented. The method is based on a sorting algorithm using a non-local similarity score, which takes all other patterns in the dataset into account. The method is therefore very robust with respect to noise. Using the expression data for yeast, we extract information about functional groups. Without prior knowledge of parameters the cell cycle regulated genes in yeast can be identified. Furthermore a second, independent ...
Gene mutations in hepatocellular adenomas
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Raft, Marie B; Jørgensen, Ernö N; Vainer, Ben
is associated with bi-allelic mutations in the TCF1 gene and morphologically has marked steatosis. β-catenin activating HCA has increased activity of the Wnt/β-catenin pathway and is associated with possible malignant transformation. Inflammatory HCA is characterized by an oncogene-induced inflammation due....... This review offers an overview of the reported gene mutations associated with hepatocellular adenomas together with a discussion of the diagnostic and prognostic value....
Transgenic Arabidopsis Gene Expression System
Ferl, Robert; Paul, Anna-Lisa
The Transgenic Arabidopsis Gene Expression System (TAGES) investigation is one in a pair of investigations that use the Advanced Biological Research System (ABRS) facility. TAGES uses Arabidopsis thaliana, thale cress, with sensor promoter-reporter gene constructs that render the plants as biomonitors (an organism used to determine the quality of the surrounding environment) of their environment using real-time nondestructive Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP) imagery and traditional postflight analyses.
Gemini surfactants as gene carriers
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Teresa Piskorska
Full Text Available Gemini surfactants are a new class of amphiphilic compounds built from two classic surfactant moieties bound together by a special spacer group. These compounds appear to be excellent for creating complexes with DNA and are effective in mediating transfection. Thanks to their construction, DNA carrier molecules built from gemini surfactants are able to deliver genes to cells of almost any DNA molecule size, unattainable when using viral gene delivery systems. Moreover, they are much safer for living organisms.
Gene therapy in clinical medicine
Selkirk, S
Although the field of gene therapy has experienced significant setbacks and limited success, it is one of the most promising and active research fields in medicine. Interest in this therapeutic modality is based on the potential for treatment and cure of some of the most malignant and devastating diseases affecting humans. Over the next decade, the relevance of gene therapy to medical practices will increase and it will become important for physicians to understand the basic principles and st...
Vascular gene expression: a hypothesis
Martínez-Navarro, Angélica C.; Galván-Gordillo, Santiago V.; Xoconostle-Cázares, Beatriz; Ruiz-Medrano, Roberto
The phloem is the conduit through which photoassimilates are distributed from autotrophic to heterotrophic tissues and is involved in the distribution of signaling molecules that coordinate plant growth and responses to the environment. Phloem function depends on the coordinate expression of a large array of genes. We have previously identified conserved motifs in upstream regions of the Arabidopsis genes, encoding the homologs of pumpkin phloem sap mRNAs, displaying expression in vascular ti...
Rice's Salt Tolerance Gene Cloned
Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)
@@ In cooperation with US colleagues, CAS researchers have made significant progress in their studies into functional genes for key agronomic traits by cloning SKC1, a salt-tolerant functional gene of rice and making clear its biological functions and mechanisms. This pioneering work,which was reported in the Oct. issue of Nature Genetics (37:1141-1146), is believed to hold promise to increase the output of the crop plant in this country.
Gene Polymorphisms in Chronic Periodontitis
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Marja L. Laine
Full Text Available We aimed to conduct a review of the literature for gene polymorphisms associated with chronic periodontitis (CP susceptibility. A comprehensive search of the literature in English was performed using the keywords: periodontitis, periodontal disease, combined with the words genes, mutation, or polymorphism. Candidate gene polymorphism studies with a case-control design and reported genotype frequencies in CP patients were searched and reviewed. There is growing evidence that polymorphisms in the IL1, IL6, IL10, vitamin D receptor, and CD14 genes may be associated with CP in certain populations. However, carriage rates of the rare (-allele of any polymorphism varied considerably among studies and most of the studies appeared under-powered and did not correct for other risk factors. Larger cohorts, well-defined phenotypes, control for other risk factors, and analysis of multiple genes and polymorphisms within the same pathway are needed to get a more comprehensive insight into the contribution of gene polymorphisms in CP.
Cationic Bolaamphiphiles for Gene Delivery
Tan, Amelia Li Min; Lim, Alisa Xue Ling; Zhu, Yiting; Yang, Yi Yan; Khan, Majad
Advances in medical research have shed light on the genetic cause of many human diseases. Gene therapy is a promising approach which can be used to deliver therapeutic genes to treat genetic diseases at its most fundamental level. In general, nonviral vectors are preferred due to reduced risk of immune response, but they are also commonly associated with low transfection efficiency and high cytotoxicity. In contrast to viral vectors, nonviral vectors do not have a natural mechanism to overcome extra- and intracellular barriers when delivering the therapeutic gene into cell. Hence, its design has been increasingly complex to meet challenges faced in targeting of, penetration of and expression in a specific host cell in achieving more satisfactory transfection efficiency. Flexibility in design of the vector is desirable, to enable a careful and controlled manipulation of its properties and functions. This can be met by the use of bolaamphiphile, a special class of lipid. Unlike conventional lipids, bolaamphiphiles can form asymmetric complexes with the therapeutic gene. The advantage of having an asymmetric complex lies in the different purposes served by the interior and exterior of the complex. More effective gene encapsulation within the interior of the complex can be achieved without triggering greater aggregation of serum proteins with the exterior, potentially overcoming one of the great hurdles faced by conventional single-head cationic lipids. In this review, we will look into the physiochemical considerations as well as the biological aspects of a bolaamphiphile-based gene delivery system.
Immunoglobulin genes of the turtles.
Magadán-Mompó, Susana; Sánchez-Espinel, Christian; Gambón-Deza, Francisco
The availability of reptile genomes for the use of the scientific community is an exceptional opportunity to study the evolution of immunoglobulin genes. The genome of Chrysemys picta bellii and Pelodiscus sinensis is the first one that has been reported for turtles. The scanning for immunoglobulin genes resulted in the presence of a complex locus for the immunoglobulin heavy chain (IGH). This IGH locus in both turtles contains genes for 13 isotypes in C. picta bellii and 17 in P. sinensis. These correspond with one immunoglobulin M, one immunoglobulin D, several immunoglobulins Y (six in C. picta bellii and eight in P. sinensis), and several immunoglobulins that are similar to immunoglobulin D2 (five in C. picta belli and seven in P. sinensis) that was previously described in Eublepharis macularius. It is worthy to note that IGHD2 are placed in an inverted transcriptional orientation and present sequences for two immunoglobulin domains that are similar to bird IgA domains. Furthermore, its phylogenetic analysis allows us to consider about the presence of IGHA gene in a primitive reptile, so we would be dealing with the memory of the gene that originated from the bird IGHA. In summary, we provide a clear picture of the immunoglobulins present in a turtle, whose analysis supports the idea that turtles emerged from the evolutionary line from the differentiation of birds and the presence of the IGHA gene present in a common ancestor.
Origin and evolution of new genes
Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)
LI Xin; YANG Shuang; PENG Lixin; CHEN Hong; WANG Wen
Organisms have variable genome sizes andcontain different numbers of genes. This difference demonstrates that new gene origination is a fundamental process in evolutionary biology. Though the study of the origination of new genes dated back more than half a century ago, it is not until the 1990s when the first young genejingwei was found that empirical investigation of the molecular mechanisms of origination of new genes became possible. In the recent years,several young genes were identified and the studies on these genes have greatly enriched the knowledge of this field. Yet more details in a general picture of new genes origination are to be clarified. We have developed a systematic approach to searching for young genes at the genomic level, in the hope to summarize a general pattern of the origination and evolution of new genes, such as the rate of new gene appearance, impact of new genes on their host genomes, etc.
Noninvasive tracking of gene transcript and neuroprotection after gene therapy.
Ren, J; Chen, Y I; Liu, C H; Chen, P-C; Prentice, H; Wu, J-Y; Liu, P K
Gene therapy holds exceptional potential for translational medicine by improving the products of defective genes in diseases and/or providing necessary biologics from endogenous sources during recovery processes. However, validating methods for the delivery, distribution and expression of the exogenous genes from such therapy can generally not be applicable to monitor effects over the long term because they are invasive. We report here that human granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (hG-CSF) complimentary DNA (cDNA) encoded in self-complementary adeno-associated virus-type 2 adeno-associated virus, as delivered through eye drops at multiple time points after cerebral ischemia using bilateral carotid occlusion for 60 min (BCAO-60) led to significant reduction in mortality rates, cerebral atrophy and neurological deficits in C57black6 mice. Most importantly, we validated hG-CSF cDNA expression using translatable magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in living brains. This noninvasive approach for monitoring exogenous gene expression in the brains has potential for great impact in the area of experimental gene therapy in animal models of heart attack, stroke, Alzheimer's dementia, Parkinson's disorder and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and the translation of such techniques to emergency medicine. PMID:26207935
Sequencing and Gene Expression Analysis of Leishmania tropica LACK Gene.
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Nour Hammoudeh
Full Text Available Leishmania Homologue of receptors for Activated C Kinase (LACK antigen is a 36-kDa protein, which provokes a very early immune response against Leishmania infection. There are several reports on the expression of LACK through different life-cycle stages of genus Leishmania, but only a few of them have focused on L.tropica.The present study provides details of the cloning, DNA sequencing and gene expression of LACK in this parasite species. First, several local isolates of Leishmania parasites were typed in our laboratory using PCR technique to verify of Leishmania parasite species. After that, LACK gene was amplified and cloned into a vector for sequencing. Finally, the expression of this molecule in logarithmic and stationary growth phase promastigotes, as well as in amastigotes, was evaluated by Reverse Transcription-PCR (RT-PCR technique.The typing result confirmed that all our local isolates belong to L.tropica. LACK gene sequence was determined and high similarity was observed with the sequences of other Leishmania species. Furthermore, the expression of LACK gene in both promastigotes and amastigotes forms was confirmed.Overall, the data set the stage for future studies of the properties and immune role of LACK gene products.
Newer Gene Editing Technologies toward HIV Gene Therapy
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Premlata Shankar
Full Text Available Despite the great success of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART in ameliorating the course of HIV infection, alternative therapeutic approaches are being pursued because of practical problems associated with life-long therapy. The eradication of HIV in the so-called "Berlin patient" who received a bone marrow transplant from a CCR5-negative donor has rekindled interest in genome engineering strategies to achieve the same effect. Precise gene editing within the cells is now a realistic possibility with recent advances in understanding the DNA repair mechanisms, DNA interaction with transcription factors and bacterial defense mechanisms. Within the past few years, four novel technologies have emerged that can be engineered for recognition of specific DNA target sequences to enable site-specific gene editing: Homing Endonuclease, ZFN, TALEN, and CRISPR/Cas9 system. The most recent CRISPR/Cas9 system uses a short stretch of complementary RNA bound to Cas9 nuclease to recognize and cleave target DNA, as opposed to the previous technologies that use DNA binding motifs of either zinc finger proteins or transcription activator-like effector molecules fused to an endonuclease to mediate sequence-specific DNA cleavage. Unlike RNA interference, which requires the continued presence of effector moieties to maintain gene silencing, the newer technologies allow permanent disruption of the targeted gene after a single treatment. Here, we review the applications, limitations and future prospects of novel gene-editing strategies for use as HIV therapy.
Characterizing gene-gene interactions in a statistical epistasis network of twelve candidate genes for obesity
Rishika; Hu, Ting; Moore, Jason H.; Gilbert-Diamond, Diane
Background Recent findings have reemphasized the importance of epistasis, or gene-gene interactions, as a contributing factor to the unexplained heritability of obesity. Network-based methods such as statistical epistasis networks (SEN), present an intuitive framework to address the computational challenge of studying pairwise interactions between thousands of genetic variants. In this study, we aimed to analyze pairwise interactions that are associated with Body Mass Index (BMI) between SNPs...
A gene sets approach for identifying prognostic gene signatures for outcome prediction
Kim Yong Sung; Kim Seon-Young
Abstract Background Gene expression profiling is a promising approach to better estimate patient prognosis; however, there are still unresolved problems, including little overlap among similarly developed gene sets and poor performance of a developed gene set in other datasets. Results We applied a gene sets approach to develop a prognostic gene set from multiple gene expression datasets. By analyzing 12 independent breast cancer gene expression datasets comprising 1,756 tissues with 2,411 pr...
How Gene Patents May Inhibit Scientific Research
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Campo-Engelstein, Lisa
Full Text Available In this paper, we point out three possible ways gene patents could impede scientific research. First, gene patent laws might exacerbate the culture of secrecy ubiquitous in science. Second, gene patents may limit researchers' ability to study poly or multigenic diseases without access to all genetic etiologies. Third, gene patents could result in a "patent thicket".
Analysis of Duplicate Genes in Soybean
Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)
C.M. Cai; K.J. Van; M.Y. Kim; S.H. Lee
@@ Gene duplication is a major determinant of the size and gene complement of eukaryotic genomes (Lockton and Gaut, 2005). There are a number of different ways in which duplicate genes can arise (Sankoff, 2001), but the most spectacular method of gene duplication may be whole genome duplication via polyploidization.
Deregulated genes in sporadic vestibular schwannomas
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Cayé-Thomasen, Per; Helweg-Larsen, Rehannah Holga Andrea; Stangerup, Sven-Eric;
In search of genes associated with vestibular schwannoma tumorigenesis, this study examines the gene expression in human vestibular nerve versus vestibular schwannoma tissue samples using microarray technology.......In search of genes associated with vestibular schwannoma tumorigenesis, this study examines the gene expression in human vestibular nerve versus vestibular schwannoma tissue samples using microarray technology....
The KCNE genes in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy: a candidate gene study
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Hedley, Paula L; Haundrup, Ole; Andersen, Paal S;
The gene family KCNE1-5, which encode modulating β-subunits of several repolarising K+-ion channels, has been associated with genetic cardiac diseases such as long QT syndrome, atrial fibrillation and Brugada syndrome. The minK peptide, encoded by KCNE1, is attached to the Z-disc of the sarcomere...... as well as the T-tubules of the sarcolemma. It has been suggested that minK forms part of an "electro-mechanical feed-back" which links cardiomyocyte stretching to changes in ion channel function. We examined whether mutations in KCNE genes were associated with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), a...
Gene expression profiles in skeletal muscle after gene electrotransfer
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Hojman, Pernille; Zibert, John R; Gissel, Hanne;
BACKGROUND: Gene transfer by electroporation (DNA electrotransfer) to muscle results in high level long term transgenic expression, showing great promise for treatment of e.g. protein deficiency syndromes. However little is known about the effects of DNA electrotransfer on muscle fibres. We have...... investigated by microarray analysis, and descriptive statistics were performed to evaluate the effects of 1) electroporation, 2) DNA injection, and 3) time after treatment. The biological significance of the results was assessed by gene annotation and supervised cluster analysis.Generally, electroporation...
Gene therapy and radiotherapy in malignant tumor
International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
Tumor treatment is one of the most important fields in medical research. Nowadays, a novel method which is combined gene therapy with radiotherapy plays an important role in the field of cancer research, and mainly includes immune gene therapy combined with radiotherapy, suicide gene therapy or tumor suppressor gene therapy combined with radiotherapy, antiangiogenesis gene therapy combined with radiotherapy and protective gene therapy combined with radiotherapy based on the technical features. This review summarized the current status of combined therapies of gene therapy and radiotherapy and possible mechanism. (authors)
Lu, Zhiyong; Cohen, K Bretonnel; Hunter, Lawrence
A Gene Reference Into Function (GeneRIF) is a concise phrase describing a function of a gene in the Entrez Gene database. Applying techniques from the area of natural language processing known as automatic summarization, it is possible to link the Entrez Gene database, the Gene Ontology, and the biomedical literature. A system was implemented that automatically suggests a sentence from a PubMed/MEDLINE abstract as a candidate GeneRIF by exploiting a gene's GO annotations along with location f...
Molecular Studies on Preproinsulin Gene
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Sabir Sarah
Full Text Available Insulin plays an important role in maintaining the blood glucose level of the body. The β-cells of pancreas produce insulin in the form of precursor that is preproinsulin. The gene of preproinsulin provides an interesting system for addressing question related to molecular evolution. Recombinant DNA technology has made it possible to isolate and sequence the chromosomal genes coding for unique protein products. Although preproinsulin of various organism has been isolated and cloned, but there is no report from buffalo (Bubalus bubalis that is our major livestock. The genomic DNA of buffalo was isolated using Laura-Lee-Boodram method. The part of preproinsulin gene (596bp and 520bp using BPPI-UPS and bpiful_F as forward and BC1-C as reverse primer was amplified. Cloning of amplified fragments of gene were performed in pCR 2.1 vector. Positive clones were screened on the basis of blue white selection. The band obtained on 596bp and 520bp after colony PCR confirmed the successful cloning of preproinsulin gene in pCR 2.1 vector.
Melatonin Receptor Genes in Vertebrates
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Hua Dong Yin
Full Text Available Melatonin receptors are members of the G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR family. Three genes for melatonin receptors have been cloned. The MT1 (or Mel1a or MTNR1A and MT2 (or Mel1b or MTNR1B receptor subtypes are present in humans and other mammals, while an additional melatonin receptor subtype, Mel1c (or MTNR1C, has been identified in fish, amphibians and birds. Another melatonin related orphan receptor, GPR50, which does not bind melatonin, is found exclusively in mammals. The hormone melatonin is secreted primarily by the pineal gland, with highest levels occurring during the dark period of a circadian cycle. This hormone acts systemically in numerous organs. In the brain, it is involved in the regulation of various neural and endocrine processes, and it readjusts the circadian pacemaker, the suprachiasmatic nucleus. This article reviews recent studies of gene organization, expression, evolution and mutations of melatonin receptor genes of vertebrates. Gene polymorphisms reveal that numerous mutations are associated with diseases and disorders. The phylogenetic analysis of receptor genes indicates that GPR50 is an outgroup to all other melatonin receptor sequences. GPR50 may have separated from a melatonin receptor ancestor before the split between MTNR1C and the MTNR1A/B ancestor.
Chi-Castañeda, Donají
Circadian rhythms are periodic patterns in biological processes that allow the organisms to anticipate changes in the environment. These rhythms are driven by the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), the master circadian clock in vertebrates. At a molecular level, circadian rhythms are regulated by the so-called clock genes, which oscillate in a periodic manner. The protein products of clock genes are transcription factors that control their own and other genes' transcription, collectively known as "clock-controlled genes." Several brain regions other than the SCN express circadian rhythms of clock genes, including the amygdala, the olfactory bulb, the retina, and the cerebellum. Glia cells in these structures are expected to participate in rhythmicity. However, only certain types of glia cells may be called "glial clocks," since they express PER-based circadian oscillators, which depend of the SCN for their synchronization. This contribution summarizes the current information about clock genes in glia cells, their plausible role as oscillators and their medical implications. PMID:27666286
Advancement and prospects of tumor gene therapy
Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)
Chao Zhang; Qing-Tao Wang; He Liu; Zhen-Zhu Zhang; Wen-Lin Huang
Gene therapy is one of the most attractive fields in tumor therapy. In past decades, significant progress has been achieved. Various approaches, such as viral and non-viral vectors and physical methods, have been developed to make gene delivery safer and more efficient. Several therapeutic strategies have evolved, including gene-based (tumor suppressor genes, suicide genes, antiangiogenic genes, cytokine and oxidative stress-based genes) and RNA-based (antisense oligonucieotides and RNA interference) approaches. In addition, immune response-based strategies (dendritic cell- and T cell-based therapy) are also under investigation in tumor gene therapy. This review highlights the progress and recent developments in gene delivery systems, therapeutic strategies, and possible clinical directions for gene therapy.
Genes Contributing to the Development of Alcoholism
Edenberg, Howard J
Genetic factors (i.e., variations in specific genes) account for a substantial portion of the risk for alcoholism. However, identifying those genes and the specific variations involved is challenging. Researchers have used both case–control and family studies to identify genes related to alcoholism risk. In addition, different strategies such as candidate gene analyses and genome-wide association studies have been used. The strongest effects have been found for specific variants of genes that...
Switching on the Lights for Gene Therapy
Alexandra Winkeler; Miguel Sena-Esteves; Paulis, Leonie E.M.; Hongfeng Li; Yannic Waerzeggers; Benedikt Rückriem; Uwe Himmelreich; Markus Klein; Parisa Monfared; Rueger, Maria A.; Michael Heneka; Stefan Vollmar; Mathias Hoehn; Cornel Fraefel; Rudolf Graf
Strategies for non-invasive and quantitative imaging of gene expression in vivo have been developed over the past decade. Non-invasive assessment of the dynamics of gene regulation is of interest for the detection of endogenous disease-specific biological alterations (e.g., signal transduction) and for monitoring the induction and regulation of therapeutic genes (e.g., gene therapy). To demonstrate that non-invasive imaging of regulated expression of any type of gene after in vivo transductio...
Activities of Human Gene Nomenclature Committee
Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)
The objective of this project, shared between NIH and DOE, has been and remains to enable the medical genetics communities to use common names for genes that are discovered by different gene hunting groups, in different species. This effort provides consistent gene nomenclature and approved gene symbols to the community at large. This contributes to a uniform and consistent understanding of genomes, particularly the human as well as functional genomics based on comparisons between homologous genes in related species (human and mice).
Repetitive sequence environment distinguishes housekeeping genes
Eller, C. Daniel; Regelson, Moira; Merriman, Barry; Nelson, Stan,; Horvath, Steve; Marahrens, York
Housekeeping genes are expressed across a wide variety of tissues. Since repetitive sequences have been reported to influence the expression of individual genes, we employed a novel approach to determine whether housekeeping genes can be distinguished from tissue-specific genes their repetitive sequence context. We show that Alu elements are more highly concentrated around housekeeping genes while various longer (>400-bp) repetitive sequences ("repeats"), including Long Interspersed Nuclear E...
Concerted evolution of human amylase genes.
Gumucio, D L; Wiebauer, K; Caldwell, R M; Samuelson, L C; Meisler, M H
Cosmid clones containing 250 kilobases of genomic DNA from the human amylase gene cluster have been isolated. These clones contain seven distinct amylase genes which appear to comprise the complete multigene family. By sequence comparison with the cDNAs, we have identified two pancreatic amylase genes and three salivary amylase genes. Two truncated pseudogenes were also recovered. Intergenic distances of 17 to 22 kilobases separate the amylase gene copies. Within the past 10 million years, du...
Progress in Gene Therapy for Prostate Cancer
KamranAliAhmed; BrianJamesDavis; TorrenceMWilson; GregoryAWiseman; MarkJFederspiel; JohnCMorris
Gene therapy has held promise to correct various disease processes. Prostate cancer represents the second leading cause of cancer death in American men. A number of clinical trials involving gene therapy for the treatment of prostate cancer have been reported. The ability to efficiently transduce tumors with effective levels of therapeutic genes has been identified as a fundamental barrier to effective cancer gene therapy. The approach utilizing gene therapy in prostate cancer patients at our...
Gene Therapy in Human Breast Cancer
Abaan, Ogan D.
Gene therapy, being a novel treatment for many diseases, is readily applicable for the treatment of cancer patients. Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women. There are many clinical protocols for the treatment of breast cancer, and gene therapy is now being considered within current protocols. This review will focus on the basic concepts of cancer gene therapy strategies (suicide gene, tumor suppressor gene, anti-angiogenesis, immunotherapy, oncolytic viruses and ribozyme/antisens...
Gene functional similarity search tool (GFSST)
Russo James J; Sheng Huitao; Zhang Jinghui; Zhang Peisen; Osborne Brian; Buetow Kenneth
Abstract Background With the completion of the genome sequences of human, mouse, and other species and the advent of high throughput functional genomic research technologies such as biomicroarray chips, more and more genes and their products have been discovered and their functions have begun to be understood. Increasing amounts of data about genes, gene products and their functions have been stored in databases. To facilitate selection of candidate genes for gene-disease research, genetic as...
Novel algorithms for in vitro gene synthesis
Thachuk, Chris
Methods for reliable synthesis of long genes offer great promise for novel protein synthesis via expression of synthetic genes. Current technologies use computational methods for design of short oligos, which can then be reliably synthesized and assembled into the desired target gene. A precursor to this process is optimization of the gene sequence for improved protein expression. In this thesis, we provide the first results on the computational complexity of oligo design for gene synthesis. ...
Gene networks and haloperidol-induced catalepsy
Iancu, O. D.; Darakjian, P.; Malmanger, B.; Walter, N. A. R.; McWeeney, S.; Hitzemann, R
The current study examined the changes in striatal gene network structure induced by short-term selective breeding from a heterogeneous stock for haloperidol response. Brain (striatum) gene expression data were obtained using the Illumina WG 8.2 array, and the datasets from responding and non-responding selected lines were independently interrogated using a weighted gene coexpression network analysis (WGCNA). We detected several gene modules (groups of coexpressed genes) in each dataset; the ...
Modelling Nonstationary Gene Regulatory Processes
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Marco Grzegorcyzk
Full Text Available An important objective in systems biology is to infer gene regulatory networks from postgenomic data, and dynamic Bayesian networks have been widely applied as a popular tool to this end. The standard approach for nondiscretised data is restricted to a linear model and a homogeneous Markov chain. Recently, various generalisations based on changepoint processes and free allocation mixture models have been proposed. The former aim to relax the homogeneity assumption, whereas the latter are more flexible and, in principle, more adequate for modelling nonlinear processes. In our paper, we compare both paradigms and discuss theoretical shortcomings of the latter approach. We show that a model based on the changepoint process yields systematically better results than the free allocation model when inferring nonstationary gene regulatory processes from simulated gene expression time series. We further cross-compare the performance of both models on three biological systems: macrophages challenged with viral infection, circadian regulation in Arabidopsis thaliana, and morphogenesis in Drosophila melanogaster.
Strommer, Judith
The structures, evolution and functions of alcohol dehydrogenase gene families and their products have been scrutinized for half a century. Our understanding of the enzyme structure and catalytic activity of plant alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH-P) is based on the vast amount of information available for its animal counterpart. The probable origins of the enzyme from a simple β-coil and eventual emergence from a glutathione-dependent formaldehyde dehydrogenase have been well described. There is compelling evidence that the small ADH gene families found in plants today are the survivors of multiple rounds of gene expansion and contraction. To the probable original function of their products in the terminal reaction of anaerobic fermentation have been added roles in yeast-like aerobic fermentation and the production of characteristic scents that act to attract animals that serve as pollinators or agents of seed dispersal and to protect against herbivores.
Gene Technology in Tissue Engineering
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Xiao-Dan Sun
Full Text Available Scaffold, cells and signaling factors are regarded as the three essential components in tissue engineering. With the development of molecular and cell biology, gene technology is beginning to show a promising position in tissue engineering as it can influence these essential components at DNA-level. By introducing plasmid DNA or genes encoding certain signaling factors (growth factors/cytokines into the cells, required growth factors/cytokines can be expressed and secreted spatially and temporally by the transfected cells, which will promote the differentiation, proliferation and organization of the cells on the scaffold. Protein-based scaffolds which have specific structures can also be prepared genetically to induce attachment and spreading of the cells. This paper reviews research work of gene technology developed in tissue engineering.
Detecting Sequence Homology at the Gene Cluster Level with MultiGeneBlast
Medema, Marnix H.; Takano, Eriko; Breitling, Rainer; Nowick, Katja
The genes encoding many biomolecular systems and pathways are genomically organized in operons or gene clusters. With MultiGeneBlast, we provide a user-friendly and effective tool to perform homology searches with operons or gene clusters as basic units, instead of single genes. The contextualizatio
EasyGene – a prokaryotic gene finder that ranks ORFs by statistical significance
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Larsen, Thomas Schou; Krogh, Anders Stærmose
annotated as genes.Results: In this paper, we present a new automated gene-finding method, EasyGene, which estimates the statistical significance of a predicted gene. The gene finder is based on a hidden Markov model (HMM) that is automatically estimated for a new genome. Using extensions of similarities...
Gene Therapy for Coagulation Disorders.
Swystun, Laura L; Lillicrap, David
Molecular genetic details of the human coagulation system were among the first successes of the genetic revolution in the 1980s. This information led to new molecular diagnostic strategies for inherited disorders of hemostasis and the development of recombinant clotting factors for the treatment of the common inherited bleeding disorders. A longer term goal of this knowledge has been the establishment of gene transfer to provide continuing access to missing or defective hemostatic proteins. Because of the relative infrequency of inherited coagulation factor disorders and the availability of safe and effective alternative means of management, the application of gene therapy for these conditions has been slow to realize clinical application. Nevertheless, the tools for effective and safe gene transfer are now much improved, and we have started to see examples of clinical gene therapy successes. Leading the way has been the use of adeno-associated virus-based strategies for factor IX gene transfer in hemophilia B. Several small phase 1/2 clinical studies using this approach have shown prolonged expression of therapeutically beneficial levels of factor IX. Nevertheless, before the application of gene therapy for coagulation disorders becomes widespread, several obstacles need to be overcome. Immunologic responses to the vector and transgenic protein need to be mitigated, and production strategies for clinical grade vectors require enhancements. There is little doubt that with the development of more efficient and facile strategies for genome editing and the application of other nucleic acid-based approaches to influence the coagulation system, the future of genetic therapies for hemostasis is bright. PMID:27126652
Electroporation-mediated gene delivery.
Young, Jennifer L; Dean, David A
Electroporation has been used extensively to transfer DNA to bacteria, yeast, and mammalian cells in culture for the past 30 years. Over this time, numerous advances have been made, from using fields to facilitate cell fusion, delivery of chemotherapeutic drugs to cells and tissues, and most importantly, gene and drug delivery in living tissues from rodents to man. Electroporation uses electrical fields to transiently destabilize the membrane allowing the entry of normally impermeable macromolecules into the cytoplasm. Surprisingly, at the appropriate field strengths, the application of these fields to tissues results in little, if any, damage or trauma. Indeed, electroporation has even been used successfully in human trials for gene delivery for the treatment of tumors and for vaccine development. Electroporation can lead to between 100 and 1000-fold increases in gene delivery and expression and can also increase both the distribution of cells taking up and expressing the DNA as well as the absolute amount of gene product per cell (likely due to increased delivery of plasmids into each cell). Effective electroporation depends on electric field parameters, electrode design, the tissues and cells being targeted, and the plasmids that are being transferred themselves. Most importantly, there is no single combination of these variables that leads to greatest efficacy in every situation; optimization is required in every new setting. Electroporation-mediated in vivo gene delivery has proven highly effective in vaccine production, transgene expression, enzyme replacement, and control of a variety of cancers. Almost any tissue can be targeted with electroporation, including muscle, skin, heart, liver, lung, and vasculature. This chapter will provide an overview of the theory of electroporation for the delivery of DNA both in individual cells and in tissues and its application for in vivo gene delivery in a number of animal models.
Genomics of local adaptation with gene flow.
Tigano, Anna; Friesen, Vicki L
Gene flow is a fundamental evolutionary force in adaptation that is especially important to understand as humans are rapidly changing both the natural environment and natural levels of gene flow. Theory proposes a multifaceted role for gene flow in adaptation, but it focuses mainly on the disruptive effect that gene flow has on adaptation when selection is not strong enough to prevent the loss of locally adapted alleles. The role of gene flow in adaptation is now better understood due to the recent development of both genomic models of adaptive evolution and genomic techniques, which both point to the importance of genetic architecture in the origin and maintenance of adaptation with gene flow. In this review, we discuss three main topics on the genomics of adaptation with gene flow. First, we investigate selection on migration and gene flow. Second, we discuss the three potential sources of adaptive variation in relation to the role of gene flow in the origin of adaptation. Third, we explain how local adaptation is maintained despite gene flow: we provide a synthesis of recent genomic models of adaptation, discuss the genomic mechanisms and review empirical studies on the genomics of adaptation with gene flow. Despite predictions on the disruptive effect of gene flow in adaptation, an increasing number of studies show that gene flow can promote adaptation, that local adaptations can be maintained despite high gene flow, and that genetic architecture plays a fundamental role in the origin and maintenance of local adaptation with gene flow.
GeneMANIA prediction server 2013 update.
Zuberi, Khalid; Franz, Max; Rodriguez, Harold; Montojo, Jason; Lopes, Christian Tannus; Bader, Gary D; Morris, Quaid
GeneMANIA (http://www.genemania.org) is a flexible user-friendly web interface for generating hypotheses about gene function, analyzing gene lists and prioritizing genes for functional assays. Given a query gene list, GeneMANIA extends the list with functionally similar genes that it identifies using available genomics and proteomics data. GeneMANIA also reports weights that indicate the predictive value of each selected data set for the query. GeneMANIA can also be used in a function prediction setting: given a query gene, GeneMANIA finds a small set of genes that are most likely to share function with that gene based on their interactions with it. Enriched Gene Ontology categories among this set can sometimes point to the function of the gene. Seven organisms are currently supported (Arabidopsis thaliana, Caenorhabditis elegans, Drosophila melanogaster, Mus musculus, Homo sapiens, Rattus norvegicus and Saccharomyces cerevisiae), and hundreds of data sets have been collected from GEO, BioGRID, IRefIndex and I2D, as well as organism-specific functional genomics data sets. Users can customize their search by selecting specific data sets to query and by uploading their own data sets to analyze. PMID:23794635
A gene-based information gain method for detecting gene-gene interactions in case-control studies.
Li, Jin; Huang, Dongli; Guo, Maozu; Liu, Xiaoyan; Wang, Chunyu; Teng, Zhixia; Zhang, Ruijie; Jiang, Yongshuai; Lv, Hongchao; Wang, Limei
Currently, most methods for detecting gene-gene interactions (GGIs) in genome-wide association studies are divided into SNP-based methods and gene-based methods. Generally, the gene-based methods can be more powerful than SNP-based methods. Some gene-based entropy methods can only capture the linear relationship between genes. We therefore proposed a nonparametric gene-based information gain method (GBIGM) that can capture both linear relationship and nonlinear correlation between genes. Through simulation with different odds ratio, sample size and prevalence rate, GBIGM was shown to be valid and more powerful than classic KCCU method and SNP-based entropy method. In the analysis of data from 17 genes on rheumatoid arthritis, GBIGM was more effective than the other two methods as it obtains fewer significant results, which was important for biological verification. Therefore, GBIGM is a suitable and powerful tool for detecting GGIs in case-control studies.
From gene to disease; hypophosphataemic rickets and the PHEX gene
Jansen, M; van Dael, C.M.L.; Verrijn Stuart, A.A.; van der Hout, A.H.; Rump, P.
X-linked hypophosphataemic rickets is associated with mutations in the PHEX gene on the short arm of the X chromosome, encoding a membrane-bound endoprotease which is predominantly expressed in osteoblasts. Defective PHEX function leaves phosphaturic peptides such as FGF23 uncleaved, enabling these
Shuffling Yeast Gene Expression Data
Bilke, S
A new method to sort gene expression patterns into functional groups is presented. The method is based on a sorting algorithm using a non-local similarity score, which takes all other patterns in the dataset into account. The method is therefore very robust with respect to noise. Using the expression data for yeast, we extract information about functional groups. Without prior knowledge of parameters the cell cycle regulated genes in yeast can be identified. Furthermore a second, independent cell clock is identified. The capability of the algorithm to extract information about signal flow in the regulatory network underlying the expression patterns is demonstrated.
Furusawa, C; Furusawa, Chikara; Kaneko, Kunihiko
Using data from gene expression databases on various organisms and tissues, including yeast, nematodes, human normal and cancer tissues, and embryonic stem cells, we found that the abundances of expressed genes exhibit a power-law distribution with an exponent close to -1, i.e., they obey Zipf's law. Furthermore, by simulations of a simple model with an intra-cellular reaction network, we found that Zipf's law of chemical abundance is a universal feature of cells where such a network optimizes the efficiency and faithfulness of self-reproduction. These findings provide novel insights into the nature of the organization of reaction dynamics in living cells.
Concerted evolution of human amylase genes
Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)
Gumucio, D.L.; Wiebauer, K.; Caldwell, R.M.; Samuelson, L.C.; Meisler, M.H.
Cosmid clones containing 250 kilobases of genomic DNA from the human amylase gene cluster have been isolated. These clones contain seven distinct amylase genes which appear to comprise the complete multigene family. By sequence comparison with the cDNAs, the authors have identified two pancreatic amylase gene and three salivary amylase genes. Two truncated pseudogenes were also recovered. Intergenic distances of 17 to 22 kilobases separate the amylase gene copies. Within the past 10 million years, duplications, gene conversion, and unequal crossover events have resulted in a very high level of sequence similarity among human amylase gene copies. To identify sequence elements involved in tissue-specific expression and hormonal regulation, the promoter regions of the human amylase genes were sequenced and compared with those of the corresponding mouse genes. The promoters of the human and mouse pancreatic amylase genes are highly homologous between nucleotide - 160 and the cap site. Two sequence elements througth to influence pancreas-specific expression of the rodent genes are present in the human genes. In contrast, similarity in the 5' lanking sequences of the salivary amylase genes is limited to several short sequence elements whose positions and orientations differ in the two species. Some of these sequence elements are also associated with other parotid-specific genes and may be involved in their tissue-specific expression. A glucocorticoid response element and a general enhancer element are closely associated in several of the amylase promoters.
Evidence based selection of housekeeping genes.
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Hendrik J M de Jonge
Full Text Available For accurate and reliable gene expression analysis, normalization of gene expression data against housekeeping genes (reference or internal control genes is required. It is known that commonly used housekeeping genes (e.g. ACTB, GAPDH, HPRT1, and B2M vary considerably under different experimental conditions and therefore their use for normalization is limited. We performed a meta-analysis of 13,629 human gene array samples in order to identify the most stable expressed genes. Here we show novel candidate housekeeping genes (e.g. RPS13, RPL27, RPS20 and OAZ1 with enhanced stability among a multitude of different cell types and varying experimental conditions. None of the commonly used housekeeping genes were present in the top 50 of the most stable expressed genes. In addition, using 2,543 diverse mouse gene array samples we were able to confirm the enhanced stability of the candidate novel housekeeping genes in another mammalian species. Therefore, the identified novel candidate housekeeping genes seem to be the most appropriate choice for normalizing gene expression data.
Genes and Syndromic Hearing Loss.
Keats, Bronya J. B.
This article provides a description of the human genome and patterns of inheritance and discusses genes that are associated with some of the syndromes for which hearing loss is a common finding, including: Waardenburg, Stickler, Jervell and Lange-Neilsen, Usher, Alport, mitochondrial encephalomyopathy, and sensorineural hearing loss. (Contains…
Ethics of Gene Therapy Debated.
Borman, Stu
Presented are the highlights of a press conference featuring biomedical ethicist LeRoy Walters of Georgetown University and attorney Andrew Kimbrell of the Foundation on Economic Trends. The opposing points of view of these two speakers serve to outline the pros and cons of the gene therapy issue. (CW)
Codon Adaptation of Plastid Genes
Suzuki, Haruo; Morton, Brian R.
Codon adaptation is codon usage bias that results from selective pressure to increase the translation efficiency of a gene. Codon adaptation has been studied across a wide range of genomes and some early analyses of plastids have shown evidence for codon adaptation in a limited set of highly expressed plastid genes. Here we study codon usage bias across all fully sequenced plastid genomes which includes representatives of the Rhodophyta, Alveolata, Cryptophyta, Euglenozoa, Glaucocystophyceae, Rhizaria, Stramenopiles and numerous lineages within the Viridiplantae, including Chlorophyta and Embryophyta. We show evidence that codon adaptation occurs in all genomes except for two, Theileria parva and Heicosporidium sp., both of which have highly reduced gene contents and no photosynthesis genes. We also show evidence that selection for codon adaptation increases the representation of the same set of codons, which we refer to as the adaptive codons, across this wide range of taxa, which is probably due to common features descended from the initial endosymbiont. We use various measures to estimate the relative strength of selection in the different lineages and show that it appears to be fairly strong in certain Stramenopiles and Chlorophyta lineages but relatively weak in many members of the Rhodophyta, Euglenozoa and Embryophyta. Given these results we propose that codon adaptation in plastids is widespread and displays the same general features as adaptation in eubacterial genomes. PMID:27196606
Codon Adaptation of Plastid Genes.
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Haruo Suzuki
Full Text Available Codon adaptation is codon usage bias that results from selective pressure to increase the translation efficiency of a gene. Codon adaptation has been studied across a wide range of genomes and some early analyses of plastids have shown evidence for codon adaptation in a limited set of highly expressed plastid genes. Here we study codon usage bias across all fully sequenced plastid genomes which includes representatives of the Rhodophyta, Alveolata, Cryptophyta, Euglenozoa, Glaucocystophyceae, Rhizaria, Stramenopiles and numerous lineages within the Viridiplantae, including Chlorophyta and Embryophyta. We show evidence that codon adaptation occurs in all genomes except for two, Theileria parva and Heicosporidium sp., both of which have highly reduced gene contents and no photosynthesis genes. We also show evidence that selection for codon adaptation increases the representation of the same set of codons, which we refer to as the adaptive codons, across this wide range of taxa, which is probably due to common features descended from the initial endosymbiont. We use various measures to estimate the relative strength of selection in the different lineages and show that it appears to be fairly strong in certain Stramenopiles and Chlorophyta lineages but relatively weak in many members of the Rhodophyta, Euglenozoa and Embryophyta. Given these results we propose that codon adaptation in plastids is widespread and displays the same general features as adaptation in eubacterial genomes.
Homeobox genes and melatonin synthesis
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Rohde, Kristian; Møller, Morten; Rath, Martin Fredensborg
Nocturnal synthesis of melatonin in the pineal gland is controlled by a circadian rhythm in arylalkylamine N-acetyltransferase (AANAT) enzyme activity. In the rodent, Aanat gene expression displays a marked circadian rhythm; release of norepinephrine in the gland at night causes a cAMP-based indu...
Gene expression profile of pulpitis.
Galicia, J C; Henson, B R; Parker, J S; Khan, A A
The cost, prevalence and pain associated with endodontic disease necessitate an understanding of the fundamental molecular aspects of its pathogenesis. This study was aimed to identify the genetic contributors to pulpal pain and inflammation. Inflamed pulps were collected from patients diagnosed with irreversible pulpitis (n=20). Normal pulps from teeth extracted for various reasons served as controls (n=20). Pain level was assessed using a visual analog scale (VAS). Genome-wide microarray analysis was performed using Affymetrix GeneTitan Multichannel Instrument. The difference in gene expression levels were determined by the significance analysis of microarray program using a false discovery rate (q-value) of 5%. Genes involved in immune response, cytokine-cytokine receptor interaction and signaling, integrin cell surface interactions, and others were expressed at relatively higher levels in the pulpitis group. Moreover, several genes known to modulate pain and inflammation showed differential expression in asymptomatic and mild pain patients (⩾30 mm on VAS) compared with those with moderate to severe pain. This exploratory study provides a molecular basis for the clinical diagnosis of pulpitis. With an enhanced understanding of pulpal inflammation, future studies on treatment and management of pulpitis and on pain associated with it can have a biological reference to bridge treatment strategies with pulpal biology. PMID:27052691
Positional cloning of deafness genes
Kremer, H.; Cremers, F.P.M.
The identification of the majority of the known causative genes involved in nonsyndromic sensorineural hearing loss (NSHL) started with linkage analysis as part of a positional cloning procedure. The human and mouse genome projects in combination with technical developments on genotyping, transcript
What drives plant stress genes?
Aarts, M.G.M.; Fiers, M.W.E.J.
Currently, there is a lot of interest in the plant stress response. Using large-scale genomics approaches, more and more genes are being identified that are involved in or even regulate this complex process. The recent boost in expression profile analyses for several plant stress responses has enabl
Gene Expression in Trypanosomatid Parasites
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Santiago Martínez-Calvillo
Full Text Available The parasites Leishmania spp., Trypanosoma brucei, and Trypanosoma cruzi are the trypanosomatid protozoa that cause the deadly human diseases leishmaniasis, African sleeping sickness, and Chagas disease, respectively. These organisms possess unique mechanisms for gene expression such as constitutive polycistronic transcription of protein-coding genes and trans-splicing. Little is known about either the DNA sequences or the proteins that are involved in the initiation and termination of transcription in trypanosomatids. In silico analyses of the genome databases of these parasites led to the identification of a small number of proteins involved in gene expression. However, functional studies have revealed that trypanosomatids have more general transcription factors than originally estimated. Many posttranslational histone modifications, histone variants, and chromatin modifying enzymes have been identified in trypanosomatids, and recent genome-wide studies showed that epigenetic regulation might play a very important role in gene expression in this group of parasites. Here, we review and comment on the most recent findings related to transcription initiation and termination in trypanosomatid protozoa.
Statistical Approach to Gene Evolution
Chattopadhyay, S; Chakrabarti, J; Chattopadhyay, Sujay; Kanner, William A.; Chakrabarti, Jayprokas
The evolution in coding DNA sequences brings new flexibility and freedom to the codon words, even as the underlying nucleotides get significantly ordered. These curious contra-rules of gene organisation are observed from the distribution of words and the second moments of the nucleotide letters. These statistical data give us the physics behind the classification of bacteria.
Genes, Environment, and Human Behavior.
Bloom, Mark V.; Cutter, Mary Ann; Davidson, Ronald; Dougherty, Michael J.; Drexler, Edward; Gelernter, Joel; McCullough, Laurence B.; McInerney, Joseph D.; Murray, Jeffrey C.; Vogler, George P.; Zola, John
This curriculum module explores genes, environment, and human behavior. This book provides materials to teach about the nature and methods of studying human behavior, raise some of the ethical and public policy dilemmas emerging from the Human Genome Project, and provide professional development for teachers. An extensive Teacher Background…
Codon Adaptation of Plastid Genes.
Suzuki, Haruo; Morton, Brian R
Codon adaptation is codon usage bias that results from selective pressure to increase the translation efficiency of a gene. Codon adaptation has been studied across a wide range of genomes and some early analyses of plastids have shown evidence for codon adaptation in a limited set of highly expressed plastid genes. Here we study codon usage bias across all fully sequenced plastid genomes which includes representatives of the Rhodophyta, Alveolata, Cryptophyta, Euglenozoa, Glaucocystophyceae, Rhizaria, Stramenopiles and numerous lineages within the Viridiplantae, including Chlorophyta and Embryophyta. We show evidence that codon adaptation occurs in all genomes except for two, Theileria parva and Heicosporidium sp., both of which have highly reduced gene contents and no photosynthesis genes. We also show evidence that selection for codon adaptation increases the representation of the same set of codons, which we refer to as the adaptive codons, across this wide range of taxa, which is probably due to common features descended from the initial endosymbiont. We use various measures to estimate the relative strength of selection in the different lineages and show that it appears to be fairly strong in certain Stramenopiles and Chlorophyta lineages but relatively weak in many members of the Rhodophyta, Euglenozoa and Embryophyta. Given these results we propose that codon adaptation in plastids is widespread and displays the same general features as adaptation in eubacterial genomes. PMID:27196606
Buffering in cyclic gene networks
Glyzin, S. D.; Kolesov, A. Yu.; Rozov, N. Kh.
We consider cyclic chains of unidirectionally coupled delay differential-difference equations that are mathematical models of artificial oscillating gene networks. We establish that the buffering phenomenon is realized in these system for an appropriate choice of the parameters: any given finite number of stable periodic motions of a special type, the so-called traveling waves, coexist.
RCDB: Renal Cancer Gene Database
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Ramana Jayashree
Full Text Available Abstract Background Renal cell carcinoma or RCC is one of the common and most lethal urological cancers, with 40% of the patients succumbing to death because of metastatic progression of the disease. Treatment of metastatic RCC remains highly challenging because of its resistance to chemotherapy as well as radiotherapy, besides surgical resection. Whereas RCC comprises tumors with differing histological types, clear cell RCC remains the most common. A major problem in the clinical management of patients presenting with localized ccRCC is the inability to determine tumor aggressiveness and accurately predict the risk of metastasis following surgery. As a measure to improve the diagnosis and prognosis of RCC, researchers have identified several molecular markers through a number of techniques. However the wealth of information available is scattered in literature and not easily amenable to data-mining. To reduce this gap, this work describes a comprehensive repository called Renal Cancer Gene Database, as an integrated gateway to study renal cancer related data. Findings Renal Cancer Gene Database is a manually curated compendium of 240 protein-coding and 269 miRNA genes contributing to the etiology and pathogenesis of various forms of renal cell carcinomas. The protein coding genes have been classified according to the kind of gene alteration observed in RCC. RCDB also includes the miRNAsdysregulated in RCC, along with the corresponding information regarding the type of RCC and/or metastatic or prognostic significance. While some of the miRNA genes showed an association with other types of cancers few were unique to RCC. Users can query the database using keywords, category and chromosomal location of the genes. The knowledgebase can be freely accessed via a user-friendly web interface at http://www.juit.ac.in/attachments/jsr/rcdb/homenew.html. Conclusions It is hoped that this database would serve as a useful complement to the existing public
Empirical study of supervised gene screening
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Ma Shuangge
Full Text Available Abstract Background Microarray studies provide a way of linking variations of phenotypes with their genetic causations. Constructing predictive models using high dimensional microarray measurements usually consists of three steps: (1 unsupervised gene screening; (2 supervised gene screening; and (3 statistical model building. Supervised gene screening based on marginal gene ranking is commonly used to reduce the number of genes in the model building. Various simple statistics, such as t-statistic or signal to noise ratio, have been used to rank genes in the supervised screening. Despite of its extensive usage, statistical study of supervised gene screening remains scarce. Our study is partly motivated by the differences in gene discovery results caused by using different supervised gene screening methods. Results We investigate concordance and reproducibility of supervised gene screening based on eight commonly used marginal statistics. Concordance is assessed by the relative fractions of overlaps between top ranked genes screened using different marginal statistics. We propose a Bootstrap Reproducibility Index, which measures reproducibility of individual genes under the supervised screening. Empirical studies are based on four public microarray data. We consider the cases where the top 20%, 40% and 60% genes are screened. Conclusion From a gene discovery point of view, the effect of supervised gene screening based on different marginal statistics cannot be ignored. Empirical studies show that (1 genes passed different supervised screenings may be considerably different; (2 concordance may vary, depending on the underlying data structure and percentage of selected genes; (3 evaluated with the Bootstrap Reproducibility Index, genes passed supervised screenings are only moderately reproducible; and (4 concordance cannot be improved by supervised screening based on reproducibility.
Selection of housekeeping genes for gene expression studies in human reticulocytes using real-time PCR
Thein Swee; Jiang Jie; Best Steve; Silver Nicholas
Abstract Background Control genes, which are often referred to as housekeeping genes, are frequently used to normalise mRNA levels between different samples. However, the expression level of these genes may vary among tissues or cells and may change under certain circumstances. Thus, the selection of housekeeping genes is critical for gene expression studies. To address this issue, 7 candidate housekeeping genes including several commonly used ones were investigated in isolated human reticulo...
Discovering Implicit Entity Relation with the Gene-Citation-Gene Network
Min Song; Nam-Gi Han; Yong-Hwan Kim; Ying Ding; Tamy Chambers
In this paper, we apply the entitymetrics model to our constructed Gene-Citation-Gene (GCG) network. Based on the premise there is a hidden, but plausible, relationship between an entity in one article and an entity in its citing article, we constructed a GCG network of gene pairs implicitly connected through citation. We compare the performance of this GCG network to a gene-gene (GG) network constructed over the same corpus but which uses gene pairs explicitly connected through traditional c...
Mining Association Rules among Gene Functions in Clusters of Similar Gene Expression Maps
An, Li; Obradovic, Zoran; Smith, Desmond; Bodenreider, Olivier; Megalooikonomou, Vasileios
Association rules mining methods have been recently applied to gene expression data analysis to reveal relationships between genes and different conditions and features. However, not much effort has focused on detecting the relation between gene expression maps and related gene functions. Here we describe such an approach to mine association rules among gene functions in clusters of similar gene expression maps on mouse brain. The experimental results show that the detected association rules ...
Gene expression profiles in skeletal muscle after gene electrotransfer
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Eriksen Jens
Full Text Available Abstract Background Gene transfer by electroporation (DNA electrotransfer to muscle results in high level long term transgenic expression, showing great promise for treatment of e.g. protein deficiency syndromes. However little is known about the effects of DNA electrotransfer on muscle fibres. We have therefore investigated transcriptional changes through gene expression profile analyses, morphological changes by histological analysis, and physiological changes by force generation measurements. DNA electrotransfer was obtained using a combination of a short high voltage pulse (HV, 1000 V/cm, 100 μs followed by a long low voltage pulse (LV, 100 V/cm, 400 ms; a pulse combination optimised for efficient and safe gene transfer. Muscles were transfected with green fluorescent protein (GFP and excised at 4 hours, 48 hours or 3 weeks after treatment. Results Differentially expressed genes were investigated by microarray analysis, and descriptive statistics were performed to evaluate the effects of 1 electroporation, 2 DNA injection, and 3 time after treatment. The biological significance of the results was assessed by gene annotation and supervised cluster analysis. Generally, electroporation caused down-regulation of structural proteins e.g. sarcospan and catalytic enzymes. Injection of DNA induced down-regulation of intracellular transport proteins e.g. sentrin. The effects on muscle fibres were transient as the expression profiles 3 weeks after treatment were closely related with the control muscles. Most interestingly, no changes in the expression of proteins involved in inflammatory responses or muscle regeneration was detected, indicating limited muscle damage and regeneration. Histological analysis revealed structural changes with loss of cell integrity and striation pattern in some fibres after DNA+HV+LV treatment, while HV+LV pulses alone showed preservation of cell integrity. No difference in the force generation capacity was observed in
Vascular Gene Expression: A Hypothesis
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Angélica Concepción eMartínez-Navarro
Full Text Available The phloem is the conduit through which photoassimilates are distributed from autotrophic to heterotrophic tissues and is involved in the distribution of signaling molecules that coordinate plant growth and responses to the environment. Phloem function depends on the coordinate expression of a large array of genes. We have previously identified conserved motifs in upstream regions of the Arabidopsis genes, encoding the homologs of pumpkin phloem sap mRNAs, displaying expression in vascular tissues. This tissue-specific expression in Arabidopsis is predicted by the overrepresentation of GA/CT-rich motifs in gene promoters. In this work we have searched for common motifs in upstream regions of the homologous genes from plants considered to possess a primitive vascular tissue (a lycophyte, as well as from others that lack a true vascular tissue (a bryophyte, and finally from chlorophytes. Both lycophyte and bryophyte display motifs similar to those found in Arabidopsis with a significantly low E-value, while the chlorophytes showed either a different conserved motif or no conserved motif at all. These results suggest that these same genes are expressed coordinately in non- vascular plants; this coordinate expression may have been one of the prerequisites for the development of conducting tissues in plants. We have also analyzed the phylogeny of conserved proteins that may be involved in phloem function and development. The presence of CmPP16, APL, FT and YDA in chlorophytes suggests the recruitment of ancient regulatory networks for the development of the vascular tissue during evolution while OPS is a novel protein specific to vascular plants.
Transferring alien genes to wheat
International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
In broad terms an alien gene can be considered to be any gene transferred to wheat from a related species. As described above by Maan (section 7D) the genus Triticum contains a broad range of species, some of which cross readily with the cultivated tetraploid (T. Turgidum L.) or hexaploid (T. aestivum L.) wheats, and others only with great difficulty. In addition, wheat will also cross with species in a number of other genera including Agropyron, Elymus, Elytrigia (=Agropyron), Haynaldia, Hordeum, and Secale (Riley and Kimber, 1966; Knobloch, 1968; Feldman and Sears, 1981). In discussing the Triticum and Aegilops spp., the classification by Kimber and Sears, section SA-I, above, will be followed. For the Agropyron and related species the classification described by Dewey (1983) will be used. To avoid confusion, in referring to the literature the designations used by the authors will be given, followed by the new designation. The wild relatives of wheat are adapted to a broad range of environments and carry a large reservoir of useful genes (Zohary et al., 1969; Kerber and Dyck, 1973; Brezhnev, 1977; Feldman and Sears, 1981; Limin and Fowler, 1981; Sharma et aI., 1981; McGuire and Dvorak, 1981). Initially they were considered to be primarily sources of disease resistance, but more recently they have been recognized as potential sources of genes for high protein, cold tolerance, salt tolerance, drought tolerance, lodging resistance, early maturity, and even yield. Extensive screening of the wild relatives of wheat needs to be done before their useful genes can be fully utilized
Msx homeobox gene family and craniofacial development
Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)
Vertebrate Msx genes are unlinked,homeobox-containing genes that bear homology to the Drosophila muscle segment homeobox gene.These genes are expressed at multiple sites of tissue-tissue interactions during vertebrate embryonic development.Inductive interactions mediated by the Msx genes are essential for normal craniofacial,limb and ectodermal organ morphogenesis,and are also essential to survival in mice,as manifested by the phenotypic abnormalities shown in knockout mice and in humans.This review summarizes studies on the expression,regulation,and functional analysis of Msx genes that bear relevance to craniofacial development in humans and mice.
Gene doping: the hype and the harm.
McKanna, Trudy A; Toriello, Helga V
"Gene doping" is the term used to describe the potential abuse of gene therapy as a performance-enhancing agent. Gene doping would apply the techniques used in gene therapy to provide altered expression of genes that would promote physical superiority. For example, insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) is a primary target for growth hormone; overexpression of IGF-1 can lead to increased muscle mass and power. Although gene doping is still largely theoretical, its implications for sports, health, ethics, and medical genetics are significant.
Delivery of genes into the CF airway.
Gill, Deborah R; Hyde, Stephen C
Gene therapy was suggested as a potential treatment for cystic fibrosis (CF), even before the identification of the CFTR gene. Initial enthusiasm has been tempered as it became apparent that reintroduction of the CFTR gene into the cells of the lung is more difficult than anticipated. Here, we review the major gene delivery vectors evaluated clinically, and suggest that advances in either plasmid DNA design and/or hybrid lentivirus biology may finally facilitate lung gene transfer with efficiencies sufficient for CF gene therapy to offer clinical benefit. PMID:25015239
Gene doping: the hype and the harm.
McKanna, Trudy A; Toriello, Helga V
"Gene doping" is the term used to describe the potential abuse of gene therapy as a performance-enhancing agent. Gene doping would apply the techniques used in gene therapy to provide altered expression of genes that would promote physical superiority. For example, insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) is a primary target for growth hormone; overexpression of IGF-1 can lead to increased muscle mass and power. Although gene doping is still largely theoretical, its implications for sports, health, ethics, and medical genetics are significant. PMID:20538153
Gene therapy and its implications in Periodontics
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Mahale Swapna
Full Text Available Gene therapy is a field of Biomedicine. With the advent of gene therapy in dentistry, significant progress has been made in the control of periodontal diseases and reconstruction of dento-alveolar apparatus. Implementation in periodontics include: -As a mode of tissue engineering with three approaches: cell, protein-based and gene delivery approach. -Genetic approach to Biofilm Antibiotic Resistance. Future strategies of gene therapy in preventing periodontal diseases: -Enhances host defense mechanism against infection by transfecting host cells with an antimicrobial peptide protein-encoding gene. -Periodontal vaccination. Gene therapy is one of the recent entrants and its applications in the field of periodontics are reviewed in general here.
The P450 gene superfamily: recommended nomenclature.
Nebert, D W; Adesnik, M; Coon, M J; Estabrook, R W; Gonzalez, F J; Guengerich, F P; Gunsalus, I C; Johnson, E F; Kemper, B; Levin, W
A nomenclature for the P450 gene superfamily is proposed based on evolution. Recommendations include Roman numerals for distinct gene families, capital letters for subfamilies, and Arabic numerals for individual genes. An updating of this list, which presently includes 65 entries, will be required every 1-2 years. Assignment of orthologous genes is presently uncertain in some cases--between widely diverged species and especially in the P450II family due to the large number of genes. As more is known, it might become necessary to change some gene assignments that are based on our present knowledge. PMID:3829886
Desvignes, T.; FOSTIER, A.; Fauvel, C.; Bobe, J
The Nme gene family, also known as Nm23 or NDPK, is a very ancient gene family that can be found in all kingdoms of life. In the late eighties, a gene of the Nme family, NME1, was identified as the first metastatic suppressor gene, resulting in a major interest for this family. Due to the complexity of the family, the need for a unified and evolutionary-supported gene nomenclature was recently stressed by the scientific community. Based on a complete evolutionary history study of the gene fam...
Detection of gene expression pattern in the early stage after spinal cord injury by gene chip
Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)
刘成龙; 靳安民; 童斌辉
Objective: To study the changes of the gene expression pattern of spinal cord tissues in the early stage after injury by DNA microarray (gene chip). Methods: The contusion model of rat spinal cord was established according to Allen's falling strike method and the gene expression patterns of normal and injured spinal cord tissues were studied by gene chip. Results: The expression of 45 genes was significantly changed in the early stage after spinal cord injury, in which 22 genes up-regulated and 23 genes down-regulated. Conclusions: The expression of some genes changes significantly in the early stage after spinal cord injury, which indicates the complexity of secondary spinal cord injury.
GenePRIMP: A GENE PRediction IMprovement Pipeline for Prokaryotic genomes
Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)
Pati, Amrita; Ivanova, Natalia N.; Mikhailova, Natalia; Ovchinnikova, Galina; Hooper, Sean D.; Lykidis, Athanasios; Kyrpides, Nikos C.
We present 'gene prediction improvement pipeline' (GenePRIMP; http://geneprimp.jgi-psf.org/), a computational process that performs evidence-based evaluation of gene models in prokaryotic genomes and reports anomalies including inconsistent start sites, missed genes and split genes. We found that manual curation of gene models using the anomaly reports generated by GenePRIMP improved their quality, and demonstrate the applicability of GenePRIMP in improving finishing quality and comparing different genome-sequencing and annotation technologies.
cis sequence effects on gene expression
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Jacobs Kevin
Full Text Available Abstract Background Sequence and transcriptional variability within and between individuals are typically studied independently. The joint analysis of sequence and gene expression variation (genetical genomics provides insight into the role of linked sequence variation in the regulation of gene expression. We investigated the role of sequence variation in cis on gene expression (cis sequence effects in a group of genes commonly studied in cancer research in lymphoblastoid cell lines. We estimated the proportion of genes exhibiting cis sequence effects and the proportion of gene expression variation explained by cis sequence effects using three different analytical approaches, and compared our results to the literature. Results We generated gene expression profiling data at N = 697 candidate genes from N = 30 lymphoblastoid cell lines for this study and used available candidate gene resequencing data at N = 552 candidate genes to identify N = 30 candidate genes with sufficient variance in both datasets for the investigation of cis sequence effects. We used two additive models and the haplotype phylogeny scanning approach of Templeton (Tree Scanning to evaluate association between individual SNPs, all SNPs at a gene, and diplotypes, with log-transformed gene expression. SNPs and diplotypes at eight candidate genes exhibited statistically significant (p cis sequence effects in our study, respectively. Conclusion Based on analysis of our results and the extant literature, one in four genes exhibits significant cis sequence effects, and for these genes, about 30% of gene expression variation is accounted for by cis sequence variation. Despite diverse experimental approaches, the presence or absence of significant cis sequence effects is largely supported by previously published studies.
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Biljana Vitošević
Full Text Available Thanks to the very successful Human Genome Project and the identification of genes involved in genetic disease, we now have the ability to treat many conditions. However, the identification of the genes which code certain phenotype characteristics has opened the way for abuse in the fields of sport and physical exercise. The principles of gene therapy and the ways in which genes are transferred have completely been copied from gene therapy and are now being used to increase the physical abilities of athletes. The genes most frequently used by athletes include: the the ACE gene, the ACTN3 gene, myostatin, the erythropoietin gene, PPAR-delta and the like. The misuse of these genes with the aim of increasing physical abilities has already become part of sport and is extremely difficult to identify, since genes and gene sequences entering the human body are proteins that are already struc-tural and functional parts of the organism. On the other hand, viral vectors as the instruments for gene transfer attack and destroy the human immune system, and the reaction of the human body can be negative, with a danger of insertional mutagenesis and the appearance of oncogenes. Gene ther-apy might actually be much more useful in treating sports injuries, but even these procedures are still far from clinical practice. There is a fine line between gene therapy and gene doping in athletes. A number of growth factors will enhance repair, but it happen that expression of these factors increase the strength of bones and tendons, so that giving an adventage to competitors. First of all, it is neces-sary to acquaint athletes as much as possible with the negative consequences of using gene therapy. However victory and glory may be strong achievements, the health of these young people, and respect for fundamental and ethical principles, humanity, and fair play game have a more lasting value and represent the heavier weight on the scales.
Thesaurus-based disambiguation of gene symbols
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Wain Hester M
Full Text Available Abstract Background Massive text mining of the biological literature holds great promise of relating disparate information and discovering new knowledge. However, disambiguation of gene symbols is a major bottleneck. Results We developed a simple thesaurus-based disambiguation algorithm that can operate with very little training data. The thesaurus comprises the information from five human genetic databases and MeSH. The extent of the homonym problem for human gene symbols is shown to be substantial (33% of the genes in our combined thesaurus had one or more ambiguous symbols, not only because one symbol can refer to multiple genes, but also because a gene symbol can have many non-gene meanings. A test set of 52,529 Medline abstracts, containing 690 ambiguous human gene symbols taken from OMIM, was automatically generated. Overall accuracy of the disambiguation algorithm was up to 92.7% on the test set. Conclusion The ambiguity of human gene symbols is substantial, not only because one symbol may denote multiple genes but particularly because many symbols have other, non-gene meanings. The proposed disambiguation approach resolves most ambiguities in our test set with high accuracy, including the important gene/not a gene decisions. The algorithm is fast and scalable, enabling gene-symbol disambiguation in massive text mining applications.
Structures of two molluscan hemocyanin genes: significance for gene evolution.
Lieb, B; Altenhein, B; Markl, J; Vincent, A; van Olden, E; van Holde, K E; Miller, K I
We present here the description of genes coding for molluscan hemocyanins. Two distantly related mollusks, Haliotis tuberculata and Octopus dofleini, were studied. The typical architecture of a molluscan hemocyanin subunit, which is a string of seven or eight globular functional units (FUs, designated a to h, about 50 kDa each), is reflected by the gene organization: a series of eight structurally related coding regions in Haliotis, corresponding to FU-a to FU-h, with seven highly variable linker introns of 174 to 3,198 bp length (all in phase 1). In Octopus seven coding regions (FU-a to FU-g) are found, separated by phase 1 introns varying in length from 100 bp to 910 bp. Both genes exhibit typical signal (export) sequences, and in both cases these are interrupted by an additional intron. Each gene also contains an intron between signal peptide and FU-a and in the 3' untranslated region. Of special relevance for evolutionary considerations are introns interrupting those regions that encode a discrete functional unit. We found that five of the eight FUs in Haliotis each are encoded by a single exon, whereas FU-f, FU-g, and FU-a are encoded by two, three and four exons, respectively. Similarly, in Octopus four of the FUs each correspond to an uninterrupted exon, whereas FU-b, FU-e, and FU-f each contain a single intron. Although the positioning of the introns between FUs is highly conserved in the two mollusks, the introns within FUs show no relationship either in location nor phase. It is proposed that the introns between FUs were generated as the eight-unit polypeptide evolved from a monomeric precursor, and that the internal introns have been added later. A hypothesis for evolution of the ring-like quaternary structure of molluscan hemocyanins is presented. PMID:11287637
Sequence and gene expression evolution of paralogous genes in willows.
Harikrishnan, Srilakshmy L; Pucholt, Pascal; Berlin, Sofia
Whole genome duplications (WGD) have had strong impacts on species diversification by triggering evolutionary novelties, however, relatively little is known about the balance between gene loss and forces involved in the retention of duplicated genes originating from a WGD. We analyzed putative Salicoid duplicates in willows, originating from the Salicoid WGD, which took place more than 45 Mya. Contigs were constructed by de novo assembly of RNA-seq data derived from leaves and roots from two genotypes. Among the 48,508 contigs, 3,778 pairs were, based on fourfold synonymous third-codon transversion rates and syntenic positions, predicted to be Salicoid duplicates. Both copies were in most cases expressed in both tissues and 74% were significantly differentially expressed. Mean Ka/Ks was 0.23, suggesting that the Salicoid duplicates are evolving by purifying selection. Gene Ontology enrichment analyses showed that functions related to DNA- and nucleic acid binding were over-represented among the non-differentially expressed Salicoid duplicates, while functions related to biosynthesis and metabolism were over-represented among the differentially expressed Salicoid duplicates. We propose that the differentially expressed Salicoid duplicates are regulatory neo- and/or subfunctionalized, while the non-differentially expressed are dose sensitive, hence, functionally conserved. Multiple evolutionary processes, thus drive the retention of Salicoid duplicates in willows.
Progress in Chimeric Vector and Chimeric Gene Based Cardiovascular Gene Therapy
Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)
HU Chun-Song; YOON Young-sup; ISNER Jeffrey M.; LOSORDO Douglas W.
Gene therapy for cardiovascular diseases has developed from preliminary animal experiments to clinical trials. However, vectors and target genes used currently in gene therapy are mainly focused on viral, nonviral vector and single target gene or monogene. Each vector system has a series of advantages and limitations. Chimeric vectors which combine the advantages of viral and nonviral vector,chimeric target genes which combine two or more target genes and novel gene delivery modes are being developed. In this article, we summarized the progress in chimeric vectors and chimeric genes based cardiovascular gene therapy, which including proliferative or occlusive vascular diseases such as atheroslerosis and restenosis, hypertonic vascular disease such as hypertension and cardiac diseases such as myocardium ischemia, dilated cardiomyopathy and heart failure, even heart transplantation. The development of chimeric vector, chimeric gene and their cardiovascular gene therapy is promising.
Alzheimer's Gene May Show Effects in Childhood
... page: https://medlineplus.gov/news/fullstory_159854.html Alzheimer's Gene May Show Effects in Childhood Brain scans ... 13, 2016 (HealthDay News) -- A gene related to Alzheimer's disease may start to show effects on brain ...
Five New Genes Linked to Colon Cancer
... medlineplus.gov/news/fullstory_159556.html Five New Genes Linked to Colon Cancer But researchers say it's ... 2016 (HealthDay News) -- Scientists have identified five new gene mutations that may be tied to colon cancer. ...
In The Genes? Searching for Methuselah
... Current Issue Past Issues Special Section In The Genes? Searching for Methuselah Past Issues / Winter 2007 Table ... 18 million effort to learn more about the genes, lifestyle or other factors that contribute to long, ...
Bioinformatics methods for identifying candidate disease genes
Driel, M.A. van; Brunner, H.G.
With the explosion in genomic and functional genomics information, methods for disease gene identification are rapidly evolving. Databases are now essential to the process of selecting candidate disease genes. Combining positional information with disease characteristics and functional information i
NIH Researchers Identify OCD Risk Gene
... News From NIH NIH Researchers Identify OCD Risk Gene Past Issues / Summer 2006 Table of Contents For ... and Alcoholism (NIAAA) have identified a previously unknown gene variant that doubles an individual's risk for obsessive- ...
Mutation analysis of the preproghrelin gene
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Larsen, Lesli H; Gjesing, Anette P; Sørensen, Thorkild I A;
To investigate the preproghrelin gene for variants and their association with obesity and type 2 diabetes.......To investigate the preproghrelin gene for variants and their association with obesity and type 2 diabetes....
Researchers Pinpoint More Genes Linked to Vitiligo
... 161452.html Researchers Pinpoint More Genes Linked to Vitiligo Genetic clues to this autoimmune disease could lead ... identified more genes linked to the autoimmune disease vitiligo, which causes patches of white skin and hair. ...
Cattle Candidate Genes for Milk Production Traits
Kadlec, Tomáš
The aim of this thesis is to make an overview of important candidate genes affecting milk yield and milk quality parameters, with an emphasis on genes associated with the quantity and quality of milk proteins and milk fat.
Biodegradable nanoparticles for gene therapy technology
Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)
Hosseinkhani, Hossein, E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com; He, Wen-Jie [National Taiwan University of Science and Technology (Taiwan Tech), Graduate Institute of Biomedical Engineering (China); Chiang, Chiao-Hsi [School of Pharmacy, National Defense Medical Center (China); Hong, Po-Da [National Taiwan University of Science and Technology (Taiwan Tech), Graduate Institute of Biomedical Engineering (China); Yu, Dah-Shyong [Nanomedicine Research Center, National Defense Medical Center (China); Domb, Abraham J. [The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Institute of Drug Research, School of Pharmacy, Faculty of Medicine, Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology and The Alex Grass Center for Drug Design and Synthesis (Israel); Ou, Keng-Liang [College of Oral Medicine, Taipei Medical University, Research Center for Biomedical Devices and Prototyping Production (China)
Rapid propagations in materials technology together with biology have initiated great hopes in the possibility of treating many diseases by gene therapy technology. Viral and non-viral gene carriers are currently applied for gene delivery. Non-viral technology is safe and effective for the delivery of genetic materials to cells and tissues. Non-viral systems are based on plasmid expression containing a gene encoding a therapeutic protein and synthetic biodegradable nanoparticles as a safe carrier of gene. Biodegradable nanoparticles have shown great interest in drug and gene delivery systems as they are easy to be synthesized and have no side effect in cells and tissues. This review provides a critical view of applications of biodegradable nanoparticles on gene therapy technology to enhance the localization of in vitro and in vivo and improve the function of administered genes.
Biodegradable nanoparticles for gene therapy technology
International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
Rapid propagations in materials technology together with biology have initiated great hopes in the possibility of treating many diseases by gene therapy technology. Viral and non-viral gene carriers are currently applied for gene delivery. Non-viral technology is safe and effective for the delivery of genetic materials to cells and tissues. Non-viral systems are based on plasmid expression containing a gene encoding a therapeutic protein and synthetic biodegradable nanoparticles as a safe carrier of gene. Biodegradable nanoparticles have shown great interest in drug and gene delivery systems as they are easy to be synthesized and have no side effect in cells and tissues. This review provides a critical view of applications of biodegradable nanoparticles on gene therapy technology to enhance the localization of in vitro and in vivo and improve the function of administered genes
Immunoglobulins and immunoglobulin genes of the horse.
Wagner, Bettina
Antibodies of the horse were studied intensively by many notable immunologists throughout the past century until the early 1970's. After a large gap of interest in horse immunology, additional basic studies on horse immunoglobulin genes performed during the past 10 years have resulted in new insights into the equine humoral immune system. These include the characterization of the immunoglobulin lambda and kappa light chain genes, the immunoglobulin heavy chain constant (IGHC) gene regions, and initial studies regarding the heavy chain variable genes. Horses express predominately lambda light chains and seem to have a relatively restricted germline repertoire of both lambda and kappa chain variable genes. The IGHC region contains eleven constant heavy chain genes, seven of which are gamma heavy chain genes. It is suggested that all seven genes encoding IgG isotypes are expressed and have distinct functions in equine immune responses.
'Sunscreen' Gene May Guard Against Skin Cancer
... https://medlineplus.gov/news/fullstory_158935.html 'Sunscreen' Gene May Guard Against Skin Cancer Researchers hope their ... say they've identified a so-called "sunscreen" gene that may help protect against skin cancer. They ...
Gene coexpression network analysis as a source of functional annotation for rice genes.
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Kevin L Childs
Full Text Available With the existence of large publicly available plant gene expression data sets, many groups have undertaken data analyses to construct gene coexpression networks and functionally annotate genes. Often, a large compendium of unrelated or condition-independent expression data is used to construct gene networks. Condition-dependent expression experiments consisting of well-defined conditions/treatments have also been used to create coexpression networks to help examine particular biological processes. Gene networks derived from either condition-dependent or condition-independent data can be difficult to interpret if a large number of genes and connections are present. However, algorithms exist to identify modules of highly connected and biologically relevant genes within coexpression networks. In this study, we have used publicly available rice (Oryza sativa gene expression data to create gene coexpression networks using both condition-dependent and condition-independent data and have identified gene modules within these networks using the Weighted Gene Coexpression Network Analysis method. We compared the number of genes assigned to modules and the biological interpretability of gene coexpression modules to assess the utility of condition-dependent and condition-independent gene coexpression networks. For the purpose of providing functional annotation to rice genes, we found that gene modules identified by coexpression analysis of condition-dependent gene expression experiments to be more useful than gene modules identified by analysis of a condition-independent data set. We have incorporated our results into the MSU Rice Genome Annotation Project database as additional expression-based annotation for 13,537 genes, 2,980 of which lack a functional annotation description. These results provide two new types of functional annotation for our database. Genes in modules are now associated with groups of genes that constitute a collective functional
Bimodal gene expression patterns in breast cancer
Nikolsky Yuri; Bugrim Andrej; Shi Weiwei; Kirillov Eugene; Bessarabova Marina; Nikolskaya Tatiana
Abstract We identified a set of genes with an unexpected bimodal distribution among breast cancer patients in multiple studies. The property of bimodality seems to be common, as these genes were found on multiple microarray platforms and in studies with different end-points and patient cohorts. Bimodal genes tend to cluster into small groups of four to six genes with synchronised expression within the group (but not between the groups), which makes them good candidates for robust conditional ...
Organization of an echinoderm Hox gene cluster
Martinez, Pedro; Rast, Jonathan P.; Arenas-Mena, César; Davidson, Eric H.
The Strongylocentrotus purpuratus genome contains a single ten-gene Hox complex >0.5 megabase in length. This complex was isolated on overlapping bacterial artificial chromosome and P1 artificial chromosome genomic recombinants by using probes for individual genes and by genomic walking. Echinoderm Hox genes of Paralog Groups (PG) 1 and 2 are reported. The cluster includes genes representing all paralog groups of vertebrate Hox clusters, except that there is a sing...
Quality Measures for Gene Expression Biclusters
Beatriz Pontes; Ral Girldez; Aguilar-Ruiz, Jess S.
An noticeable number of biclustering approaches have been proposed proposed for the study of gene expression data, especially for discovering functionally related gene sets under different subsets of experimental conditions. In this context, recognizing groups of co-expressed or co-regulated genes, that is, genes which follow a similar expression pattern, is one of the main objectives. Due to the problem complexity, heuristic searches are usually used instead of exhaustive algorithms. Further...
Gene therapy and its implications in Periodontics
Mahale Swapna; Dani Nitin; Ansari Shumaila; Kale Triveni
Gene therapy is a field of Biomedicine. With the advent of gene therapy in dentistry, significant progress has been made in the control of periodontal diseases and reconstruction of dento-alveolar apparatus. Implementation in periodontics include: -As a mode of tissue engineering with three approaches: cell, protein-based and gene delivery approach. -Genetic approach to Biofilm Antibiotic Resistance. Future strategies of gene therapy in preventing periodontal diseases: -Enhances host defense...
Topological Features In Cancer Gene Expression Data
Lockwood, Svetlana; Krishnamoorthy, Bala
We present a new method for exploring cancer gene expression data based on tools from algebraic topology. Our method selects a small relevant subset from tens of thousands of genes while simultaneously identifying nontrivial higher order topological features, i.e., holes, in the data. We first circumvent the problem of high dimensionality by dualizing the data, i.e., by studying genes as points in the sample space. Then we select a small subset of the genes as landmarks to construct topologic...
Gene Therapy Used in Cancer Treatment
Thomas Wirth; Seppo Ylä-Herttuala
Cancer has been, from the beginning, a target of intense research for gene therapy approaches. Currently, more than 60% of all on-going clinical gene therapy trials worldwide are targeting cancer. Indeed, there is a clear unmet medical need for novel therapies. This is further urged by the fact that current conventional cancer therapies are frequently troubled by their toxicities. Different gene therapy strategies have been employed for cancer, such as pro-drug activating suicide gene therapy...
Gensko zdravljenje raka: Cancer gene therapy:
Serša, Gregor; Čemažar, Maja; KOČEVAR, NINA
Gene therapy uses genes to treat diseases. Large amount of research is based on cancer because current methods for cancer treatment have limited efficiencyand unwanted side effects. In the following article we first presentthe basic principles of gene therapy. Next, we describe the main delivery systems, which are viral and non-viral, and then the main therapeuticstrategies of cancer gene therapy. These can be divided into immunological, where we take advantage of the immune system for cancer...
The evolution of heart gene delivery vectors
Wasala, Nalinda B.; Shin, Jin-Hong; Duan, Dongsheng
Gene therapy holds promise for treating numerous heart diseases. A key premise for the success of cardiac gene therapy is the development of powerful gene transfer vehicles that can achieve highly efficient and persistent gene transfer specifically in the heart. Other features of an ideal vector include negligible toxicity, minimal immunogenicity and easy manufacturing. Rapid progress in the fields of molecular biology and virology has offered great opportunities to engineer various genetic m...
Regulation of the genes involved in nitrification.
Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)
Arp, D.J.; Sayavedra-Soto, L.A.
OAK-B135 This project focuses on the characterization of the regulation of the genes involved in nitrification in the bacterium Nitrosomonas europaea. The key genes in the nitrification pathway, amo and hao, are present in multiple copies in the genome. The promoters for these genes were identified and characterized. It was shown that there were some differences in the transcriptional regulation of the copies of these genes.
Alcoholism and Alternative Splicing of Candidate Genes
Toshikazu Sasabe; Shoichi Ishiura
Gene expression studies have shown that expression patterns of several genes have changed during the development of alcoholism. Gene expression is regulated not only at the level of transcription but also through alternative splicing of pre-mRNA. In this review, we discuss some of the evidence suggesting that alternative splicing of candidate genes such as DRD2 (encoding dopamine D2 receptor) may form the basis of the mechanisms underlying the pathophysiology of alcoholism. These reports sugg...
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Christoffersen, Mette; Tybjærg-Hansen, Anne
transporters G5 and G8, Niemann-Pick C1-Like protein 1, sortilin-1, ABO blood-group glycosyltransferases, myosin regulatory light chain-interacting protein and cholesterol 7α-hydroxylase have all consistently been associated with LDL cholesterol levels and/or coronary artery disease in GWAS. Whole...... of these findings still require independent replications and/or functional studies to confirm the exact role in LDL metabolism and the clinical implications for human health. SUMMARY: GWAS, exome sequencing studies, and recently 'exome chip' studies have suggested several novel genes with effects on LDL cholesterol....... Novel genes in LDL metabolism will improve our understanding of mechanisms in LDL metabolism, and may lead to the identification of new drug targets to reduce LDL cholesterol levels....
Gene Therapy : myth or reality ?
Fischer, Alain
International audience; Gene therapy has become a reality, although still a fragile one. Clinical benefit has beenachieved over the last 17 years in a limited number of medical conditions for whichpathophysiological studies determined that they were favorable settings. They includeinherited disorders of the immune system, leukodystrophies, possibly hemoglobinopathies,hemophilia B, and retinal dystrophies. Advances in the treatment of B-cell leukemiasand lymphomas have also been achieved. Adva...
Targeting Gene-Virotherapy for Cancer
Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)
Xin-Yuan LIU; Jing-Fa GU; Wen-Fang SHI
Gene therapy and viral therapy for cancer have therapeutic effects, but there has been no significant breakthrough in these two forms of therapy. Therefore, a new strategy called "targeting genevirotherapy", which combines the advantages of gene therapy and viral therapy, has been formulated. This new therapy has stronger antitumor effects than either gene therapy or viral therapy. A tumor-specific replicative adenovirus vector ZD55 (E1B55KD deleted Adv.) was constructed and various single therapeutic genes were inserted into ZD55 to form ZD55-gene. These are the targeting gene-virotherapy genes. But experiments showed that a single gene was not effective in eliminating the tumor mass, and therefore two genes were separately inserted into ZD55. This strategy is called "targeting dual gene-virotherapy" (with PCT patent). Better results were obtained with this strategy, and all the xenograft tumor masses were completely eliminated in all mice when two suitable genes producing a synergetic or compensative effect were chosen. Twenty-six papers on these strategies have been published by researchers in our laboratory.Furthermore, an adenoviral vector with two targeting promoters harboring two antitumor genes has been constructed for cancer therapy. Promising results have been obtained with this adenoviral vectorand another patent has been applied for. This antitumor strategy can be used to kill tumor cells completely with minimum damage to normal cells.
American Society of Gene & Cell Therapy
... Gene Therapy and Cell Therapy in the News Position Statements Scientists & Clinicians Job Bank General Grant Information ASGCT Grants and Awards ASGCT ... Password New Investigator Resource Center Join ... American Society of Gene & Cell Therapy is the primary professional membership organization for gene and cell therapy. The Society's members ...
The rat androgen receptor gene promoter
W.M. Baarends (Willy); A.P.N. Themmen (Axel); L.J. Blok (Leen); P. Mackenbach (Petra); A.O. Brinkmann (Albert); D.N. Meijer (Dies); P.W. Faber; J. Trapman (Jan); J.A. Grootegoed (Anton)
markdownabstractAbstract The androgen receptor (AR) is activated upon binding of testosterone or dihydrotestosterone and exerts regulatory effects on gene expression in androgen target cells. To study transcriptional regulation of the rat AR gene itself, the 5' genomic region of this gene was clon
Gene therapy for gastric cancer: A review
Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)
Chao Zhang; Zhan-Kui Liu
Gastric cancer is common in China, and its early diagnosis and treatment are difficult. In recent years great progress has been achieved in gene therapy, and a wide array of gene therapy systems for gastric cancer has been investigated. The present article deals with the general principles of gene therapy and then focuses on how these principles may be applied to gastric cancer.
Modulation of gene expression made easy
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Solem, Christian; Jensen, Peter Ruhdal
A new approach for modulating gene expression, based on randomization of promoter (spacer) sequences, was developed. The method was applied to chromosomal genes in Lactococcus lactis and shown to generate libraries of clones with broad ranges of expression levels of target genes. In one example...
Regulating gene expression : surprises still in store
Jansen, Ritsert C.; Nap, Jan-Peter
Understanding how genes constitute and contribute to the regulatory networks that result in phenotypic diversity is the major challenge of the post-genome era. Recently, it has been shown that major players in gene regulation can be identified by genome-wide linkage analysis of whole-genome gene exp
Mitochondrial RNA granules: Compartmentalizing mitochondrial gene expression.
Jourdain, Alexis A; Boehm, Erik; Maundrell, Kinsey; Martinou, Jean-Claude
In mitochondria, DNA replication, gene expression, and RNA degradation machineries coexist within a common nondelimited space, raising the question of how functional compartmentalization of gene expression is achieved. Here, we discuss the recently characterized "mitochondrial RNA granules," mitochondrial subdomains with an emerging role in the regulation of gene expression. PMID:26953349
Genes Causing Male Infertility in Humans
Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)
Lawrence C. Layman
There are an accumulating number of identified gene mutations that cause infertility in humans. Most of the known gene mutations impair normal puberty and subsequently cause infertility by either hypothalamic /pituitary deficiency of important tropic factors to the gonad or by gonadal genes.
A constructive approach to gene expression dynamics
International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
Recently, experiments on mRNA abundance (gene expression) have revealed that gene expression shows a stationary organization described by a scale-free distribution. Here we propose a constructive approach to gene expression dynamics which restores the scale-free exponent and describes the intermediate state dynamics. This approach requires only one assumption: Markov property
Structure of the murine Thy-1 gene
V. Giguere; K-I. Isobe; F.G. Grosveld (Frank)
textabstractWe have cloned the murine Thy-1.1 (AKR) and Thy-1.2 (Balb/c) genes. The complete exon/intron structure and the nucleotide sequence of the Thy-1.2 gene was determined. The gene contains four exons and three intervening sequences. The complete transcriptional unit gives rise to a tissue an
Uses of antimicrobial genes from microbial genome
Sorek, Rotem; Rubin, Edward M.
We describe a method for mining microbial genomes to discover antimicrobial genes and proteins having broad spectrum of activity. Also described are antimicrobial genes and their expression products from various microbial genomes that were found using this method. The products of such genes can be used as antimicrobial agents or as tools for molecular biology.
The Gene Expression Omnibus Database.
Clough, Emily; Barrett, Tanya
The Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database is an international public repository that archives and freely distributes high-throughput gene expression and other functional genomics data sets. Created in 2000 as a worldwide resource for gene expression studies, GEO has evolved with rapidly changing technologies and now accepts high-throughput data for many other data applications, including those that examine genome methylation, chromatin structure, and genome-protein interactions. GEO supports community-derived reporting standards that specify provision of several critical study elements including raw data, processed data, and descriptive metadata. The database not only provides access to data for tens of thousands of studies, but also offers various Web-based tools and strategies that enable users to locate data relevant to their specific interests, as well as to visualize and analyze the data. This chapter includes detailed descriptions of methods to query and download GEO data and use the analysis and visualization tools. The GEO homepage is at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/geo/. PMID:27008011
Horizontal gene transfer in chromalveolates
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Bhattacharya Debashish
Full Text Available Abstract Background Horizontal gene transfer (HGT, the non-genealogical transfer of genetic material between different organisms, is considered a potentially important mechanism of genome evolution in eukaryotes. Using phylogenomic analyses of expressed sequence tag (EST data generated from a clonal cell line of a free living dinoflagellate alga Karenia brevis, we investigated the impact of HGT on genome evolution in unicellular chromalveolate protists. Results We identified 16 proteins that have originated in chromalveolates through ancient HGTs before the divergence of the genera Karenia and Karlodinium and one protein that was derived through a more recent HGT. Detailed analysis of the phylogeny and distribution of identified proteins demonstrates that eight have resulted from independent HGTs in several eukaryotic lineages. Conclusion Recurring intra- and interdomain gene exchange provides an important source of genetic novelty not only in parasitic taxa as previously demonstrated but as we show here, also in free-living protists. Investigating the tempo and mode of evolution of horizontally transferred genes in protists will therefore advance our understanding of mechanisms of adaptation in eukaryotes.
Revisiting MHC genes in spondyloarthritis.
Breban, Maxime; Costantino, Félicie; André, Claudine; Chiocchia, Gilles; Garchon, Henri-Jean
Spondyloarthritis (SpA) refers to a variety of inflammatory rheumatic disorders with strong heritability. Shared genetic predisposition, as shown by familial aggregation, is largely attributable to the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) locus, which was estimated to account for approximately half of the whole disease heritability. The first predisposing allele identified more than 40 years ago is HLA-B27, which is a major gene predisposing to all forms of SpA. However, despite intensive research, its pathogenesis remains uncertain. Other MHC alleles belonging to the class I and class II regions have been identified to exert additional effect. Candidate-gene approaches and genome-wide studies have recently allowed identification of several new loci residing outside of the MHC region that are involved in the predisposition to SpA. Interestingly, some of those new genes, such as ERAP1, ERAP2, and NPEPPS, code for aminopeptidases that are involved in MHC class I presentation and were shown to interact with HLA-B27. PMID:25903667
The Gene Expression Omnibus database
Clough, Emily; Barrett, Tanya
The Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database is an international public repository that archives and freely distributes high-throughput gene expression and other functional genomics data sets. Created in 2000 as a worldwide resource for gene expression studies, GEO has evolved with rapidly changing technologies and now accepts high-throughput data for many other data applications, including those that examine genome methylation, chromatin structure, and genome–protein interactions. GEO supports community-derived reporting standards that specify provision of several critical study elements including raw data, processed data, and descriptive metadata. The database not only provides access to data for tens of thousands of studies, but also offers various Web-based tools and strategies that enable users to locate data relevant to their specific interests, as well as to visualize and analyze the data. This chapter includes detailed descriptions of methods to query and download GEO data and use the analysis and visualization tools. The GEO homepage is at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/geo/. PMID:27008011
Chromatin structure regulates gene conversion.
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
W Jason Cummings
Full Text Available Homology-directed repair is a powerful mechanism for maintaining and altering genomic structure. We asked how chromatin structure contributes to the use of homologous sequences as donors for repair using the chicken B cell line DT40 as a model. In DT40, immunoglobulin genes undergo regulated sequence diversification by gene conversion templated by pseudogene donors. We found that the immunoglobulin Vlambda pseudogene array is characterized by histone modifications associated with active chromatin. We directly demonstrated the importance of chromatin structure for gene conversion, using a regulatable experimental system in which the heterochromatin protein HP1 (Drosophila melanogaster Su[var]205, expressed as a fusion to Escherichia coli lactose repressor, is tethered to polymerized lactose operators integrated within the pseudo-Vlambda donor array. Tethered HP1 diminished histone acetylation within the pseudo-Vlambda array, and altered the outcome of Vlambda diversification, so that nontemplated mutations rather than templated mutations predominated. Thus, chromatin structure regulates homology-directed repair. These results suggest that histone modifications may contribute to maintaining genomic stability by preventing recombination between repetitive sequences.
Integrating Ontological Knowledge and Textual Evidence in Estimating Gene and Gene Product Similarity
Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)
Sanfilippo, Antonio P.; Posse, Christian; Gopalan, Banu; Tratz, Stephen C.; Gregory, Michelle L.
With the rising influence of the Gene On-tology, new approaches have emerged where the similarity between genes or gene products is obtained by comparing Gene Ontology code annotations associ-ated with them. So far, these approaches have solely relied on the knowledge en-coded in the Gene Ontology and the gene annotations associated with the Gene On-tology database. The goal of this paper is to demonstrate that improvements to these approaches can be obtained by integrating textual evidence extracted from relevant biomedical literature.
Review: the dominant flocculation genes of Saccharomyces cerevisiae constitute a new subtelomeric gene family.
Teunissen, A W; Steensma, H Y
The quality of brewing strains is, in large part, determined by their flocculation properties. By classical genetics, several dominant, semidominant and recessive flocculation genes have been recognized. Recent results of experiments to localize the flocculation genes FLO5 and FLO8, combined with the in silicio analysis of the available sequence data of the yeast genome, have revealed that the flocculation genes belong to a family which comprises at least four genes and three pseudogenes. All members of this gene family are located near the end of chromosomes, just like the SUC, MEL and MAL genes, which are also important for good quality baking or brewing strains. Transcription of the flocculation genes is repressed by several regulatory genes. In addition, a number of genes have been found which cause cell aggregation upon disruption or overexpression in an as yet unknown manner. In total, 33 genes have been reported that are involved in flocculation or cell aggregation.
Phoenix rising: gene therapy makes a comeback
Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)
Maria P.Limberis
Despite the first application of gene therapy in 1990,gene therapy has until recently failed to meet the huge expectations set forth by researchers,clinicians,and patients,thus dampening enthusiasm for an imminent cure for many life-threatening genetic diseases.Nonetheless,in recent years we have witnessed a strong comeback for gene therapy,with clinical successes in young and adult subjects suffering from inherited forms of blindness or from X-linked severe combined immunodeficiency disease.In this review,various gene therapy vectors progressing into clinical development and pivotal advances in gene therapy trials will be discussed.
Novel susceptibility genes in inflammatory bowel disease
Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)
Colin Noble; Elaine Nimmo; Daniel Gaya; Richard K Russell; Jack Satsangi
The inflammatory bowel disease, Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, are polygenic disorders with important environmental interactions. To date, the most widely adopted approach to identifying susceptibility genes in complex diseases has involved genome wide linkage studies followed by studies of positional candidate genes in loci of interest. This review encompasses data from studies into novel candidate genes implicated in the pathogenesis of inflammatory bowel disease. Novel techniques to identify candidate genes-genome wide association studies, yeast-two hybrid screening, microarray gene expression studies and proteomic profiling,are also reviewed and their potential role in unravelling the pathogenesis of inflammatory bowel disease are discussed.
Effective Clustering Algorithms for Gene Expression Data
Chandrasekhar, T; Elayaraja, E
Microarrays are made it possible to simultaneously monitor the expression profiles of thousands of genes under various experimental conditions. Identification of co-expressed genes and coherent patterns is the central goal in microarray or gene expression data analysis and is an important task in Bioinformatics research. In this paper, K-Means algorithm hybridised with Cluster Centre Initialization Algorithm (CCIA) is proposed Gene Expression Data. The proposed algorithm overcomes the drawbacks of specifying the number of clusters in the K-Means methods. Experimental analysis shows that the proposed method performs well on gene Expression Data when compare with the traditional K- Means clustering and Silhouette Coefficients cluster measure.
Positron emission tomography imaging of gene expression
International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
The merging of molecular biology and nuclear medicine is developed into molecular nuclear medicine. Positron emission tomography (PET) of gene expression in molecular nuclear medicine has become an attractive area. Positron emission tomography imaging gene expression includes the antisense PET imaging and the reporter gene PET imaging. It is likely that the antisense PET imaging will lag behind the reporter gene PET imaging because of the numerous issues that have not yet to be resolved with this approach. The reporter gene PET imaging has wide application into animal experimental research and human applications of this approach will likely be reported soon
Characterization of Genes for Beef Marbling Based on Applying Gene Coexpression Network
Dajeong Lim; Nam-Kuk Kim; Seung-Hwan Lee; Hye-Sun Park; Yong-Min Cho; Han-Ha Chai; Heebal Kim
Marbling is an important trait in characterization beef quality and a major factor for determining the price of beef in the Korean beef market. In particular, marbling is a complex trait and needs a system-level approach for identifying candidate genes related to the trait. To find the candidate gene associated with marbling, we used a weighted gene coexpression network analysis from the expression value of bovine genes. Hub genes were identified; they were topologically centered with large d...
GeneSigDB—A Curated Database of Gene Expression Signatures
Culhane, Aedín C.; Schwarzl, Thomas; Sultana, Razvan; Picard, Shaita C.; Lu, Tim H.; Franklin, Katherine R.; French, Simon J.; Papenhausen, Gerald; Correll, Mick; Picard, Kermshlise; Quackenbush, John
The primary objective of most gene expression studies is the identification of one or more gene signatures; lists of genes whose transcriptional levels are uniquely associated with a specific biological phenotype. Whilst thousands of experimentally derived gene signatures are published, their potential value to the community is limited by their computational inaccessibility. Gene signatures are embedded in published article figures, tables or in supplementary materials, and are frequently pre...
Divergence of exonic splicing elements after gene duplication and the impact on gene structures
Zhang, Zhenguo; Zhou, Li; Wang, Ping; Liu, Yang; Chen, Xianfeng; Hu, Landian; Kong, Xiangyin
Background The origin of new genes and their contribution to functional novelty has been the subject of considerable interest. There has been much progress in understanding the mechanisms by which new genes originate. Here we examine a novel way that new gene structures could originate, namely through the evolution of new alternative splicing isoforms after gene duplication. Results We studied the divergence of exonic splicing enhancers and silencers after gene duplication and the contributio...
Integrating various resources for gene name normalization.
Hu, Yuncui; Li, Yanpeng; Lin, Hongfei; Yang, Zhihao; Cheng, Liangxi
The recognition and normalization of gene mentions in biomedical literature are crucial steps in biomedical text mining. We present a system for extracting gene names from biomedical literature and normalizing them to gene identifiers in databases. The system consists of four major components: gene name recognition, entity mapping, disambiguation and filtering. The first component is a gene name recognizer based on dictionary matching and semi-supervised learning, which utilizes the co-occurrence information of a large amount of unlabeled MEDLINE abstracts to enhance feature representation of gene named entities. In the stage of entity mapping, we combine the strategies of exact match and approximate match to establish linkage between gene names in the context and the EntrezGene database. For the gene names that map to more than one database identifiers, we develop a disambiguation method based on semantic similarity derived from the Gene Ontology and MEDLINE abstracts. To remove the noise produced in the previous steps, we design a filtering method based on the confidence scores in the dictionary used for NER. The system is able to adjust the trade-off between precision and recall based on the result of filtering. It achieves an F-measure of 83% (precision: 82.5% recall: 83.5%) on BioCreative II Gene Normalization (GN) dataset, which is comparable to the current state-of-the-art. PMID:22984434
Integrating various resources for gene name normalization.
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Yuncui Hu
Full Text Available The recognition and normalization of gene mentions in biomedical literature are crucial steps in biomedical text mining. We present a system for extracting gene names from biomedical literature and normalizing them to gene identifiers in databases. The system consists of four major components: gene name recognition, entity mapping, disambiguation and filtering. The first component is a gene name recognizer based on dictionary matching and semi-supervised learning, which utilizes the co-occurrence information of a large amount of unlabeled MEDLINE abstracts to enhance feature representation of gene named entities. In the stage of entity mapping, we combine the strategies of exact match and approximate match to establish linkage between gene names in the context and the EntrezGene database. For the gene names that map to more than one database identifiers, we develop a disambiguation method based on semantic similarity derived from the Gene Ontology and MEDLINE abstracts. To remove the noise produced in the previous steps, we design a filtering method based on the confidence scores in the dictionary used for NER. The system is able to adjust the trade-off between precision and recall based on the result of filtering. It achieves an F-measure of 83% (precision: 82.5% recall: 83.5% on BioCreative II Gene Normalization (GN dataset, which is comparable to the current state-of-the-art.
Cardiac gene therapy: are we there yet?
Matkar, P N; Leong-Poi, H; Singh, K K
The incidence of cardiovascular disease (CVD) is increasing throughout the world and is associated with elevated morbidity and mortality. Gene therapy to treat cardiac dysfunction is gaining importance because of the limited therapeutic benefit offered by pharmacotherapies. The growing knowledge of the complex signaling pathways and the development of sophisticated vectors and delivery systems, are facilitating identification and targeting of specific molecular candidates involved in initiation and progression of CVDs. Several preclinical and clinical studies have shown the therapeutic efficiency of gene therapy in different disease models and patients. Hence, gene therapy might plausibly become an unconventional treatment modality for CVD patients. In this review, we summarize the gene delivery carriers, modes of delivery, recent preclinical/clinical studies and potential therapeutic targets. We also briefly discuss the existing limitations of gene therapy, technical challenges surrounding gene carriers and delivery systems, and some approaches to overcome these limitations for bringing CVD gene therapy one step closer to reality. PMID:27128687
Simulation of gene pyramiding in Drosophila melanogaster
Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)
Gene pyramiding has been successfully practiced in plant breeding for developing new breeds or lines in which favorable genes from several different lines were integrated.But it has not been used in animal breeding,and some theoretical investigation and simulation analysis with respect to its strategies,feasibility and efficiency are needed before it can be implemented in animals.In this study,we used four different pure fines of Drosophila melanogaster,each of which is homozygous at a specific mutant gene with a visible effect on phenotype,to simulate the gene pyramiding process and analyze the duration and population size required in different pyramiding strategies.We finally got the ideal individuals,which are homozygous at the four target genes simultaneously.This study demonstrates that gene pyramiding is feasible in animal breeding and the interaction between genes may affect the final results.
Deriving Trading Rules Using Gene Expression Programming
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Adrian VISOIU
Full Text Available This paper presents how buy and sell trading rules are generated using gene expression programming with special setup. Market concepts are presented and market analysis is discussed with emphasis on technical analysis and quantitative methods. The use of genetic algorithms in deriving trading rules is presented. Gene expression programming is applied in a form where multiple types of operators and operands are used. This gives birth to multiple gene contexts and references between genes in order to keep the linear structure of the gene expression programming chromosome. The setup of multiple gene contexts is presented. The case study shows how to use the proposed gene setup to derive trading rules encoded by Boolean expressions, using a dataset with the reference exchange rates between the Euro and the Romanian leu. The conclusions highlight the positive results obtained in deriving useful trading rules.
Apolipoprotein gene involved in lipid metabolism
Rubin, Edward; Pennacchio, Len A.
Methods and materials for studying the effects of a newly identified human gene, APOAV, and the corresponding mouse gene apoAV. The sequences of the genes are given, and transgenic animals which either contain the gene or have the endogenous gene knocked out are described. In addition, single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the gene are described and characterized. It is demonstrated that certain SNPs are associated with diseases involving lipids and triglycerides and other metabolic diseases. These SNPs may be used alone or with SNPs from other genes to study individual risk factors. Methods for intervention in lipid diseases, including the screening of drugs to treat lipid-related or diabetic diseases are also disclosed.
MRI Reporter Genes for Noninvasive Molecular Imaging
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Caixia Yang
Full Text Available Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI is one of the most important imaging technologies used in clinical diagnosis. Reporter genes for MRI can be applied to accurately track the delivery of cell in cell therapy, evaluate the therapy effect of gene delivery, and monitor tissue/cell-specific microenvironments. Commonly used reporter genes for MRI usually include genes encoding the enzyme (e.g., tyrosinase and β-galactosidase, the receptor on the cells (e.g., transferrin receptor, and endogenous reporter genes (e.g., ferritin reporter gene. However, low sensitivity limits the application of MRI and reporter gene-based multimodal imaging strategies are common including optical imaging and radionuclide imaging. These can significantly improve diagnostic efficiency and accelerate the development of new therapies.
Links between core promoter and basic gene features influence gene expression
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Sinvani Hadar
Full Text Available Abstract Background Diversity in rates of gene expression is essential for basic cell functions and is controlled by a variety of intricate mechanisms. Revealing general mechanisms that control gene expression is important for understanding normal and pathological cell functions and for improving the design of expression systems. Here we analyzed the relationship between general features of genes and their contribution to expression levels. Results Genes were divided into four groups according to their core promoter type and their characteristics analyzed statistically. Surprisingly we found that small variations in the TATA box are linked to large differences in gene length. Genes containing canonical TATA are generally short whereas long genes are associated with either non-canonical TATA or TATA-less promoters. These differences in gene length are primarily determined by the size and number of introns. Generally, gene expression was found to be tightly correlated with the strength of the TATA-box. However significant reduction in gene expression levels were linked with long TATA-containing genes (canonical and non-canonical whereas intron length hardly affected the expression of TATA-less genes. Interestingly, features associated with high translation are prevalent in TATA-containing genes suggesting that their protein production is also more efficient. Conclusion Our results suggest that interplay between core promoter type and gene size can generate significant diversity in gene expression.
Evolutionary signatures amongst disease genes permit novel methods for gene prioritization and construction of informative gene-based networks.
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Nolan Priedigkeit
Full Text Available Genes involved in the same function tend to have similar evolutionary histories, in that their rates of evolution covary over time. This coevolutionary signature, termed Evolutionary Rate Covariation (ERC, is calculated using only gene sequences from a set of closely related species and has demonstrated potential as a computational tool for inferring functional relationships between genes. To further define applications of ERC, we first established that roughly 55% of genetic diseases posses an ERC signature between their contributing genes. At a false discovery rate of 5% we report 40 such diseases including cancers, developmental disorders and mitochondrial diseases. Given these coevolutionary signatures between disease genes, we then assessed ERC's ability to prioritize known disease genes out of a list of unrelated candidates. We found that in the presence of an ERC signature, the true disease gene is effectively prioritized to the top 6% of candidates on average. We then apply this strategy to a melanoma-associated region on chromosome 1 and identify MCL1 as a potential causative gene. Furthermore, to gain global insight into disease mechanisms, we used ERC to predict molecular connections between 310 nominally distinct diseases. The resulting "disease map" network associates several diseases with related pathogenic mechanisms and unveils many novel relationships between clinically distinct diseases, such as between Hirschsprung's disease and melanoma. Taken together, these results demonstrate the utility of molecular evolution as a gene discovery platform and show that evolutionary signatures can be used to build informative gene-based networks.
Gene therapy for prostate cancer.
LENUS (Irish Health Repository)
Tangney, Mark
Cancer remains a leading cause of morbidity and mortality. Despite advances in understanding, detection, and treatment, it accounts for almost one-fourth of all deaths per year in Western countries. Prostate cancer is currently the most commonly diagnosed noncutaneous cancer in men in Europe and the United States, accounting for 15% of all cancers in men. As life expectancy of individuals increases, it is expected that there will also be an increase in the incidence and mortality of prostate cancer. Prostate cancer may be inoperable at initial presentation, unresponsive to chemotherapy and radiotherapy, or recur following appropriate treatment. At the time of presentation, patients may already have metastases in their tissues. Preventing tumor recurrence requires systemic therapy; however, current modalities are limited by toxicity or lack of efficacy. For patients with such metastatic cancers, the development of alternative therapies is essential. Gene therapy is a realistic prospect for the treatment of prostate and other cancers, and involves the delivery of genetic information to the patient to facilitate the production of therapeutic proteins. Therapeutics can act directly (eg, by inducing tumor cells to produce cytotoxic agents) or indirectly by upregulating the immune system to efficiently target tumor cells or by destroying the tumor\\'s vasculature. However, technological difficulties must be addressed before an efficient and safe gene medicine is achieved (primarily by developing a means of delivering genes to the target cells or tissue safely and efficiently). A wealth of research has been carried out over the past 20 years, involving various strategies for the treatment of prostate cancer at preclinical and clinical trial levels. The therapeutic efficacy observed with many of these approaches in patients indicates that these treatment modalities will serve as an important component of urological malignancy treatment in the clinic, either in isolation or
Mathematical Models of Gene Regulation
Mackey, Michael C.
This talk will focus on examples of mathematical models for the regulation of repressible operons (e.g. the tryptophan operon), inducible operons (e.g. the lactose operon), and the lysis/lysogeny switch in phage λ. These ``simple" gene regulatory elements can display characteristics experimentally of rapid response to perturbations and bistability, and biologically accurate mathematical models capture these aspects of the dynamics. The models, if realistic, are always nonlinear and contain significant time delays due to transcriptional and translational delays that pose substantial problems for the analysis of the possible ranges of dynamics.
QB1 - Stochastic Gene Regulation
Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)
Munsky, Brian [Los Alamos National Laboratory
Summaries of this presentation are: (1) Stochastic fluctuations or 'noise' is present in the cell - Random motion and competition between reactants, Low copy, quantization of reactants, Upstream processes; (2) Fluctuations may be very important - Cell-to-cell variability, Cell fate decisions (switches), Signal amplification or damping, stochastic resonances; and (3) Some tools are available to mode these - Kinetic Monte Carlo simulations (SSA and variants), Moment approximation methods, Finite State Projection. We will see how modeling these reactions can tell us more about the underlying processes of gene regulation.
Update of Thyroid Developmental Genes.
Stoupa, Athanasia; Kariyawasam, Dulanjalee; Carré, Aurore; Polak, Michel
Thyroid dysgenesis (TD) is the most common cause of congenital hypothyroidism in iodine-sufficient regions and includes a spectrum of developmental anomalies. The genetic components of TD are complex. Although a sporadic disease, advances in developmental biology have revealed monogenetic forms of TD. Inheritance is not based on a simple Mendelian pattern and additional genetic elements might contribute to the phenotypic spectrum. This article summarizes the key steps of normal thyroid development and provides an update on responsible genes and underlying mechanisms of TD. Up-to-date technologies in genetics and biology will allow us to advance in our knowledge of TD. PMID:27241962
Insulin gene mutations and diabetes
Nishi, Masahiro; Nanjo, Kishio
Abstract Some mutations of the insulin gene cause hyperinsulinemia or hyperproinsulinemia. Replacement of biologically important amino acid leads to defective receptor binding, longer half‐life and hyperinsulinemia. Three mutant insulins have been identified: (i) insulin Chicago (F49L or PheB25Leu); (ii) insulin Los Angeles (F48S or PheB24Ser); (iii) and insulin Wakayama (V92L or ValA3Leu). Replacement of amino acid is necessary for proinsulin processing results in hyperproinsulinemia. Four t...
Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)
YANG Mei; LI Qing-feng; ZHANG Feng
@@ Deep skin wounds heal by scar formation with a loss of its original appearance, structure and function.However, when the same damage occurs to the skin of an early gestational fetus, complete regeneration can be observed. Despite significant research in the field of skin regeneration, many mysteries remain, such as the loss of wound healing ability with maturity, the differences in healing at different parts of the body, and the presence of hypertrophic scars and keloids in some races but not in others. The finding of HOX genes in the skin provides new explanations to these conundrums.
An overview of gene therapy in head and neck cancer
Amit Bali; Deepika Bali; Ashutosh Sharma
Gene therapy is a new treatment modality in which new gene is introduced or existing gene is manipulated to cause cancer cell death or slow the growth of the tumor. In this review, we have discussed the different treatment approaches for cancer gene therapy; gene addition therapy, immunotherapy, gene therapy using oncolytic viruses, antisense ribonucleic acid (RNA) and RNA interference-based gene therapy. Clinical trials to date in head and neck cancer have shown evidence of gene transduction...
Switching on the lights for gene therapy.
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Alexandra Winkeler
Full Text Available Strategies for non-invasive and quantitative imaging of gene expression in vivo have been developed over the past decade. Non-invasive assessment of the dynamics of gene regulation is of interest for the detection of endogenous disease-specific biological alterations (e.g., signal transduction and for monitoring the induction and regulation of therapeutic genes (e.g., gene therapy. To demonstrate that non-invasive imaging of regulated expression of any type of gene after in vivo transduction by versatile vectors is feasible, we generated regulatable herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1 amplicon vectors carrying hormone (mifepristone or antibiotic (tetracycline regulated promoters driving the proportional co-expression of two marker genes. Regulated gene expression was monitored by fluorescence microscopy in culture and by positron emission tomography (PET or bioluminescence (BLI in vivo. The induction levels evaluated in glioma models varied depending on the dose of inductor. With fluorescence microscopy and BLI being the tools for assessing gene expression in culture and animal models, and with PET being the technology for possible application in humans, the generated vectors may serve to non-invasively monitor the dynamics of any gene of interest which is proportionally co-expressed with the respective imaging marker gene in research applications aiming towards translation into clinical application.
Human DNA repair and recombination genes
International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
Several genes involved in mammalian DNA repair pathways were identified by complementation analysis and chromosomal mapping based on hybrid cells. Eight complementation groups of rodent mutants defective in the repair of uv radiation damage are now identified. At least seven of these genes are probably essential for repair and at least six of them control the incision step. The many genes required for repair of DNA cross-linking damage show overlap with those involved in the repair of uv damage, but some of these genes appear to be unique for cross-link repair. Two genes residing on human chromosome 19 were cloned from genomic transformants using a cosmid vector, and near full-length cDNA clones of each gene were isolated and sequenced. Gene ERCC2 efficiently corrects the defect in CHO UV5, a nucleotide excision repair mutant. Gene XRCC1 normalizes repair of strand breaks and the excessive sister chromatid exchange in CHO mutant EM9. ERCC2 shows a remarkable /approximately/52% overall homology at both the amino acid and nucleotide levels with the yeast RAD3 gene. Evidence based on mutation induction frequencies suggests that ERCC2, like RAD3, might also be an essential gene for viability. 100 refs., 4 tabs
Nucleosome repositioning underlies dynamic gene expression.
Nocetti, Nicolas; Whitehouse, Iestyn
Nucleosome repositioning at gene promoters is a fundamental aspect of the regulation of gene expression. However, the extent to which nucleosome repositioning is used within eukaryotic genomes is poorly understood. Here we report a comprehensive analysis of nucleosome positions as budding yeast transit through an ultradian cycle in which expression of >50% of all genes is highly synchronized. We present evidence of extensive nucleosome repositioning at thousands of gene promoters as genes are activated and repressed. During activation, nucleosomes are relocated to allow sites of general transcription factor binding and transcription initiation to become accessible. The extent of nucleosome shifting is closely related to the dynamic range of gene transcription and generally related to DNA sequence properties and use of the coactivators TFIID or SAGA. However, dynamic gene expression is not limited to SAGA-regulated promoters and is an inherent feature of most genes. While nucleosome repositioning occurs pervasively, we found that a class of genes required for growth experience acute nucleosome shifting as cells enter the cell cycle. Significantly, our data identify that the ATP-dependent chromatin-remodeling enzyme Snf2 plays a fundamental role in nucleosome repositioning and the expression of growth genes. We also reveal that nucleosome organization changes extensively in concert with phases of the cell cycle, with large, regularly spaced nucleosome arrays being established in mitosis. Collectively, our data and analysis provide a framework for understanding nucleosome dynamics in relation to fundamental DNA-dependent transactions.
Targeting Herpetic Keratitis by Gene Therapy
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Hossein Mostafa Elbadawy
Full Text Available Ocular gene therapy is rapidly becoming a reality. By November 2012, approximately 28 clinical trials were approved to assess novel gene therapy agents. Viral infections such as herpetic keratitis caused by herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV-1 can cause serious complications that may lead to blindness. Recurrence of the disease is likely and cornea transplantation, therefore, might not be the ideal therapeutic solution. This paper will focus on the current situation of ocular gene therapy research against herpetic keratitis, including the use of viral and nonviral vectors, routes of delivery of therapeutic genes, new techniques, and key research strategies. Whereas the correction of inherited diseases was the initial goal of the field of gene therapy, here we discuss transgene expression, gene replacement, silencing, or clipping. Gene therapy of herpetic keratitis previously reported in the literature is screened emphasizing candidate gene therapy targets. Commonly adopted strategies are discussed to assess the relative advantages of the protective therapy using antiviral drugs and the common gene therapy against long-term HSV-1 ocular infections signs, inflammation and neovascularization. Successful gene therapy can provide innovative physiological and pharmaceutical solutions against herpetic keratitis.
Evolution of the Vertebrate Resistin Gene Family.
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Qingda Hu
Full Text Available Resistin (encoded by Retn was previously identified in rodents as a hormone associated with diabetes; however human resistin is instead linked to inflammation. Resistin is a member of a small gene family that includes the resistin-like peptides (encoded by Retnl genes in mammals. Genomic searches of available genome sequences of diverse vertebrates and phylogenetic analyses were conducted to determine the size and origin of the resistin-like gene family. Genes encoding peptides similar to resistin were found in Mammalia, Sauria, Amphibia, and Actinistia (coelacanth, a lobe-finned fish, but not in Aves or fish from Actinopterygii, Chondrichthyes, or Agnatha. Retnl originated by duplication and transposition from Retn on the early mammalian lineage after divergence of the platypus, but before the placental and marsupial mammal divergence. The resistin-like gene family illustrates an instance where the locus of origin of duplicated genes can be identified, with Retn continuing to reside at this location. Mammalian species typically have a single copy Retn gene, but are much more variable in their numbers of Retnl genes, ranging from 0 to 9. Since Retn is located at the locus of origin, thus likely retained the ancestral expression pattern, largely maintained its copy number, and did not display accelerated evolution, we suggest that it is more likely to have maintained an ancestral function, while Retnl, which transposed to a new location, displays accelerated evolution, and shows greater variability in gene number, including gene loss, likely evolved new, but potentially lineage-specific, functions.
Detection of the common resistance genes in Gram-negative bacteria using gene chip technology
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
C Ting
Full Text Available Objective: To design a resistance gene detection chip that could, in parallel, detect common clinical drug resistance genes of Gram-negative bacteria. Materials and Methods: Seventy clinically significant Gram-negative bacilli (Klebsiella pneumoniae, Escherichia coli, Enterobacter cloacae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Acinetobacter baumannii were collected. According to the known resistance gene sequences, we designed and synthesized primers and probes, which were used to prepare resistance gene detection chips, and finally we hybridized and scanned the gene detection chips. Results: The results between the gene chip and polymerase chain reaction (PCR were compared. The rate was consistently 100% in the eight kinds of resistance genes tested (TEM, SHV, CTX-M, DHA, CIT, VIM, KPC, OXA-23. One strain of Pseudomonas aeruginosa had the IMP, but it was not found by gene chip. Conclusion: The design of Gram-negative bacteria-resistant gene detection chip had better application value.
Application of multidisciplinary analysis to gene expression.
Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)
Wang, Xuefel (University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM); Kang, Huining (University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM); Fields, Chris (New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM); Cowie, Jim R. (New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM); Davidson, George S.; Haaland, David Michael; Sibirtsev, Valeriy (New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM); Mosquera-Caro, Monica P. (University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM); Xu, Yuexian (University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM); Martin, Shawn Bryan; Helman, Paul (University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM); Andries, Erik (University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM); Ar, Kerem (University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM); Potter, Jeffrey (University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM); Willman, Cheryl L. (University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM); Murphy, Maurice H. (University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM)
Molecular analysis of cancer, at the genomic level, could lead to individualized patient diagnostics and treatments. The developments to follow will signal a significant paradigm shift in the clinical management of human cancer. Despite our initial hopes, however, it seems that simple analysis of microarray data cannot elucidate clinically significant gene functions and mechanisms. Extracting biological information from microarray data requires a complicated path involving multidisciplinary teams of biomedical researchers, computer scientists, mathematicians, statisticians, and computational linguists. The integration of the diverse outputs of each team is the limiting factor in the progress to discover candidate genes and pathways associated with the molecular biology of cancer. Specifically, one must deal with sets of significant genes identified by each method and extract whatever useful information may be found by comparing these different gene lists. Here we present our experience with such comparisons, and share methods developed in the analysis of an infant leukemia cohort studied on Affymetrix HG-U95A arrays. In particular, spatial gene clustering, hyper-dimensional projections, and computational linguistics were used to compare different gene lists. In spatial gene clustering, different gene lists are grouped together and visualized on a three-dimensional expression map, where genes with similar expressions are co-located. In another approach, projections from gene expression space onto a sphere clarify how groups of genes can jointly have more predictive power than groups of individually selected genes. Finally, online literature is automatically rearranged to present information about genes common to multiple groups, or to contrast the differences between the lists. The combination of these methods has improved our understanding of infant leukemia. While the complicated reality of the biology dashed our initial, optimistic hopes for simple answers from
Identification of nitrogen-fixing genes and gene clusters from metagenomic library of acid mine drainage.
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Zhimin Dai
Full Text Available Biological nitrogen fixation is an essential function of acid mine drainage (AMD microbial communities. However, most acidophiles in AMD environments are uncultured microorganisms and little is known about the diversity of nitrogen-fixing genes and structure of nif gene cluster in AMD microbial communities. In this study, we used metagenomic sequencing to isolate nif genes in the AMD microbial community from Dexing Copper Mine, China. Meanwhile, a metagenome microarray containing 7,776 large-insertion fosmids was constructed to screen novel nif gene clusters. Metagenomic analyses revealed that 742 sequences were identified as nif genes including structural subunit genes nifH, nifD, nifK and various additional genes. The AMD community is massively dominated by the genus Acidithiobacillus. However, the phylogenetic diversity of nitrogen-fixing microorganisms is much higher than previously thought in the AMD community. Furthermore, a 32.5-kb genomic sequence harboring nif, fix and associated genes was screened by metagenome microarray. Comparative genome analysis indicated that most nif genes in this cluster are most similar to those of Herbaspirillum seropedicae, but the organization of the nif gene cluster had significant differences from H. seropedicae. Sequence analysis and reverse transcription PCR also suggested that distinct transcription units of nif genes exist in this gene cluster. nifQ gene falls into the same transcription unit with fixABCX genes, which have not been reported in other diazotrophs before. All of these results indicated that more novel diazotrophs survive in the AMD community.
Evaluating the consistency of gene sets used in the analysis of bacterial gene expression data
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Tintle Nathan L
Full Text Available Abstract Background Statistical analyses of whole genome expression data require functional information about genes in order to yield meaningful biological conclusions. The Gene Ontology (GO and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG are common sources of functionally grouped gene sets. For bacteria, the SEED and MicrobesOnline provide alternative, complementary sources of gene sets. To date, no comprehensive evaluation of the data obtained from these resources has been performed. Results We define a series of gene set consistency metrics directly related to the most common classes of statistical analyses for gene expression data, and then perform a comprehensive analysis of 3581 Affymetrix® gene expression arrays across 17 diverse bacteria. We find that gene sets obtained from GO and KEGG demonstrate lower consistency than those obtained from the SEED and MicrobesOnline, regardless of gene set size. Conclusions Despite the widespread use of GO and KEGG gene sets in bacterial gene expression data analysis, the SEED and MicrobesOnline provide more consistent sets for a wide variety of statistical analyses. Increased use of the SEED and MicrobesOnline gene sets in the analysis of bacterial gene expression data may improve statistical power and utility of expression data.
Susceptibility genes in movement disorders.
Scholz, Sonja; Singleton, Andrew
During the last years, remarkable progress in our understanding of molecular genetic mechanisms underlying movement disorders has been achieved. The successes of linkage studies, followed by positional cloning, have dominated the last decade and several genes underlying monogenic disorders have been discovered. The pathobiological understanding garnered from these mutations has laid the foundation for much of the search for genetic loci that confer risk for, rather than cause, disease. With the introduction of whole genome association studies as a novel tool to investigate genetic variation underlying common, complex diseases, a new era in neurogenomics has just begun. As the field rapidly moves forward several new challenges and critical questions in clinical care have to be addressed. In this review, we summarize recent advances in the discovery of susceptibility loci underlying major movement disorders, explain the newest methodologies and tools employed for finding and characterizing genes and discuss how insights into the molecular genetic basis of neurological disorders will impact therapeutic concepts in patient care.
Obesity genes and insulin resistance
Belkina, Anna C.; Denis, Gerald V.
Purpose of review The exploding prevalence of insulin resistance and Type 2 diabetes (T2D) linked to obesity has become an alarming public health concern. Worldwide, approximately 171 million people suffer from obesity-induced diabetes and public health authorities expect this situation to deteriorate rapidly. An interesting clinical population of 'metabolically healthy but obese' (MHO) cases is relatively protected from T2D and its associated cardiovascular risk. The molecular basis for this protection is not well understood but is likely to involve reduced inflammatory responses. The inflammatory cells and pathways that respond to overnutrition are the primary subject matter for this review. Recent findings The chance discovery of a genetic mutation in the Brd2 gene, which is located in the class II major histocompatibility complex and makes mice enormously fat but protects them from diabetes, offers revolutionary new insights into the cellular mechanisms that link obesity to insulin resistance and T2D. These Brd2-hypomorphic mice have reduced inflammation in fat that is normally associated with insulin resistance, and resemble MHO patients, suggesting novel therapeutic pathways for obese patients at risk for T2D. Summary Deeper understanding of the functional links between genes that control inflammatory responses to diet-induced obesity is crucial to the development of therapies for obese, insulin-resistant patients. PMID:20585247
Gene networks and liar paradoxes.
Isalan, Mark
Network motifs are small patterns of connections, found over-represented in gene regulatory networks. An example is the negative feedback loop (e.g. factor A represses itself). This opposes its own state so that when 'on' it tends towards 'off' - and vice versa. Here, we argue that such self-opposition, if considered dimensionlessly, is analogous to the liar paradox: 'This statement is false'. When 'true' it implies 'false' - and vice versa. Such logical constructs have provided philosophical consternation for over 2000 years. Extending the analogy, other network topologies give strikingly varying outputs over different dimensions. For example, the motif 'A activates B and A. B inhibits A' can give switches or oscillators with time only, or can lead to Turing-type patterns with both space and time (spots, stripes or waves). It is argued here that the dimensionless form reduces to a variant of 'The following statement is true. The preceding statement is false'. Thus, merely having a static topological description of a gene network can lead to a liar paradox. Network diagrams are only snapshots of dynamic biological processes and apparent paradoxes can reveal important biological mechanisms that are far from paradoxical when considered explicitly in time and space. PMID:19722183
Gene Ontology annotations and resources.
Blake, J A; Dolan, M; Drabkin, H; Hill, D P; Li, Ni; Sitnikov, D; Bridges, S; Burgess, S; Buza, T; McCarthy, F; Peddinti, D; Pillai, L; Carbon, S; Dietze, H; Ireland, A; Lewis, S E; Mungall, C J; Gaudet, P; Chrisholm, R L; Fey, P; Kibbe, W A; Basu, S; Siegele, D A; McIntosh, B K; Renfro, D P; Zweifel, A E; Hu, J C; Brown, N H; Tweedie, S; Alam-Faruque, Y; Apweiler, R; Auchinchloss, A; Axelsen, K; Bely, B; Blatter, M -C; Bonilla, C; Bouguerleret, L; Boutet, E; Breuza, L; Bridge, A; Chan, W M; Chavali, G; Coudert, E; Dimmer, E; Estreicher, A; Famiglietti, L; Feuermann, M; Gos, A; Gruaz-Gumowski, N; Hieta, R; Hinz, C; Hulo, C; Huntley, R; James, J; Jungo, F; Keller, G; Laiho, K; Legge, D; Lemercier, P; Lieberherr, D; Magrane, M; Martin, M J; Masson, P; Mutowo-Muellenet, P; O'Donovan, C; Pedruzzi, I; Pichler, K; Poggioli, D; Porras Millán, P; Poux, S; Rivoire, C; Roechert, B; Sawford, T; Schneider, M; Stutz, A; Sundaram, S; Tognolli, M; Xenarios, I; Foulgar, R; Lomax, J; Roncaglia, P; Khodiyar, V K; Lovering, R C; Talmud, P J; Chibucos, M; Giglio, M Gwinn; Chang, H -Y; Hunter, S; McAnulla, C; Mitchell, A; Sangrador, A; Stephan, R; Harris, M A; Oliver, S G; Rutherford, K; Wood, V; Bahler, J; Lock, A; Kersey, P J; McDowall, D M; Staines, D M; Dwinell, M; Shimoyama, M; Laulederkind, S; Hayman, T; Wang, S -J; Petri, V; Lowry, T; D'Eustachio, P; Matthews, L; Balakrishnan, R; Binkley, G; Cherry, J M; Costanzo, M C; Dwight, S S; Engel, S R; Fisk, D G; Hitz, B C; Hong, E L; Karra, K; Miyasato, S R; Nash, R S; Park, J; Skrzypek, M S; Weng, S; Wong, E D; Berardini, T Z; Huala, E; Mi, H; Thomas, P D; Chan, J; Kishore, R; Sternberg, P; Van Auken, K; Howe, D; Westerfield, M
The Gene Ontology (GO) Consortium (GOC, http://www.geneontology.org) is a community-based bioinformatics resource that classifies gene product function through the use of structured, controlled vocabularies. Over the past year, the GOC has implemented several processes to increase the quantity, quality and specificity of GO annotations. First, the number of manual, literature-based annotations has grown at an increasing rate. Second, as a result of a new 'phylogenetic annotation' process, manually reviewed, homology-based annotations are becoming available for a broad range of species. Third, the quality of GO annotations has been improved through a streamlined process for, and automated quality checks of, GO annotations deposited by different annotation groups. Fourth, the consistency and correctness of the ontology itself has increased by using automated reasoning tools. Finally, the GO has been expanded not only to cover new areas of biology through focused interaction with experts, but also to capture greater specificity in all areas of the ontology using tools for adding new combinatorial terms. The GOC works closely with other ontology developers to support integrated use of terminologies. The GOC supports its user community through the use of e-mail lists, social media and web-based resources. PMID:23161678
Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)
Martienssen, Robert
The classical maize mutant iojap (Iodent japonica) has variegated green and white leaves. Green sectors have cells with normal chloroplasts whereas white sectors have cells where plastids fail to differentiate. These mutant plastids, when transmitted through the female gametophyte, do not recover in the presence of wild type Iojap. We cloned the Ij locus, and we have investigated the mechanism of epigenetic inheritance and phenotypic expression. More recently, a modifier of this type of variegation, ''Inhibitor of striate'', has also been cloned. Both the iojap and inhibitor of striate proteins have homologs in bacteria and are members of ancient conserved families found in multiple species. These tools can be used to address fundamental questions of inheritance and variegation associated with this classical conundrum of maize genetics. Since the work of Rhoades there has been considerable speculation concerning the nature of the Iojap gene product, the origin of leaf variegation and the mechanism behind the material inheritance of defective plastids. This has made Iojap a textbook paradigm for cytoplasmic inheritance and nuclear-organellar interaction for almost 50 years. Cloning of the Iojap gene in maize, and homologs in other plants and bacteria, provides a new means to address the origin of heteroplastidity, variegation and cytoplasmic inheritance in higher plants.
Gene-gene interaction of erythropoietin gene polymorphisms and diabetic retinopathy in Chinese Han.
Fan, YanFei; Fu, Yin-Yu; Chen, Zhi; Hu, Yuan-Yuan; Shen, Jie
The aim of this study was to investigate the association of three single nucleotide polymorphisms in the erythropoietin gene polymorphisms with diabetic retinopathy and additional role of gene-gene interaction on diabetic retinopathy risk. A total of 1193 patients (579 men, 614 women) with type 2 diabetes mellitus were selected, including 397 diabetic retinopathy patients and 796 controls (type 2 diabetes mellitus patients without diabetic retinopathy); the mean age of all participants was 56.7 ± 13.9 years. Three single nucleotide polymorphisms were selected: rs507392, rs1617640, and rs551238. The t-test was used for comparison of erythropoietin protein level erythropoietin levels in patients having different erythropoietin genotypes. Logistic regression model was used to examine the association between three single nucleotide polymorphisms and diabetic retinopathy. Odds ratio (OR) and 95% confident interval (95% CI) were calculated. Generalized multifactor dimensionality reduction was employed to analyze the impact of interaction among three single nucleotide polymorphisms on CVD risk. After covariates adjustment, the carriers of homozygous mutant of three single nucleotide polymorphisms have higher diabetic retinopathy risk than those with wild-type homozygotes, OR (95% CI) were 2.04 (1.12-2.35), 1.87 (1.10-2.41) and 1.15 (1.06-1.76), respectively. Generalized multifactor dimensionality reduction model indicated a significant three-locus model (p = 0.0010) involving rs507392, rs1617640, and rs551238. Overall, the three-locus models had a cross-validation consistency of 10 of 10, and had the testing accuracy of 60.72%. Subjects with TC or CC-TG or GG-AC or CC genotype have the highest diabetic retinopathy risk. In conclusion, our results support an important association of rs507392, rs1617640 and rs551238 minor allele of erythropoietin with increased diabetic retinopathy risk, and additional interaction among three single nucleotide polymorphisms. PMID
Gene expression profile differences in gastric cancer, pericancerous epithelium and normal gastric mucosa by gene chip
Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)
Chuan-Ding Yu; Shen-Hua Xu; Hang-Zhou Mou; Zhi-Ming Jiang; Chi-Hong Zhu; Xiang-Lin Liu
AIM: To study the difference of gene expression in gastric cancer (T), pericancerous epithelium (P) and normal tissue of gastric mucosa (C), and to screen an associated novel gene in early gastric carcinogenesis by oligonudeotide microarray.METHODS: U133A (Affymetrix, Santa Clara, CA) gene chip was used to detect the gene expression profile difference in T, P and C, respectively. Bioinformatics was used to analyze the detected results.RESULTS: When gastric cancer was compared with normal gastric mucosa, 766 genes were found, with a difference of more than four times in expression levels. Of the 766 genes,530 were up-regulated (Signal Log Ratio [SLR]>2), and 236 were down-regulated (SLR<-2). When pericancerous epithelium was compared with normal gastric mucosa, 64genes were found, with a difference of more than four times in expression levels. Of the 64 genes, 50 were up-regulated (SLR>2), and 14 were down-regulated (SLR<-2). Compared with normal gastric mucosa, a total of 143 genes with a difference in expression levels (more than four times, either in cancer or in pericancerous epithelium) were found in gastric cancer (T) and pericancerous epithelium (P). Of the 143 genes, 108 were up-regulated (SLR>2), and 35were down-regulated (SLR<-2).CONCLUSION: To apply a gene chip could find 143 genes associated with the genes of gastric cancer in pericancerous epithelium, although there were no pathological changes in the tissue slices. More interesting, six genes of pericancerous epithelium were up-regulated in comparison with genes of gastric cancer and three genes were down-regulated in comparison with genes of gastric cancer. It is suggested that these genes may be related to the carcinogenesis and development of early gastric cancer.
Horizontal acquisition of multiple mitochondrial genes from a parasitic plant followed by gene conversion with host mitochondrial genes
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Hao Weilong
Full Text Available Abstract Background Horizontal gene transfer (HGT is relatively common in plant mitochondrial genomes but the mechanisms, extent and consequences of transfer remain largely unknown. Previous results indicate that parasitic plants are often involved as either transfer donors or recipients, suggesting that direct contact between parasite and host facilitates genetic transfer among plants. Results In order to uncover the mechanistic details of plant-to-plant HGT, the extent and evolutionary fate of transfer was investigated between two groups: the parasitic genus Cuscuta and a small clade of Plantago species. A broad polymerase chain reaction (PCR survey of mitochondrial genes revealed that at least three genes (atp1, atp6 and matR were recently transferred from Cuscuta to Plantago. Quantitative PCR assays show that these three genes have a mitochondrial location in the one species line of Plantago examined. Patterns of sequence evolution suggest that these foreign genes degraded into pseudogenes shortly after transfer and reverse transcription (RT-PCR analyses demonstrate that none are detectably transcribed. Three cases of gene conversion were detected between native and foreign copies of the atp1 gene. The identical phylogenetic distribution of the three foreign genes within Plantago and the retention of cytidines at ancestral positions of RNA editing indicate that these genes were probably acquired via a single, DNA-mediated transfer event. However, samplings of multiple individuals from two of the three species in the recipient Plantago clade revealed complex and perplexing phylogenetic discrepancies and patterns of sequence divergence for all three of the foreign genes. Conclusions This study reports the best evidence to date that multiple mitochondrial genes can be transferred via a single HGT event and that transfer occurred via a strictly DNA-level intermediate. The discovery of gene conversion between co-resident foreign and native
GeneSigDB: A Manually Curated Database and Resource for Analysis of Gene Expression Signatures
Culhane, Aedín C.; Markus S Schröder; Sultana, Razvan; Picard, Shaita C.; Martinelli, Enzo N.; Kelly, Caroline; Kapushesky, Misha; St Pierre, Anne-Alyssa; Flahive, William; Gusenleitner, Daniel; Papenhausen, Gerald; O'Connor, Niall; Correll, Mick; Haibe-Kains, Benjamin; Picard, Kermshlise Cathchusca
GeneSigDB (http://www.genesigdb.org or http://compbio.dfci.harvard.edu/genesigdb/) is a database of gene signatures that have been extracted and manually curated from the published literature. It provides a standardized resource of published prognostic, diagnostic and other gene signatures of cancer and related disease to the community so they can compare the predictive power of gene signatures or use these in gene set enrichment analysis. Since GeneSigDB release 1.0, we have expanded from 57...
Maternal-Fetal Metabolic Gene-Gene Interactions and Risk of Neural Tube Defects
Lupo, Philip J.; Mitchell, Laura E; Canfield, Mark A.; Shaw, Gary M.; Olshan, Andrew F.; Finnell, Richard H.; Zhu, Huiping
Single-gene analyses indicate that maternal genes associated with metabolic conditions (e.g., obesity) may influence the risk of neural tube defects (NTDs). However, to our knowledge, there have been no assessments of maternal-fetal metabolic gene-gene interactions and NTDs. We investigated 23 single nucleotide polymorphisms among 7 maternal metabolic genes (ADRB3, ENPP1, FTO, LEP, PPARG, PPARGC1A, and TCF7L2) and 2 fetal metabolic genes (SLC2A2 and UCP2). Samples were obtained from 737 NTD c...
Synthetic promoter libraries- tuning of gene expression
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Hammer, Karin; Mijakovic, Ivan; Jensen, Peter Ruhdal
be met by using promoter libraries. This approach generally consists of inserting a library of promoters in front of the gene to be studied, whereby the individual promoters might deviate either in their spacer sequences or bear slight deviations from the consensus sequence of a vegetative promoter. Here......The study of gene function often requires changing the expression of a gene and evaluating the consequences. In principle, the expression of any given gene can be modulated in a quasi-continuum of discrete expression levels but the traditional approaches are usually limited to two extremes: gene...... knockout and strong overexpression. However, applications such as metabolic optimization and control analysis necessitate a continuous set of expression levels with only slight increments in strength to cover a specific window around the wildtype expression level of the studied gene; this requirement can...
Gene Expression Profiling in Porcine Fetal Thymus
Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)
Yanjiong Chen; Shengbin Li; Lin Ye; Jianing Geng; Yajun Deng; Songnian Hu
obtain an initial overview of gene diversity and expression pattern in porcinethymus, 11,712 ESTs (Expressed Sequence Tags) from 100-day-old porcine thymus(FTY) were sequenced and 7,071 cleaned ESTs were used for gene expressionanalysis. Clustered by the PHRAP program, 959 contigs and 3,074 singlets wereobtained. Blast search showed that 806 contigs and 1,669 singlets (totally 5,442ESTs) had homologues in GenBank and 1,629 ESTs were novel. According to theGene Ontology classification, 36.99% ESTs were cataloged into the gene expressiongroup, indicating that although the functional gene (18.78% in defense group) ofthymus is expressed in a certain degree, the 100-day-old porcine thymus still existsin a developmental stage. Comparative analysis showed that the gene expressionpattern of the 100-day-old porcine thymus is similar to that of the human infantthymus.
Multiclass gene selection using Pareto-fronts.
Rajapakse, Jagath C; Mundra, Piyushkumar A
Filter methods are often used for selection of genes in multiclass sample classification by using microarray data. Such techniques usually tend to bias toward a few classes that are easily distinguishable from other classes due to imbalances of strong features and sample sizes of different classes. It could therefore lead to selection of redundant genes while missing the relevant genes, leading to poor classification of tissue samples. In this manuscript, we propose to decompose multiclass ranking statistics into class-specific statistics and then use Pareto-front analysis for selection of genes. This alleviates the bias induced by class intrinsic characteristics of dominating classes. The use of Pareto-front analysis is demonstrated on two filter criteria commonly used for gene selection: F-score and KW-score. A significant improvement in classification performance and reduction in redundancy among top-ranked genes were achieved in experiments with both synthetic and real-benchmark data sets.
[Gene therapy with cytokines against cervical cancer].
Bermúdez-Morales, Victor Hugo; Peralta-Zaragoza, Oscar; Madrid-Marina, Vicente
Gene therapy is an excellent alternative for treatment of many diseases. Capacity to manipulate the DNA has allowed direct the gene therapy to correct the function of an altered gene, to increase the expression of a gene and to favour the activation of the immune response. This way, it can intend the use of the DNA like medication able to control, to correct or to cure many diseases. Gene therapy against cancer has an enormous potential, and actually the use of the DNA has increased to control diverse cancer in animal models, with very encouraging results that have allowed its applications in experimental protocols in human. This work concentrates a review of the foundations of the gene therapy and its application on cervical cancer, from the point of view of the alterations of the immune system focused on the tumour micro-environment, and the use of the cytokines as immunomodulators. PMID:16983992
Actin gene family in Branchiostoma belched
Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)
Actin is a highly conserved cytoskeletal protein that is found in essentially all eukaryotic cells,which plays a paramount role in several basic functions of the organism, such as the maintenance of cellshape, cell division, cell mobility and muscle contraction. However, little is known about actin gene family inChinese amphioxus (Branchiostoma belcheri). Here we systemically analyzed the actin genes family inBranchiostoma belched and found that amphioxus contains 33 actin genes. These genes have undergoneextensive expansion through tandem duplications by phylogenetic analysis. In addition, we also providedevidence indicating that actin genes have divergent functions by specializing their EST data in both Bran-chiostoma belched and Branchiostoma florida. Our results provided an alternative explanation for the evolu-tion of actin genes, and gave new insights into their functional roles.
[Latest advances of SLA class I genes].
Tao, Xuan; Li, Hua; Li, Xue-Wei; Yu, Hui; Zuo, Qi-Zhen
The Swine leukocyte antigen (SLA) class I genes encode multi-glycoproteins on cell surface, which present endogenous antigenic peptides to T cells and thus initiate specific immune responses. In this article, latest advances on molecular structure, expression in tissues, regulation of expression, genotyping, polymorphism, and evolution of SLA class I genes were introduced, in which genotyping and polymorphism were emphasized. Molecular typing methods of SLA class I genes include serological method, DNA sequencing, PCR-SSP, PCR-SSOP and MS, of which PCR-SSP is frequently used in genotyping of SLA class I genes as a simple and rapid method. Future directions for the study and application of SLA class I genes on gene functions, peptide vaccine, xenotransplantation were also discussed.
Evaluating historical candidate genes for schizophrenia
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Farrell, M S; Werge, T; Sklar, P;
Prior to the genome-wide association era, candidate gene studies were a major approach in schizophrenia genetics. In this invited review, we consider the current status of 25 historical candidate genes for schizophrenia (for example, COMT, DISC1, DTNBP1 and NRG1). The initial study for 24...... of these genes explicitly evaluated common variant hypotheses about schizophrenia. Our evaluation included a meta-analysis of the candidate gene literature, incorporation of the results of the largest genomic study yet published for schizophrenia, ratings from informed researchers who have published...... on these genes, and ratings from 24 schizophrenia geneticists. On the basis of current empirical evidence and mostly consensual assessments of informed opinion, it appears that the historical candidate gene literature did not yield clear insights into the genetic basis of schizophrenia. A likely reason why...
The MHC class I genes of zebrafish.
Dirscherl, Hayley; McConnell, Sean C; Yoder, Jeffrey A; de Jong, Jill L O
Major histocompatibility complex (MHC) molecules play a central role in the immune response and in the recognition of non-self. Found in all jawed vertebrate species, including zebrafish and other teleosts, MHC genes are considered the most polymorphic of all genes. In this review we focus on the multi-faceted diversity of zebrafish MHC class I genes, which are classified into three sequence lineages: U, Z, and L. We examine the polygenic, polymorphic, and haplotypic diversity of the zebrafish MHC class I genes, discussing known and postulated functional differences between the different class I lineages. In addition, we provide the first comprehensive nomenclature for the L lineage genes in zebrafish, encompassing at least 15 genes, and characterize their sequence properties. Finally, we discuss how recent findings have shed new light on the remarkably diverse MHC loci of this species.
Evolution of trappin genes in mammals
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Furutani Yutaka
Full Text Available Abstract Background Trappin is a multifunctional host-defense peptide that has antiproteolytic, antiinflammatory, and antimicrobial activities. The numbers and compositions of trappin paralogs vary among mammalian species: human and sheep have a single trappin-2 gene; mouse and rat have no trappin gene; pig and cow have multiple trappin genes; and guinea pig has a trappin gene and two other derivativegenes. Independent duplications of trappin genes in pig and cow were observed recently after the species were separated. To determine whether these trappin gene duplications are restricted only to certain mammalian lineages, we analyzed recently-developed genome databases for the presence of duplicate trappin genes. Results The database analyses revealed that: 1 duplicated trappin multigenes were found recently in the nine-banded armadillo; 2 duplicated two trappin genes had been found in the Afrotherian species (elephant, tenrec, and hyrax since ancient days; 3 a single trappin-2 gene was found in various eutherians species; and 4 no typical trappin gene has been found in chicken, zebra finch, and opossum. Bayesian analysis estimated the date of the duplication of trappin genes in the Afrotheria, guinea pig, armadillo, cow, and pig to be 244, 35, 11, 13, and 3 million-years ago, respectively. The coding regions of trappin multigenes of almadillo, bovine, and pig evolved much faster than the noncoding exons, introns, and the flanking regions, showing that these genes have undergone accelerated evolution, and positive Darwinian selection was observed in pig-specific trappin paralogs. Conclusion These results suggest that trappin is an eutherian-specific molecule and eutherian genomes have the potential to form trappin multigenes.
Cloning and disruption of Ustilago maydis genes.
Fotheringham, S.; Holloman, W K
We have demonstrated that genes from Ustilago maydis can be cloned by direct complementation of mutants through the use of genomic libraries made in a high-frequency transformation vector. We isolated a gene involved in amino acid biosynthesis as an illustrative example and showed that integrative and one-step disruption methods can be used to create null mutations in the chromosomal copy of the gene by homologous recombination. The results of this investigation make it clear that one-step ge...
Conrad: Gene prediction using conditional random fields
DeCaprio, David; Vinson, Jade P.; Pearson, Matthew D; Montgomery, Philip; Doherty, Matthew; Galagan, James E
We present Conrad, the first comparative gene predictor based on semi-Markov conditional random fields (SMCRFs). Unlike the best standalone gene predictors, which are based on generalized hidden Markov models (GHMMs) and trained by maximum likelihood, Conrad is discriminatively trained to maximize annotation accuracy. In addition, unlike the best annotation pipelines, which rely on heuristic and ad hoc decision rules to combine standalone gene predictors with additional information such as ES...
Dynamics of gene circuits shapes evolvability
Jim??nez, Alba; Cotterell, James; Munteanu, Andreea; Sharpe, James
To what extent does the dynamical mechanism producing a specific biological phenotype bias the ability to evolve into novel phenotypes? We use the interpretation of a morphogen gradient into a single stripe of gene expression as a model phenotype. Although there are thousands of three-gene circuit topologies that can robustly develop a stripe of gene expression, the vast majority of these circuits use one of just six fundamentally different dynamical mechanisms. Here we explore the potential ...
Methods for monitoring multiple gene expression
Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)
Berka, Randy (Davis, CA); Bachkirova, Elena (Davis, CA); Rey, Michael (Davis, CA)
The present invention relates to methods for monitoring differential expression of a plurality of genes in a first filamentous fungal cell relative to expression of the same genes in one or more second filamentous fungal cells using microarrays containing Trichoderma reesei ESTs or SSH clones, or a combination thereof. The present invention also relates to computer readable media and substrates containing such array features for monitoring expression of a plurality of genes in filamentous fungal cells.
Methods for monitoring multiple gene expression
Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)
Berka, Randy; Bachkirova, Elena; Rey, Michael
The present invention relates to methods for monitoring differential expression of a plurality of genes in a first filamentous fungal cell relative to expression of the same genes in one or more second filamentous fungal cells using microarrays containing Trichoderma reesei ESTs or SSH clones, or a combination thereof. The present invention also relates to computer readable media and substrates containing such array features for monitoring expression of a plurality of genes in filamentous fungal cells.
Evolution of the Hedgehog Gene Family
S. Kumar; Balczarek, K. A.; Lai, Z C
Effective intercellular communication is an important feature in the development of multicellular organisms. Secreted hedgehog (hh) protein is essential for both long- and short-range cellular signaling required for body pattern formation in animals. In a molecular evolutionary study, we find that the vertebrate homologs of the Drosophila hh gene arose by two gene duplications: the first gave rise to Desert hh, whereas the second produced the Indian and Sonic hh genes. Both duplications occur...
Adenoviral Vectors for Hemophilia Gene Therapy
Brunetti-Pierri, N; Ng, Philip
Hemophilia is an inherited blood clotting disorder resulting from deficiency of blood coagulation factors. Current standard of care for hemophilia patients is frequent intravenous infusions of the missing coagulation factor. Gene therapy for hemophilia involves the introduction of a normal copy of the deficient coagulation factor gene thereby potentially offering a definitive cure for the bleeding disorder. A variety of approaches have been pursued for hemophilia gene therapy and this review article focuses on those that use adenoviral vectors. PMID:24883229
Bayesian biclustering of gene expression data
Liu Jun S; Gu Jiajun
Abstract Background Biclustering of gene expression data searches for local patterns of gene expression. A bicluster (or a two-way cluster) is defined as a set of genes whose expression profiles are mutually similar within a subset of experimental conditions/samples. Although several biclustering algorithms have been studied, few are based on rigorous statistical models. Results We developed a Bayesian biclustering model (BBC), and implemented a Gibbs sampling procedure for its statistical in...
Identification of Biclustering Algorithms for Gene Extraction
Sathishkumar, K.; Dr.V.Thiagarasu; M. Ramalingam
Many clustering approaches have been proposed for the analysis of gene expression data obtained from microarray experiments. However, the results from the application of standard clustering methods to genes are limited. This limitation is imposed by the existence of a number of experimental conditions where the activity of genes is uncorrelated. For this reason, a number of algorithms that perform simultaneous clustering on the row and column dimensions of the data matrix have been proposed. ...
Molecular pathology of single gene disorders.
Weatherall, D. J.
Recent studies using recombinant DNA technology have led to an understanding of the basic molecular pathology of single gene disorders. Furthermore, methods are being developed for finding genes for conditions, whose underlying biochemistry is still not understood, or which may contribute to polygenic systems that underlie common diseases. As well as providing new approaches to carrier detection, prenatal diagnosis, and treatment of single gene disorders, these advances promise to provide imp...
Gene expression in the Parkinson's disease brain
Lewis, Patrick A.; Cookson, Mark R.
The study of gene expression has undergone a transformation in the past decade as the benefits of the sequencing of the human genome have made themselves felt. Increasingly, genome wide approaches are being applied to the analysis of gene expression in human disease as a route to understanding the underlying pathogenic mechanisms. In this review, we will summarise current state of gene expression studies of the brain in Parkinson's disease, and examine how these techniques can be used to gain...
Targeting Radiotherapy to Cancer by Gene Transfer
R. J. Mairs; Boyd, M.
Targeted radionuclide therapy is an alternative method of radiation treatment which uses a tumor-seeking agent carrying a radioactive atom to deposits of tumor, wherever in the body they may be located. Recent experimental data signifies promise for the amalgamation of gene transfer with radionuclide targeting. This review encompasses aspects of the integration of gene manipulation and targeted radiotherapy, highlighting the possibilities of gene transfer to assist the targeting of cancer ...
Duplicability of self-interacting human genes
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Makino Takashi
Full Text Available Abstract Background There is increasing interest in the evolution of protein-protein interactions because this should ultimately be informative of the patterns of evolution of new protein functions within the cell. One model proposes that the evolution of new protein-protein interactions and protein complexes proceeds through the duplication of self-interacting genes. This model is supported by data from yeast. We examined the relationship between gene duplication and self-interaction in the human genome. Results We investigated the patterns of self-interaction and duplication among 34808 interactions encoded by 8881 human genes, and show that self-interacting proteins are encoded by genes with higher duplicability than genes whose proteins lack this type of interaction. We show that this result is robust against the system used to define duplicate genes. Finally we compared the presence of self-interactions amongst proteins whose genes have duplicated either through whole-genome duplication (WGD or small-scale duplication (SSD, and show that the former tend to have more interactions in general. After controlling for age differences between the two sets of duplicates this result can be explained by the time since the gene duplication. Conclusions Genes encoding self-interacting proteins tend to have higher duplicability than proteins lacking self-interactions. Moreover these duplicate genes have more often arisen through whole-genome rather than small-scale duplication. Finally, self-interacting WGD genes tend to have more interaction partners in general in the PIN, which can be explained by their overall greater age. This work adds to our growing knowledge of the importance of contextual factors in gene duplicability.
Duplicability of self-interacting human genes.
LENUS (Irish Health Repository)
Pérez-Bercoff, Asa
BACKGROUND: There is increasing interest in the evolution of protein-protein interactions because this should ultimately be informative of the patterns of evolution of new protein functions within the cell. One model proposes that the evolution of new protein-protein interactions and protein complexes proceeds through the duplication of self-interacting genes. This model is supported by data from yeast. We examined the relationship between gene duplication and self-interaction in the human genome. RESULTS: We investigated the patterns of self-interaction and duplication among 34808 interactions encoded by 8881 human genes, and show that self-interacting proteins are encoded by genes with higher duplicability than genes whose proteins lack this type of interaction. We show that this result is robust against the system used to define duplicate genes. Finally we compared the presence of self-interactions amongst proteins whose genes have duplicated either through whole-genome duplication (WGD) or small-scale duplication (SSD), and show that the former tend to have more interactions in general. After controlling for age differences between the two sets of duplicates this result can be explained by the time since the gene duplication. CONCLUSIONS: Genes encoding self-interacting proteins tend to have higher duplicability than proteins lacking self-interactions. Moreover these duplicate genes have more often arisen through whole-genome rather than small-scale duplication. Finally, self-interacting WGD genes tend to have more interaction partners in general in the PIN, which can be explained by their overall greater age. This work adds to our growing knowledge of the importance of contextual factors in gene duplicability.
Circadian Gene Networks In Bone Regeneration
Hassan, Nathaniel
BACKGROUND: Previous studies suggested that vitamin D played a significant role in bone regeneration, facilitating the establishment of implant osseointegration. A whole genome microarray study further suggested that the vitamin D axis might involve circadian rhythm gene expression in the bone peripheral tissue.OBJECTIVES: To identify key gene networks involved with vitamin D receptor in the bone regeneration process and to explore any correlation with circadian rhythm gene expression in bone...
The Use of Viral Vectors in Gene Transfer Therapy
Dziaková, A.; Valenčáková, A.; Hatalová, E.; J. Kalinová
Gene therapy is strategy based on using genes as pharmaceuticals. Gene therapy is a treatment that involves altering the genes inside body's cells to stop disease. Genes contain DNA- the code controlling body form and function. Genes that do not work properly can cause disease. Gene therapy replaces a faulty gene or adds a new gene in an attempt to cure disease or improve the ability of the body to fight disease. Gene therapy holds promise for treating a wide range of diseases, including canc...
Identifying disease feature genes based on cellular localized gene functional modules and regulation networks
Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)
ZHANG Min; ZHU Jing; GUO Zheng; LI Xia; YANG Da; WANG Lei; RAO Shaoqi
Identifying disease-relevant genes and functional modules, based on gene expression profiles and gene functional knowledge, is of high importance for studying disease mechanisms and subtyping disease phenotypes. Using gene categories of biological process and cellular component in Gene Ontology, we propose an approach to selecting functional modules enriched with differentially expressed genes, and identifying the feature functional modules of high disease discriminating abilities. Using the differentially expressed genes in each feature module as the feature genes, we reveal the relevance of the modules to the studied diseases. Using three datasets for prostate cancer, gastric cancer, and leukemia, we have demonstrated that the proposed modular approach is of high power in identifying functionally integrated feature gene subsets that are highly relevant to the disease mechanisms. Our analysis has also shown that the critical disease-relevant genes might be better recognized from the gene regulation network, which is constructed using the characterized functional modules, giving important clues to the concerted mechanisms of the modules responding to complex disease states. In addition, the proposed approach to selecting the disease-relevant genes by jointly considering the gene functional knowledge suggests a new way for precisely classifying disease samples with clear biological interpretations, which is critical for the clinical diagnosis and the elucidation of the pathogenic basis of complex diseases.
The drug target genes show higher evolutionary conservation than non-target genes.
Lv, Wenhua; Xu, Yongdeng; Guo, Yiying; Yu, Ziqi; Feng, Guanglong; Liu, Panpan; Luan, Meiwei; Zhu, Hongjie; Liu, Guiyou; Zhang, Mingming; Lv, Hongchao; Duan, Lian; Shang, Zhenwei; Li, Jin; Jiang, Yongshuai; Zhang, Ruijie
Although evidence indicates that drug target genes share some common evolutionary features, there have been few studies analyzing evolutionary features of drug targets from an overall level. Therefore, we conducted an analysis which aimed to investigate the evolutionary characteristics of drug target genes. We compared the evolutionary conservation between human drug target genes and non-target genes by combining both the evolutionary features and network topological properties in human protein-protein interaction network. The evolution rate, conservation score and the percentage of orthologous genes of 21 species were included in our study. Meanwhile, four topological features including the average shortest path length, betweenness centrality, clustering coefficient and degree were considered for comparison analysis. Then we got four results as following: compared with non-drug target genes, 1) drug target genes had lower evolutionary rates; 2) drug target genes had higher conservation scores; 3) drug target genes had higher percentages of orthologous genes and 4) drug target genes had a tighter network structure including higher degrees, betweenness centrality, clustering coefficients and lower average shortest path lengths. These results demonstrate that drug target genes are more evolutionarily conserved than non-drug target genes. We hope that our study will provide valuable information for other researchers who are interested in evolutionary conservation of drug targets.
Sexy gene conversions: locating gene conversions on the X-chromosome.
Lawson, Mark J; Zhang, Liqing
Gene conversion can have a profound impact on both the short- and long-term evolution of genes and genomes. Here, we examined the gene families that are located on the X-chromosomes of human (Homo sapiens), chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes), mouse (Mus musculus) and rat (Rattus norvegicus) for evidence of gene conversion. We identified seven gene families (WD repeat protein family, Ferritin Heavy Chain family, RAS-related Protein RAB-40 family, Diphosphoinositol polyphosphate phosphohydrolase family, Transcription Elongation Factor A family, LDOC1-related family, Zinc Finger Protein ZIC, and GLI family) that show evidence of gene conversion. Through phylogenetic analyses and synteny evidence, we show that gene conversion has played an important role in the evolution of these gene families and that gene conversion has occurred independently in both primates and rodents. Comparing the results with those of two gene conversion prediction programs (GENECONV and Partimatrix), we found that both GENECONV and Partimatrix have very high false negative rates (i.e. failed to predict gene conversions), which leads to many undetected gene conversions. The combination of phylogenetic analyses with physical synteny evidence exhibits high resolution in the detection of gene conversions. PMID:19487239
DAVID Knowledgebase: a gene-centered database integrating heterogeneous gene annotation resources to facilitate high-throughput gene functional analysis
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Baseler Michael W
Full Text Available Abstract Background Due to the complex and distributed nature of biological research, our current biological knowledge is spread over many redundant annotation databases maintained by many independent groups. Analysts usually need to visit many of these bioinformatics databases in order to integrate comprehensive annotation information for their genes, which becomes one of the bottlenecks, particularly for the analytic task associated with a large gene list. Thus, a highly centralized and ready-to-use gene-annotation knowledgebase is in demand for high throughput gene functional analysis. Description The DAVID Knowledgebase is built around the DAVID Gene Concept, a single-linkage method to agglomerate tens of millions of gene/protein identifiers from a variety of public genomic resources into DAVID gene clusters. The grouping of such identifiers improves the cross-reference capability, particularly across NCBI and UniProt systems, enabling more than 40 publicly available functional annotation sources to be comprehensively integrated and centralized by the DAVID gene clusters. The simple, pair-wise, text format files which make up the DAVID Knowledgebase are freely downloadable for various data analysis uses. In addition, a well organized web interface allows users to query different types of heterogeneous annotations in a high-throughput manner. Conclusion The DAVID Knowledgebase is designed to facilitate high throughput gene functional analysis. For a given gene list, it not only provides the quick accessibility to a wide range of heterogeneous annotation data in a centralized location, but also enriches the level of biological information for an individual gene. Moreover, the entire DAVID Knowledgebase is freely downloadable or searchable at http://david.abcc.ncifcrf.gov/knowledgebase/.
Genes that modulate susceptibility for alcohol dependence
Caio Cesar Silva de Cerqueira; Domingos Lázaro Souza Rios
The pathways for the metabolism of the alcohol are complex and modulated by some genes that promote response to this substance. The genes that codify the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase (os genes ADH1B or ADH2) act in the conversion of ethanol in acetaldehyde; the enzyme aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH2) that converts the aldehyde into ascetic acid, and the gene that codifies the enzyme cytochrome P450, isoform 2E1 (CYP2E1), that acts generating free radicals of great importance in the induced hepa...
Central auditory function of deafness genes.
Willaredt, Marc A; Ebbers, Lena; Nothwang, Hans Gerd
The highly variable benefit of hearing devices is a serious challenge in auditory rehabilitation. Various factors contribute to this phenomenon such as the diversity in ear defects, the different extent of auditory nerve hypoplasia, the age of intervention, and cognitive abilities. Recent analyses indicate that, in addition, central auditory functions of deafness genes have to be considered in this context. Since reduced neuronal activity acts as the common denominator in deafness, it is widely assumed that peripheral deafness influences development and function of the central auditory system in a stereotypical manner. However, functional characterization of transgenic mice with mutated deafness genes demonstrated gene-specific abnormalities in the central auditory system as well. A frequent function of deafness genes in the central auditory system is supported by a genome-wide expression study that revealed significant enrichment of these genes in the transcriptome of the auditory brainstem compared to the entire brain. Here, we will summarize current knowledge of the diverse central auditory functions of deafness genes. We furthermore propose the intimately interwoven gene regulatory networks governing development of the otic placode and the hindbrain as a mechanistic explanation for the widespread expression of these genes beyond the cochlea. We conclude that better knowledge of central auditory dysfunction caused by genetic alterations in deafness genes is required. In combination with improved genetic diagnostics becoming currently available through novel sequencing technologies, this information will likely contribute to better outcome prediction of hearing devices.
["Matreshka" Genes with Alternative Reading Frames].
Sheshukova, E V; Shindyapina, A V; Komarova, T V; Dorokhov, Yu L
Although a relatively small part of the human genome contains protein encoding genes, the latest data on the discovery of alternative open reading frames (ORFs) in conventional mRNAs has highlighted the expanded coding potential of these genes. Until recently, it was believed that each mRNA transcript encodes a single protein. Recent proteogenomics data indicate the existence of exceptions to this rule, which greatly changes the usual meaning of the term "gene". The topology of a gene with overlapping ORFs resembles a Russian "matreshka" toy. There are two levels of "matreshka" genetic systems. First, the chromosomal level, when the "nested" gene is located within introns and exons of the main chromosomal gene, both in the sense and antisense orientation relative to the external gene. The second level is a mature mRNA molecule containing overlapping ORFs or an ORF with an alternative-start codon. In this review we will focus on the properties of "matreshka" genes of the second type and methods for their detection and verification. Particular attention is paid to the biological properties of the polypeptides encoded by these genes. PMID:27215029
Advanced studies on human gene ZNF322
Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)
LI Yongqing; WANG Yuequn; YUAN Wuzhou; DENG Yun; ZHU Chuanbing; WU Xiushan
The human novel gene of ZNF322 is cloned from human fetal eDNA library using the primers on the basis of the ZNF322 sequence analyzed with computer.The gene is located on Chromosome 6p22.1,and encodes a protein consisting of 402 amino acid residues and containing nine tandem C2H2-type zinc-finger motifs.Northern blot result shows that the gene is expressed in all examined adult tissues.Subcellular location study indicates that ZNF322-EGFP fusion protein is distributed in the nucleus and cytoplasm.Reporter gene assays show that ZNF322 is a potential transcriptional activator.
Modification of Cre Gene by PCR Method
Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)
Cre/LoxP site-specified recombination system is mainly used for excision,inversion and integration of target gene.Therefore,this system can be used for plant marker free genetic transformation,site-specific transgene expression and so on.However,the application of this system was limited due to its low expression and excision efficiency.In this study,an intron,which can enhance gene expression in plants,was inserted into Cre by using PCR method.And a modified Cre gene,named Crein,was obtained.This gene was ...
Research progress in rice gametophyte genes
Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)
@@Gametophyte genes (ga) for segregation distortion have been reported by many researchers. Iwata et al(1964) reported the presence of a gametophyte gene ga 1 on chromosome 6 which controlled a selective fertilization of gametes in the cross between an atomic-bomb-irradiated mutant and a normal variety. Nakagahra et al(1972) and Nakagahra (1972) reported two gametophyte genes ga 2 and ga 3 near the loci of marker genes bc 1 and dl on chromosome 3. When Japanese testers were crossed with some foreign varieties from Asia, the presence of ga 2 resulted in an increase ofjaponica allele while ga 3 did theopposite effect.
Identification of acquired antimicrobial resistance genes
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Zankari, Ea; Hasman, Henrik; Cosentino, Salvatore;
antimicrobial resistance genes in whole-genome data. As input, the method can use both pre-assembled, complete or partial genomes, and short sequence reads from four different sequencing platforms. The method was evaluated on 1862 GenBank files containing 1411 different resistance genes, as well as on 23 de......-novo-sequenced isolates.ResultsWhen testing the 1862 GenBank files, the method identified the resistance genes with an ID = 100% (100% identity) to the genes in ResFinder. Agreement between in silico predictions and phenotypic testing was found when the method was further tested on 23 isolates of five different bacterial...
Gene expression of the endolymphatic sac
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Friis, Morten; Martin-Bertelsen, Tomas; Friis-Hansen, Lennart;
that the endolymphatic sac has multiple and diverse functions in the inner ear. Objectives:The objective of this study was to provide a comprehensive review of the genes expressed in the endolymphatic sac in the rat and perform a functional characterization based on measured mRNA abundance. Methods:Microarray technology...... was used to investigate the gene expression of the endolymphatic sac with the surrounding dura. Characteristic and novel endolymphatic sac genes were determined by comparing with expressions in pure dura. Results: In all, 463 genes were identified specific for the endolymphatic sac. Functional annotation...
Gene Therapy in Oral Cancer: A Review
Kumar, M. Sathish; Masthan, K.M.K.; Babu, N. Aravindha; Dash, Kailash Chandra
Gene therapy is the use of DNA as an agent to treat disease. Gene therapy aims at the insertion of a functional gene into the cells of a patient for the correction of an inborn error of metabolism, to alter or repair an acquired genetic abnormality, and to provide new function to the cell. Many experiments have been done with respect to its application in various diseases.Today, most of the gene therapy studies are aimed at cancer and hereditary diseases which are linked to genetic defects. C...
Differential gene expression during Trypanosoma cruzi metacyclogenesis
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Marco Aurelio Krieger
Full Text Available The transformation of epimastigotes into metacyclic trypomastigotes involves changes in the pattern of expressed genes, resulting in important morphological and functional differences between these developmental forms of Trypanosoma cruzi. In order to identify and characterize genes involved in triggering the metacyclogenesis process and in conferring to metacyclic trypomastigotes their stage specific biological properties, we have developed a method allowing the isolation of genes specifically expressed when comparing two close related cell populations (representation of differential expression or RDE. The method is based on the PCR amplification of gene sequences selected by hybridizing and subtracting the populations in such a way that after some cycles of hybridization-amplification genes specific to a given population are highly enriched. The use of this method in the analysis of differential gene expression during T. cruzi metacyclogenesis (6 hr and 24 hr of differentiation and metacyclic trypomastigotes resulted in the isolation of several clones from each time point. Northern blot analysis showed that some genes are transiently expressed (6 hr and 24 hr differentiating cells, while others are present in differentiating cells and in metacyclic trypomastigotes. Nucleotide sequencing of six clones characterized so far showed that they do not display any homology to gene sequences available in the GeneBank.
Candidate genes in ocular dominance plasticity
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
M. Liset Rietman
Full Text Available The objective of this study was to identify new candidate genes involved in experience-dependent plasticity. To this aim, we combined previously obtained data from recombinant inbred BXD strains on ocular dominance (OD plasticity and gene expression levels in the neocortex. We validated our approach using a list of genes which alter OD plasticity when inactivated. The expression levels of one fifth of these genes correlated with the amount of OD plasticity. Moreover, the two genes with the highest relative inter-strain differences were among the correlated genes. This suggests that correlation between gene expression levels and OD plasticity is indeed likely to point to genes with a causal role in modulating or generating plasticity in the visual cortex. After this validation on known plasticity genes, we identified new candidate genes by a multi-step approach. First, a list was compiled of all genes of which the expression level in BXD strains correlate with the amount of OD plasticity. To narrow this list to the more promising candidates, we took its cross-section with a list of genes co-regulated with the sensitive period for OD plasticity and a list of genes associated with pathways implicated in OD plasticity. This analysis resulted in a list of 32 candidate genes. The list contained unproven, but not surprising, candidates, such as the genes for IGF-1, NCAM1, NOGO-A, the gamma2 subunit of the GABA(A receptor, acetylcholine esterase and the catalytic subunit of cAMP-dependent protein kinase A. This was indicative of the viability of our approach, but more interesting were the novel candidate genes: Akap7, Akt1, Camk2d, Cckbr, Cd44, Crim1, Ctdsp2, Dnajc5, Gnai1, Itpka, Mapk8, Nbea, Nfatc3, Nlk, Npy5r, Phf21a, Phip, Ppm1l, Ppp1r1b, Rbbp4, Slc1a3, Slit2, Socs2, Spock3, St8sia1, Zfp207. The possible role of some of these candidates is discussed in the article.
Maximizing biomarker discovery by minimizing gene signatures
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Chang Chang
Full Text Available Abstract Background The use of gene signatures can potentially be of considerable value in the field of clinical diagnosis. However, gene signatures defined with different methods can be quite various even when applied the same disease and the same endpoint. Previous studies have shown that the correct selection of subsets of genes from microarray data is key for the accurate classification of disease phenotypes, and a number of methods have been proposed for the purpose. However, these methods refine the subsets by only considering each single feature, and they do not confirm the association between the genes identified in each gene signature and the phenotype of the disease. We proposed an innovative new method termed Minimize Feature's Size (MFS based on multiple level similarity analyses and association between the genes and disease for breast cancer endpoints by comparing classifier models generated from the second phase of MicroArray Quality Control (MAQC-II, trying to develop effective meta-analysis strategies to transform the MAQC-II signatures into a robust and reliable set of biomarker for clinical applications. Results We analyzed the similarity of the multiple gene signatures in an endpoint and between the two endpoints of breast cancer at probe and gene levels, the results indicate that disease-related genes can be preferably selected as the components of gene signature, and that the gene signatures for the two endpoints could be interchangeable. The minimized signatures were built at probe level by using MFS for each endpoint. By applying the approach, we generated a much smaller set of gene signature with the similar predictive power compared with those gene signatures from MAQC-II. Conclusions Our results indicate that gene signatures of both large and small sizes could perform equally well in clinical applications. Besides, consistency and biological significances can be detected among different gene signatures, reflecting the
Translating Gene Transfer: A Stalled Effort
Greenberg, Alexandra J.; McCormick, Jennifer; Tapia, Carmen J.; Windebank, Anthony J.
The journey of gene transfer from laboratory to clinic has been slow and fraught with many challenges and barriers. Despite the development of the initial technology in the early 1970s, a standard clinical treatment involving "gene therapy" remains to be seen. Furthermore, much was written about the technology in the early 1990s, but since then, not much has been written about the journey of gene transfer. The translational path of gene transfer thus far, both pitfalls and successes, can serv...
Gene Deletion by Synthesis in Yeast.
Kim, Jinsil; Kim, Dong-Uk; Hoe, Kwang-Lae
Targeted gene deletion is a useful tool for understanding the function of a gene and its protein product. We have developed an efficient and robust gene deletion approach in yeast that employs oligonucleotide-based gene synthesis. This approach requires a deletion cassette composed of three modules: a central 1397-bp KanMX4 selection marker module and two 366-bp gene-specific flanking modules. The invariable KanMX4 module can be used in combination with different pairs of flanking modules targeting different genes. The two flanking modules consist of both sequences unique to each cassette (chromosomal homologous regions and barcodes) and those common to all deletion constructs (artificial linkers and restriction enzyme sites). Oligonucleotides for each module and junction regions are designed using the BatchBlock2Oligo program and are synthesized on a 96-well basis. The oligonucleotides are ligated into a single deletion cassette by ligase chain reaction, which is then amplified through two rounds of nested PCR to obtain sufficient quantities for yeast transformation. After removal of the artificial linkers, the deletion cassettes are transformed into wild-type diploid fission yeast SP286 cells. Verification of correct clone and gene deletion is achieved by performing check PCR and tetrad analysis. This method with proven effectiveness, as evidenced by a high success rate of gene deletion, can be potentially applicable to create systematic gene deletion libraries in a variety of yeast species. PMID:27671940
Consensus maps of cloned plant cuticle genes
Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)
Eviatar; Nevo
Plant cuticle,which covers the plant surface,consists of waxes and cutins,and is associated with plant drought,cold,and salt resistance.Hitherto,at least 47 genes participating in the formation of plant cuticle have been cloned from Arabidopsis thaliana,Oryza sativa,Zea mays,Ricinus communis,Brassica napus,and Medicago truncatula;and about 85% of them encode proteins sharing above 50% identities with their rice homologous sequences.These cloned cuticle genes were mapped in silico on different chromosomes of rice and Arabidopsis,respectively.The mapping results revealed that plant cuticle genes were not evenly distributed in both genomes.About 40% of the mapped cuticle genes were located on chromosome 1 in Arabidopsis,while 20% of the mapped cuticle genes were located on chromosome 2 but none on chromosome 12 in rice.Some cloned plant cuticle genes have several rice homologous sequences,which might be produced by chromosomal segment duplication.The consensus map of cloned plant cuticle genes will provide important clues for the selection of candidate genes in a positional cloning of an unknown cuticle gene in plants.
Cloning arbuscule-related genes from mycorrhizas
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Burleigh, Stephen
Until recently little was known about the identity of the genes expressed in the arbuscules of mycorrhizas, due in part to problems associated with cloning genes from the tissues of an obligate symbiont. However, the combination of advanced molecular techniques, innovative use of the materials...... available and fortuitous cloning has resulted in the recent identification of a number of arbuscule-related genes. This article provides a brief summary of the genes involved in arbuscule development, function and regulation, and the techniques used to study them. Molecular techniques include differential...
Multivariate search for differentially expressed gene combinations
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Klebanov Lev
Full Text Available Abstract Background To identify differentially expressed genes, it is standard practice to test a two-sample hypothesis for each gene with a proper adjustment for multiple testing. Such tests are essentially univariate and disregard the multidimensional structure of microarray data. A more general two-sample hypothesis is formulated in terms of the joint distribution of any sub-vector of expression signals. Results By building on an earlier proposed multivariate test statistic, we propose a new algorithm for identifying differentially expressed gene combinations. The algorithm includes an improved random search procedure designed to generate candidate gene combinations of a given size. Cross-validation is used to provide replication stability of the search procedure. A permutation two-sample test is used for significance testing. We design a multiple testing procedure to control the family-wise error rate (FWER when selecting significant combinations of genes that result from a successive selection procedure. A target set of genes is composed of all significant combinations selected via random search. Conclusions A new algorithm has been developed to identify differentially expressed gene combinations. The performance of the proposed search-and-testing procedure has been evaluated by computer simulations and analysis of replicated Affymetrix gene array data on age-related changes in gene expression in the inner ear of CBA mice.
Heterogeneity of Calcium Channel/cAMP-Dependent Transcriptional Activation.
Kobrinsky, Evgeny
The major function of the voltage-gated calcium channels is to provide the Ca(2+) flux into the cell. L-type voltage-gated calcium channels (Cav1) serve as voltage sensors that couple membrane depolarization to many intracellular processes. Electrical activity in excitable cells affects gene expression through signaling pathways involved in the excitation-transcription (E-T) coupling. E-T coupling starts with activation of the Cav1 channel and results in initiation of the cAMP-response element binding protein (CREB)-dependent transcription. In this review we discuss the new quantitative approaches to measuring E-T signaling events. We describe the use of wavelet transform to detect heterogeneity of transcriptional activation in nuclei. Furthermore, we discuss the properties of discovered microdomains of nuclear signaling associated with the E-T coupling and the basis of the frequency-dependent transcriptional regulation.
Machado, Cátia Maria, 1981-
Tese de mestrado. Tecnologias de Informação aplicadas às Ciências Biológicas e Médicas. Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências, 2009 A correcta compreensão de como funcionam os sistemas biológicos depende do estudo dos mecanismos que regulam a expressão genética. Estes mecanismos controlam em que momento e durante quanto tempo é utilizada a informação codificada num gene, e podem actuar em diversas etapas do processo de expressão genética. No presente trabalho, a etapa em análise é ...
Targeted cancer gene therapy : the flexibility of adenoviral gene therapy vectors
Rots, MG; Curiel, DT; Gerritsen, WR; Haisma, HJ
Recombinant adenoviral vectors are promising reagents for therapeutic interventions in humans, including gene therapy for biologically complex diseases like cancer and cardiovascular diseases. In this regard, the major advantage of adenoviral vectors is their superior in vivo gene transfer efficienc
Gene Body Methylation can alter Gene Expression and is a Therapeutic Target in Cancer
Yang, Xiaojing; Han, Han; De Carvalho, Daniel D.; Lay, Fides D.; Jones, Peter A.; Liang, Gangning
SUMMARY DNA methylation in promoters is well known to silence genes and is the presumed therapeutic target of methylation inhibitors. Gene body methylation is positively correlated with expression yet its function is unknown. We show that 5-aza-2'-deoxycytidine treatment not only reactivates genes but decreases the over-expression of genes, many of which are involved in metabolic processes regulated by c-MYC. Down-regulation is caused by DNA demethylation of the gene bodies and restoration of high levels of expression requires remethylation by DNMT3B. Gene body methylation may therefore be an unexpected therapeutic target for DNA methylation inhibitors, resulting in the normalization of gene over-expression induced during carcinogenesis. Our results provide direct evidence for a causal relationship between gene body methylation and transcription. PMID:25263941
Tagging Blast Resistance Gene Pi 1 in Rice (Oryza sativa) Using Candidate Resistance Genes
Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)
LI Ai-hong; WU Jian-li; XU Xin-ping; Menchu BERNADO; DAI Zheng-yuan; ZHUANG Jie-yun; CHEN Zong-xiang; ZHENG Kang-le; LI Bao-jian; Hei LEUNG; ZHANG Hong-xi; PAN Xue-biao
An F3 population derived from C101LAC/CO39 containing 90 lines was analyzed for blast resistance with 48 candidate genes developed from resistance gene analogs (RGA) and suppression subtractive library. Genetic analysis confirmed that blast resistance of the population was controlled by a single gene Pi 1. One of the candidate genes, R10 was identified as associated with the blast resistance gene on the long arm of chromosome 11 and mapped using a DH population derived from Azucena/IR64.A pair of PCR based primers was designed based on the sequence of R10 for marker-aided selection of the blast resistance gene.The recombination frequency between Pi 1 and the marker was estimated as 1.28%. It suggested that strategy of employing candidate genes is useful for gene identification and mapping. A new RFLP marker and the corresponding PCR marker for tagging of Pi 1 were provided.
Effects related to gene-gene interactions of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor on essential hypertension
Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)
Objective To explore the impact of the gene-gene interaction among the single nucleotide polymorphisms(SNPs) of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptorα/δ/γ on essential hypertension(EH).Methods
Gene Name Thesaurus - Gene Name Thesaurus | LSDB Archive [Life Science Database Archive metadata
Lifescience Database Archive (English)
Full Text Available ts Curators who have expertize in biological research edit gene names found in various databases and article...tabases. 2. The curators who have expertise in biological research confirm the name variation for genes and
Gene order computation using Alzheimer's DNA microarray gene expression data and the Ant Colony Optimisation algorithm.
Pang, Chaoyang; Jiang, Gang; Wang, Shipeng; Hu, Benqiong; Liu, Qingzhong; Deng, Youping; Huang, Xudong
As Alzheimer's Disease (AD) is the most common form of dementia, the study of AD-related genes via biocomputation is an important research topic. One method of studying AD-related gene is to cluster similar genes together into a gene order. Gene order is a good clustering method as the results can be optimal globally while other clustering methods are only optimal locally. Herein we use the Ant Colony Optimisation (ACO)-based algorithm to calculate the gene order from an Alzheimer's DNA microarray dataset. We test it with four distance measurements: Pearson distance, Spearmen distance, Euclidean distance, and squared Euclidean distance. Our computing results indicate: a different distance formula generated a different quality of gene order, the squared Euclidean distance approach produced the optimal AD-related gene order.
Building predictive gene signatures through simultaneous assessment of transcription factor activation and gene expression.
Building predictive gene signatures through simultaneous assessment of transcription factor activation and gene expression Exposure to many drugs and environmentally-relevant chemicals can cause adverse outcomes. These adverse outcomes, such as cancer, have been linked to mol...
Structure of homeobox-leucine zipper genes suggests a model for the evolution of gene families.
Schena, M; Davis, R W
Homeobox genes are present in both plants and animals. Homeobox-leucine zipper genes, however, have been identified thus far only in the small mustard plant Arabidopsis thaliana. This observation suggests that homeobox-leucine zipper genes evolved after the divergence of plants and animals, perhaps to mediate specific regulatory events. To better understand this gene family, we isolated several sequences containing the homeobox-leucine zipper motif and carried out a comparative analysis of ni...
A role for gene duplication and natural variation of gene expression in the evolution of metabolism.
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Daniel J Kliebenstein
Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Most eukaryotic genomes have undergone whole genome duplications during their evolutionary history. Recent studies have shown that the function of these duplicated genes can diverge from the ancestral gene via neo- or sub-functionalization within single genotypes. An additional possibility is that gene duplicates may also undergo partitioning of function among different genotypes of a species leading to genetic differentiation. Finally, the ability of gene duplicates to diverge may be limited by their biological function. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: To test these hypotheses, I estimated the impact of gene duplication and metabolic function upon intraspecific gene expression variation of segmental and tandem duplicated genes within Arabidopsis thaliana. In all instances, the younger tandem duplicated genes showed higher intraspecific gene expression variation than the average Arabidopsis gene. Surprisingly, the older segmental duplicates also showed evidence of elevated intraspecific gene expression variation albeit typically lower than for the tandem duplicates. The specific biological function of the gene as defined by metabolic pathway also modulated the level of intraspecific gene expression variation. The major energy metabolism and biosynthetic pathways showed decreased variation, suggesting that they are constrained in their ability to accumulate gene expression variation. In contrast, a major herbivory defense pathway showed significantly elevated intraspecific variation suggesting that it may be under pressure to maintain and/or generate diversity in response to fluctuating insect herbivory pressures. CONCLUSION: These data show that intraspecific variation in gene expression is facilitated by an interaction of gene duplication and biological activity. Further, this plays a role in controlling diversity of plant metabolism.
Reference genes for gene expression studies in wheat flag leaves grown under different farming conditions
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Cordeiro Raposo Fernando
Full Text Available Abstract Background Internal control genes with highly uniform expression throughout the experimental conditions are required for accurate gene expression analysis as no universal reference genes exists. In this study, the expression stability of 24 candidate genes from Triticum aestivum cv. Cubus flag leaves grown under organic and conventional farming systems was evaluated in two locations in order to select suitable genes that can be used for normalization of real-time quantitative reverse-transcription PCR (RT-qPCR reactions. The genes were selected among the most common used reference genes as well as genes encoding proteins involved in several metabolic pathways. Findings Individual genes displayed different expression rates across all samples assayed. Applying geNorm, a set of three potential reference genes were suitable for normalization of RT-qPCR reactions in winter wheat flag leaves cv. Cubus: TaFNRII (ferredoxin-NADP(H oxidoreductase; AJ457980.1, ACT2 (actin 2; TC234027, and rrn26 (a putative homologue to RNA 26S gene; AL827977.1. In addition of these three genes that were also top-ranked by NormFinder, two extra genes: CYP18-2 (Cyclophilin A, AY456122.1 and TaWIN1 (14-3-3 like protein, AB042193 were most consistently stably expressed. Furthermore, we showed that TaFNRII, ACT2, and CYP18-2 are suitable for gene expression normalization in other two winter wheat varieties (Tommi and Centenaire grown under three treatments (organic, conventional and no nitrogen and a different environment than the one tested with cv. Cubus. Conclusions This study provides a new set of reference genes which should improve the accuracy of gene expression analyses when using wheat flag leaves as those related to the improvement of nitrogen use efficiency for cereal production.
Novel primary immunodeficiency candidate genes predicted by the human gene connectome
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Yuval eItan
Full Text Available Germline genetic mutations underlie various primary immunodeficiency (PID diseases. Patients with rare PID diseases (like most non-PID patients and healthy individuals carry, on average, 20,000 rare and common coding variants detected by high throughput sequencing. It is thus a major challenge to select only a few candidate disease-causing variants for experimental testing. One of the tools commonly used in the pipeline for estimating a potential PID candidate gene is to test whether the specific gene is included in the list of genes that were already experimentally validated as PID-causing in previous studies. However, this approach is limited because it cannot detect the PID-causing mutation(s in the many PID patients carrying causal mutations of as yet unidentified PID-causing genes. In this study, we expanded in silico the list of potential PID-causing candidate genes from 229 to 3,110. We first identified the top 1% of human genes predicted by the human genes connectome to be biologically close to the 229 known PID genes. We then further narrowed down the list of genes by retaining only the most biologically relevant genes, with functionally enriched gene ontology biological categories similar to those for the known PID genes. We validated this prediction by showing that 17 of the 21 novel PID genes published since the last IUIS classification fall into this group of 3,110 genes (p<10-7. The resulting new extended list of 3,110 predicted PID genes should be useful for the discovery of novel PID genes in patients.
Bacterial reference genes for gene expression studies by RT-qPCR: survey and analysis.
Rocha, Danilo J P; Santos, Carolina S; Pacheco, Luis G C
The appropriate choice of reference genes is essential for accurate normalization of gene expression data obtained by the method of reverse transcription quantitative real-time PCR (RT-qPCR). In 2009, a guideline called the Minimum Information for Publication of Quantitative Real-Time PCR Experiments (MIQE) highlighted the importance of the selection and validation of more than one suitable reference gene for obtaining reliable RT-qPCR results. Herein, we searched the recent literature in order to identify the bacterial reference genes that have been most commonly validated in gene expression studies by RT-qPCR (in the first 5 years following publication of the MIQE guidelines). Through a combination of different search parameters with the text mining tool MedlineRanker, we identified 145 unique bacterial genes that were recently tested as candidate reference genes. Of these, 45 genes were experimentally validated and, in most of the cases, their expression stabilities were verified using the software tools geNorm and NormFinder. It is noteworthy that only 10 of these reference genes had been validated in two or more of the studies evaluated. An enrichment analysis using Gene Ontology classifications demonstrated that genes belonging to the functional categories of DNA Replication (GO: 0006260) and Transcription (GO: 0006351) rendered a proportionally higher number of validated reference genes. Three genes in the former functional class were also among the top five most stable genes identified through an analysis of gene expression data obtained from the Pathosystems Resource Integration Center. These results may provide a guideline for the initial selection of candidate reference genes for RT-qPCR studies in several different bacterial species. PMID:26149127
Inferring gene regression networks with model trees
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Aguilar-Ruiz Jesus S
Full Text Available Abstract Background Novel strategies are required in order to handle the huge amount of data produced by microarray technologies. To infer gene regulatory networks, the first step is to find direct regulatory relationships between genes building the so-called gene co-expression networks. They are typically generated using correlation statistics as pairwise similarity measures. Correlation-based methods are very useful in order to determine whether two genes have a strong global similarity but do not detect local similarities. Results We propose model trees as a method to identify gene interaction networks. While correlation-based methods analyze each pair of genes, in our approach we generate a single regression tree for each gene from the remaining genes. Finally, a graph from all the relationships among output and input genes is built taking into account whether the pair of genes is statistically significant. For this reason we apply a statistical procedure to control the false discovery rate. The performance of our approach, named REGNET, is experimentally tested on two well-known data sets: Saccharomyces Cerevisiae and E.coli data set. First, the biological coherence of the results are tested. Second the E.coli transcriptional network (in the Regulon database is used as control to compare the results to that of a correlation-based method. This experiment shows that REGNET performs more accurately at detecting true gene associations than the Pearson and Spearman zeroth and first-order correlation-based methods. Conclusions REGNET generates gene association networks from gene expression data, and differs from correlation-based methods in that the relationship between one gene and others is calculated simultaneously. Model trees are very useful techniques to estimate the numerical values for the target genes by linear regression functions. They are very often more precise than linear regression models because they can add just different linear
The Prediction of Rice Gene by Fgenesh
Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)
ZHANG Sheng-li; LI Dong-fang; ZHANG Gai-sheng; WANG Jun-wei; NIU Na
This study has been carried out to give some scientific reasons for genome annotation, shorten the annotating time, and improve the results of gene prediction. Taking the sequence of the 6th chromosome, which has more length sequences than others, of Oryza sativa L. ssp. japonica cv. Nipponbare as analysis data in this research, the gene prediction of monocots module, rice, has been done by using Fgenesh ver. 2.0, and the predicting results have been explored particularly by bioinformatics methods. Results showed that the number of predicted genes for this chromosome was very close to the number of TIGR annotated genes. The majority of the predicted genes were multi-exon genes which had a percentage of 77.52. Length range was very big in the predicted genes. According to the significant match number, multi-exon genes can be predicted more veracity than single exon genes and the support can be reached up to 100% by TIGR annotation and up to 78% by cDNA. From the angle of predicted exons location of multi-exon genes, the internal exons and last exons had a high support of cDNA. The length of internal exons was relatively short in high (>95% length, >78% similarity) cDNA and/or TIGR annotation support multi-exon genes, but the first exons and last exons were on the reverse. The majority of single exon genes which had more than 95% in length, and 78% in similarity support by cDNA and/or TIGR annotation was relatively short in length. From the angle of exon number, the majority of the multi-exon genes of high (> 95% length, > 78% similarity) cDNA and/or TIGR annotation support had no more than 5 exon number. It was concluded that the rice gene prediction by Fgenesh was very good but needed modification manually to some extent according to cDNA support after aligning the predicting sequence of genes with cDNA database of rice.
Divergence of flowering genes in soybean
Indian Academy of Sciences (India)
Moon Young Kim; Jin Hee Shin; Yang Jae Kang; Sang Rea Shim; Suk-Ha Lee
Soybean genome sequences were blasted with Arabidopsis thaliana regulatory genes involved in photoperiod-dependent flowering. This approach enabled the identification of 118 genes involved in the flowering pathway. Two genome sequences of cultivated (Williams 82) and wild (IT182932) soybeans were employed to survey functional DNA variations in the flowering-related homologs. Forty genes exhibiting nonsynonymous substitutions between G. max and G. soja were catalogued. In addition, 22 genes were found to co-localize with QTLs for six traits including flowering time, first flower, pod maturity, beginning of pod, reproductive period, and seed filling period. Among the genes overlapping the QTL regions, two LHY/CCA1 genes, GI and SFR6 contained amino acid changes. The recently duplicated sequence regions of the soybean genome were used as additional criteria for the speculation of the putative function of the homologs. Two duplicated regions showed redundancy of both flowering-related genes and QTLs. ID 12398025, which contains the homeologous regions between chr 7 and chr 16, was redundant for the LHY/CCA1 and SPA1 homologs and the QTLs. Retaining of the CRY1 gene and the pod maturity QTLs were observed in the duplicated region of ID 23546507 on chr 4 and chr 6. Functional DNA variation of the LHY/CCA1 gene (Glyma07g05410) was present in a counterpart of the duplicated region on chr 7, while the gene (Glyma16g01980) present in the other portion of the duplicated region on chr 16 did not show a functional sequence change. The gene list catalogued in this study provides primary insight for understanding the regulation of flowering time and maturity in soybean.
Gene expression in periodontal tissues following treatment
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Eisenacher Martin
Full Text Available Abstract Background In periodontitis, treatment aimed at controlling the periodontal biofilm infection results in a resolution of the clinical and histological signs of inflammation. Although the cell types found in periodontal tissues following treatment have been well described, information on gene expression is limited to few candidate genes. Therefore, the aim of the study was to determine the expression profiles of immune and inflammatory genes in periodontal tissues from sites with severe chronic periodontitis following periodontal therapy in order to identify genes involved in tissue homeostasis. Gingival biopsies from 12 patients with severe chronic periodontitis were taken six to eight weeks following non-surgical periodontal therapy, and from 11 healthy controls. As internal standard, RNA of an immortalized human keratinocyte line (HaCaT was used. Total RNA was subjected to gene expression profiling using a commercially available microarray system focusing on inflammation-related genes. Post-hoc confirmation of selected genes was done by Realtime-PCR. Results Out of the 136 genes analyzed, the 5% most strongly expressed genes compared to healthy controls were Interleukin-12A (IL-12A, Versican (CSPG-2, Matrixmetalloproteinase-1 (MMP-1, Down syndrome critical region protein-1 (DSCR-1, Macrophage inflammatory protein-2β (Cxcl-3, Inhibitor of apoptosis protein-1 (BIRC-1, Cluster of differentiation antigen 38 (CD38, Regulator of G-protein signalling-1 (RGS-1, and Finkel-Biskis-Jinkins murine osteosarcoma virus oncogene (C-FOS; the 5% least strongly expressed genes were Receptor-interacting Serine/Threonine Kinase-2 (RIP-2, Complement component 3 (C3, Prostaglandin-endoperoxide synthase-2 (COX-2, Interleukin-8 (IL-8, Endothelin-1 (EDN-1, Plasminogen activator inhibitor type-2 (PAI-2, Matrix-metalloproteinase-14 (MMP-14, and Interferon regulating factor-7 (IRF-7. Conclusion Gene expression profiles found in periodontal tissues following
Novel gene acquisition on carnivore Y chromosomes.
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Full Text Available Despite its importance in harboring genes critical for spermatogenesis and male-specific functions, the Y chromosome has been largely excluded as a priority in recent mammalian genome sequencing projects. Only the human and chimpanzee Y chromosomes have been well characterized at the sequence level. This is primarily due to the presumed low overall gene content and highly repetitive nature of the Y chromosome and the ensuing difficulties using a shotgun sequence approach for assembly. Here we used direct cDNA selection to isolate and evaluate the extent of novel Y chromosome gene acquisition in the genome of the domestic cat, a species from a different mammalian superorder than human, chimpanzee, and mouse (currently being sequenced. We discovered four novel Y chromosome genes that do not have functional copies in the finished human male-specific region of the Y or on other mammalian Y chromosomes explored thus far. Two genes are derived from putative autosomal progenitors, and the other two have X chromosome homologs from different evolutionary strata. All four genes were shown to be multicopy and expressed predominantly or exclusively in testes, suggesting that their duplication and specialization for testis function were selected for because they enhance spermatogenesis. Two of these genes have testis-expressed, Y-borne copies in the dog genome as well. The absence of the four newly described genes on other characterized mammalian Y chromosomes demonstrates the gene novelty on this chromosome between mammalian orders, suggesting it harbors many lineage-specific genes that may go undetected by traditional comparative genomic approaches. Specific plans to identify the male-specific genes encoded in the Y chromosome of mammals should be a priority.
Viral and nonviral delivery systems for gene delivery
Nouri Nayerossadat; Talebi Maedeh; Palizban Abas Ali
Gene therapy is the process of introducing foreign genomic materials into host cells to elicit a therapeutic benefit. Although initially the main focus of gene therapy was on special genetic disorders, now diverse diseases with different patterns of inheritance and acquired diseases are targets of gene therapy. There are 2 major categories of gene therapy, including germline gene therapy and somatic gene therapy. Although germline gene therapy may have great potential, because it is currently...
A novel method to identify high order gene-gene interactions in genome-wide association studies: Gene-based MDR
Oh Sohee; Lee Jaehoon; Kwon Min-Seok; Weir Bruce; Ha Kyooseob; Park Taesung
Abstract Background Because common complex diseases are affected by multiple genes and environmental factors, it is essential to investigate gene-gene and/or gene-environment interactions to understand genetic architecture of complex diseases. After the great success of large scale genome-wide association (GWA) studies using the high density single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) chips, the study of gene-gene interaction becomes a next challenge. Multifactor dimensionality reduction (MDR) analy...
Visual gene developer: a fully programmable bioinformatics software for synthetic gene optimization
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
McDonald Karen
Full Text Available Abstract Background Direct gene synthesis is becoming more popular owing to decreases in gene synthesis pricing. Compared with using natural genes, gene synthesis provides a good opportunity to optimize gene sequence for specific applications. In order to facilitate gene optimization, we have developed a stand-alone software called Visual Gene Developer. Results The software not only provides general functions for gene analysis and optimization along with an interactive user-friendly interface, but also includes unique features such as programming capability, dedicated mRNA secondary structure prediction, artificial neural network modeling, network & multi-threaded computing, and user-accessible programming modules. The software allows a user to analyze and optimize a sequence using main menu functions or specialized module windows. Alternatively, gene optimization can be initiated by designing a gene construct and configuring an optimization strategy. A user can choose several predefined or user-defined algorithms to design a complicated strategy. The software provides expandable functionality as platform software supporting module development using popular script languages such as VBScript and JScript in the software programming environment. Conclusion Visual Gene Developer is useful for both researchers who want to quickly analyze and optimize genes, and those who are interested in developing and testing new algorithms in bioinformatics. The software is available for free download at http://www.visualgenedeveloper.net.
PROMOTER HYPERMETHYLATION OF p16 GENE AND DAPK GENE IN SERA FROM HEPATOCELLULAR CARCINOMA (HCC) PATIENTS
Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)
LIN Qing; CHEN Long-bang; TANG Yong-ming; WANG Jing
Objective: To analyze the aberrant methylation of p16 gene and DAPK gene in sera from primary liver cancer patients ad to evaluate the clinical significance. Methods: A methylation-specific PCR was performed for the detection of promoter hypermethylation of p16 gene and DAPK gene in blood DNA from 64 cases of HCC patients, and to analyze the relation of the aberrant methylation of p16 gene and KAPK gene and the clinical pathological data. Results: 76.6%(49/64) of the sera from 64 cases of HCC patients showed hypermethylation for p16 promoter and 40.6% (26/64) for KAPK promoter, whereas no methylated p16 gene promoter and DAPK gene promoter were found in sera from benign liver diseases patients and normal control. Methylated p16 gene and KAPK gene promoters in sera did not strongly correlated with HBsAg, stage,metastasis and differentiation in HCC; but strongly correlated with AFP. Conclusion: Detection of the aberrant methylation of p16 gene and KAPK gene in blood DNA from HCC patients might offer an effective means for the earlier auxiliary diagnosis of the malignancy.
Insect and wound induced GUS gene expression from a Beta vulgaris proteinase inhibitor gene promoter
Inducible gene promoters that are specifically activated by pathogen invasion or insect pest attack are needed for effective expression of resistance genes to control plant diseases. In the present study, a promoter from a serine proteinase inhibitor gene (BvSTI) shown to be up-regulated in resist...
Altered Chromosomal Positioning, Compaction, and Gene Expression with a Lamin A/C Gene Mutation
Abuisneineh, Fida; Fahrenbach, John P.; Zhang, Yuan; MacLeod, Heather; Dellefave, Lisa; Pytel, Peter; Selig, Sara; Labno, Christine M.; Reddy, Karen; Singh, Harinder; McNally, Elizabeth
Background Lamins A and C, encoded by the LMNA gene, are filamentous proteins that form the core scaffold of the nuclear lamina. Dominant LMNA gene mutations cause multiple human diseases including cardiac and skeletal myopathies. The nuclear lamina is thought to regulate gene expression by its direct interaction with chromatin. LMNA gene mutations may mediate disease by disrupting normal gene expression. Methods/Findings To investigate the hypothesis that mutant lamin A/C changes the lamina's ability to interact with chromatin, we studied gene misexpression resulting from the cardiomyopathic LMNA E161K mutation and correlated this with changes in chromosome positioning. We identified clusters of misexpressed genes and examined the nuclear positioning of two such genomic clusters, each harboring genes relevant to striated muscle disease including LMO7 and MBNL2. Both gene clusters were found to be more centrally positioned in LMNA-mutant nuclei. Additionally, these loci were less compacted. In LMNA mutant heart and fibroblasts, we found that chromosome 13 had a disproportionately high fraction of misexpressed genes. Using three-dimensional fluorescence in situ hybridization we found that the entire territory of chromosome 13 was displaced towards the center of the nucleus in LMNA mutant fibroblasts. Additional cardiomyopathic LMNA gene mutations were also shown to have abnormal positioning of chromosome 13, although in the opposite direction. Conclusions These data support a model in which LMNA mutations perturb the intranuclear positioning and compaction of chromosomal domains and provide a mechanism by which gene expression may be altered. PMID:21179469
Altered chromosomal positioning, compaction, and gene expression with a lamin A/C gene mutation.
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Stephanie K Mewborn
Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Lamins A and C, encoded by the LMNA gene, are filamentous proteins that form the core scaffold of the nuclear lamina. Dominant LMNA gene mutations cause multiple human diseases including cardiac and skeletal myopathies. The nuclear lamina is thought to regulate gene expression by its direct interaction with chromatin. LMNA gene mutations may mediate disease by disrupting normal gene expression. METHODS/FINDINGS: To investigate the hypothesis that mutant lamin A/C changes the lamina's ability to interact with chromatin, we studied gene misexpression resulting from the cardiomyopathic LMNA E161K mutation and correlated this with changes in chromosome positioning. We identified clusters of misexpressed genes and examined the nuclear positioning of two such genomic clusters, each harboring genes relevant to striated muscle disease including LMO7 and MBNL2. Both gene clusters were found to be more centrally positioned in LMNA-mutant nuclei. Additionally, these loci were less compacted. In LMNA mutant heart and fibroblasts, we found that chromosome 13 had a disproportionately high fraction of misexpressed genes. Using three-dimensional fluorescence in situ hybridization we found that the entire territory of chromosome 13 was displaced towards the center of the nucleus in LMNA mutant fibroblasts. Additional cardiomyopathic LMNA gene mutations were also shown to have abnormal positioning of chromosome 13, although in the opposite direction. CONCLUSIONS: These data support a model in which LMNA mutations perturb the intranuclear positioning and compaction of chromosomal domains and provide a mechanism by which gene expression may be altered.
Novel definition files for human GeneChips based on GeneAnnot
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Ferrari Sergio
Full Text Available Abstract Background Improvements in genome sequence annotation revealed discrepancies in the original probeset/gene assignment in Affymetrix microarray and the existence of differences between annotations and effective alignments of probes and transcription products. In the current generation of Affymetrix human GeneChips, most probesets include probes matching transcripts from more than one gene and probes which do not match any transcribed sequence. Results We developed a novel set of custom Chip Definition Files (CDF and the corresponding Bioconductor libraries for Affymetrix human GeneChips, based on the information contained in the GeneAnnot database. GeneAnnot-based CDFs are composed of unique custom-probesets, including only probes matching a single gene. Conclusion GeneAnnot-based custom CDFs solve the problem of a reliable reconstruction of expression levels and eliminate the existence of more than one probeset per gene, which often leads to discordant expression signals for the same transcript when gene differential expression is the focus of the analysis. GeneAnnot CDFs are freely distributed and fully compliant with Affymetrix standards and all available software for gene expression analysis. The CDF libraries are available from http://www.xlab.unimo.it/GA_CDF, along with supplementary information (CDF libraries, installation guidelines and R code, CDF statistics, and analysis results.
Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)
吕桂泉; 许沈华; 牟瀚舟; 朱赤红; 羊正炎; 高永良; 楼洪坤; 刘祥麟; 杨文; 程勇
To study the gene expression of high metastatic human ovarian carcinoma cell line (HO-8910PM) and to screen for novel metastasis- associated genes by cDNA microarray. Methods: The cDNA was retro-transcribed from equal quantity mRNA derived from tissues of highly metastatic ovarian carcinoma cell line and normal ovarian, and was labeled with Cy5 and Cy3 fluorescence as probes. The mixed probes were hybridized with BioDoor 4096 double dot human whole gene chip. The chip was scanned by scanArray 3000 laser scanner. The acquired image was analyzed by ImaGene 3.0 software. Results: By applying the cDNA microarray we found: A total of 323 genes whose expression level were 3 times higher or lower in HO-8910PM cell than normal ovarian epithelium cell were screened out, with 71 higher and 252 lower respectively. Among these 10 were new genes. 67 genes showed expression difference bigger than 6 times between HO-8910PM cell and normal ovarian epithelium cell, among these genes 12 were higher, 55 lower, and two new genes were found. Conclusion: cDNA microarray technique is effective in screening the differentially expressed genes between human ovarian cancer cell line (HO-8910PM) and normal ovarian epithelium cell. Using the cDNA microarray to analyze of human ovarian cancer cell line gene expression profile difference will help the gene diagnosis, treatment and protection.
Genetic Variation in Candidate Genes Like the HMGA2 Gene in the Extremely Tall
Hendriks, A. E. J.; Brown, M. R.; Boot, A. M.; Oostra, B. A.; Drop, S. L. S.; Parks, J. S.
Background/Aims: Genetic variation in several candidate genes has been associated with short stature. Recently, a high-mobility group A2 (HMGA2) gene SNP has been robustly associated with height in the general population. Only few have attempted to study these genes in extremely tall stature. We the
Discover Gene Specific Local Co-Regulations from Time-Course Gene Expression Data
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Ji Zhang
Full Text Available Discovering gene co-regulatory relationships is one of most important research in DNA microarray data analysis. The problem of gene specific co-regulation discovery is to, for a particular gene of interest (called target gene, identify the condition subsets where strong gene co-regulations of the target gene are observed and its co-regulated genes in these condition subsets. The co-regulations are local in the sense that they occur in some subsets of full experimental conditions. The study on this problem can contribute to better understanding and characterizing the target gene during the biological activity involved. In this paper, we propose an innovative method for finding gene specific co-regulations using genetic algorithm (GA. A sliding window is used to delimit the allowed length of conditions in which gene co-regulations occur and an ad hoc GA, called the progressive GA, is performed in each window position to find those condition subsets having high fitness. It is called progressive because the initial population for the GA in a window position inherits the top-ranked individuals obtained in its preceding window position, enabling the GA to achieve a better accuracy than the non-progressive algorithm. kNN Lookup Table is utilized to substantially speed up fitness evaluation in the GA. Experimental results with a real-life gene expression data demonstrate the efficiency and effectiveness of our technique in discovering gene specific co-regulations.
Ab initio gene identification: prokaryote genome annotation with GeneScan and GLIMMER
Indian Academy of Sciences (India)
Gautam Aggarwal; Ramakrishna Ramaswamy
We compare the annotation of three complete genomes using the ab initio methods of gene identification GeneScan and GLIMMER. The annotation given in GenBank, the standard against which these are compared, has been made using GeneMark. We find a number of novel genes which are predicted by both methods used here, as well as a number of genes that are predicted by GeneMark, but are not identified by either of the nonconsensus methods that we have used. The three organisms studied here are all prokaryotic species with fairly compact genomes. The Fourier measure forms the basis for an efficient non-consensus method for gene prediction, and the algorithm GeneScan exploits this measure. We have bench-marked this program as well as GLIMMER using 3 complete prokaryotic genomes. An effort has also been made to study the limitations of these techniques for complete genome analysis. GeneScan and GLIMMER are of comparable accuracy insofar as gene-identification is concerned, with sensitivities and specificities typically greater than 0.9. The number of false predictions (both positive and negative) is higher for GeneScan as compared to GLIMMER, but in a significant number of cases, similar results are provided by the two techniques. This suggests that there could be some as-yet unidentified additional genes in these three genomes, and also that some of the putative identifications made hitherto might require re-evaluation. All these cases are discussed in detail.
Gene deletion analysis of a Chinese boy with Xp21 contiguous gene deletion syndrome
Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)
麻宏伟; 姜俊; 王岳平; 王志超; 陈丽英; 松尾雅文
@@ Xp21 contiguous gene deletion syndrome, sometimes called complex glycerol kinase deficiency, is associated with variable size Xp21 deletions that usually include the glycerol kinase gene and span multiple Xp21 disease gene loci in the region. The order of the potentially affected loci are as follows:
A new gene in A. rubens: A sea star Ig kappa gene
Nadine Vincent; Magne Osteras; Patricia Otten; Michel Leclerc
The sea star Asterias rubens reacts specifically to the antigen:HRP (horse-radish peroxydase) and produces an antibody anti-HRP. We previously identified a candidate Ig kappa gene corresponding to this manuscript. We show now the gene referred to as: "sea star Ig kappa gene in its specificity".
Individual variation of adipose gene expression and identification of covariated genes by cDNA microarrays
Boeuf, S.; Keijer, J.; Franssen-Hal, van N.L.W.; Klaus, S.
Gene expression profiling through the application of microarrays provides comprehensive assessment of gene expression levels in a given tissue or cell population, as well as information on changes of gene expression in altered physiological or pathological situations. Microarrays are particularly su
Discovering implicit entity relation with the gene-citation-gene network.
Song, Min; Han, Nam-Gi; Kim, Yong-Hwan; Ding, Ying; Chambers, Tamy
In this paper, we apply the entitymetrics model to our constructed Gene-Citation-Gene (GCG) network. Based on the premise there is a hidden, but plausible, relationship between an entity in one article and an entity in its citing article, we constructed a GCG network of gene pairs implicitly connected through citation. We compare the performance of this GCG network to a gene-gene (GG) network constructed over the same corpus but which uses gene pairs explicitly connected through traditional co-occurrence. Using 331,411 MEDLINE abstracts collected from 18,323 seed articles and their references, we identify 25 gene pairs. A comparison of these pairs with interactions found in BioGRID reveal that 96% of the gene pairs in the GCG network have known interactions. We measure network performance using degree, weighted degree, closeness, betweenness centrality and PageRank. Combining all measures, we find the GCG network has more gene pairs, but a lower matching rate than the GG network. However, combining top ranked genes in both networks produces a matching rate of 35.53%. By visualizing both the GG and GCG networks, we find that cancer is the most dominant disease associated with the genes in both networks. Overall, the study indicates that the GCG network can be useful for detecting gene interaction in an implicit manner. PMID:24358368
Discovering implicit entity relation with the gene-citation-gene network.
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Min Song
Full Text Available In this paper, we apply the entitymetrics model to our constructed Gene-Citation-Gene (GCG network. Based on the premise there is a hidden, but plausible, relationship between an entity in one article and an entity in its citing article, we constructed a GCG network of gene pairs implicitly connected through citation. We compare the performance of this GCG network to a gene-gene (GG network constructed over the same corpus but which uses gene pairs explicitly connected through traditional co-occurrence. Using 331,411 MEDLINE abstracts collected from 18,323 seed articles and their references, we identify 25 gene pairs. A comparison of these pairs with interactions found in BioGRID reveal that 96% of the gene pairs in the GCG network have known interactions. We measure network performance using degree, weighted degree, closeness, betweenness centrality and PageRank. Combining all measures, we find the GCG network has more gene pairs, but a lower matching rate than the GG network. However, combining top ranked genes in both networks produces a matching rate of 35.53%. By visualizing both the GG and GCG networks, we find that cancer is the most dominant disease associated with the genes in both networks. Overall, the study indicates that the GCG network can be useful for detecting gene interaction in an implicit manner.
Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)
张清媛; 李殿俊; 王志华
Objective: To study the vaccine potency of gene-modified tumor cells. Methods: The EL-4 lymphoma was transduced with recombinant retrovirus containing the murine GM-CSF gene or B7-1 gene. The effect of gene transduction on antitumor immunity was investigated. Results: Flow cytometry analysis showed that expression of their surface marker between wild-type EL-4 cells and gene transduced tumor cells was the same except for CD80 positive in B7-1 gene transduced cells. GM-CSF gene or B7-1 gene transduced EL-4 cells resulted in remarkable loss of tumorigenicity in syngenetic mice. The systemic protective immunity was induced against the challenge with EL-4/wt cells. Therapeutic vaccine with EL-4/GM-CSF or EL/7-1 cells could retard the growth of established early-stage EL-4/wt tumor significantly, but not retard the growth of late-stage EL-4/wt tumor. Irradiated GM-CSF gene transduced EL-4 cells showed strong vaccine effect against EL-4 cell challenge, but irradiated B7-1 gene transduced EL-4 cells showed weak vaccine effect. Remarkable cooperative antitumor effect against EL-4 cell challenge was observed when both irradiated EL-4/GM-CSF and EL-4/B7-1 were inoculated together. Conclusion: GM-CSF gene or B7-1 gene transduced combination of the two kinds of vaccine may have potential application value in human cancer treatment.
Gene-based Association Approach Identify Genes Across Stress Traits in Fruit Flies
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Rohde, Palle Duun; Edwards, Stefan McKinnon; Sarup, Pernille Merete;
approach grouping variants accordingly to gene position, thus lowering the number of statistical tests performed and increasing the probability of identifying genes with small to moderate effects. Using this approach we identify numerous genes associated with different types of stresses in Drosophila...
Evolution of glutamate dehydrogenase genes: evidence for lateral gene transfer within and between prokaryotes and eukaryotes
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Roger Andrew J
Full Text Available Abstract Background Lateral gene transfer can introduce genes with novel functions into genomes or replace genes with functionally similar orthologs or paralogs. Here we present a study of the occurrence of the latter gene replacement phenomenon in the four gene families encoding different classes of glutamate dehydrogenase (GDH, to evaluate and compare the patterns and rates of lateral gene transfer (LGT in prokaryotes and eukaryotes. Results We extend the taxon sampling of gdh genes with nine new eukaryotic sequences and examine the phylogenetic distribution pattern of the various GDH classes in combination with maximum likelihood phylogenetic analyses. The distribution pattern analyses indicate that LGT has played a significant role in the evolution of the four gdh gene families. Indeed, a number of gene transfer events are identified by phylogenetic analyses, including numerous prokaryotic intra-domain transfers, some prokaryotic inter-domain transfers and several inter-domain transfers between prokaryotes and microbial eukaryotes (protists. Conclusion LGT has apparently affected eukaryotes and prokaryotes to a similar extent within the gdh gene families. In the absence of indications that the evolution of the gdh gene families is radically different from other families, these results suggest that gene transfer might be an important evolutionary mechanism in microbial eukaryote genome evolution.
Amplification of a Gene Related to Mammalian mdr Genes in Drug-Resistant Plasmodium falciparum
Wilson, Craig M.; Serrano, Adelfa E.; Wasley, Annemarie; Bogenschutz, Michael P.; Shankar, Anuraj H.; Wirth, Dyann F.
The malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum contains at least two genes related to the mammalian multiple drug resistance genes, and at least one of the P. falciparum genes is expressed at a higher level and is present in higher copy number in a strain that is resistant to multiple drugs than in a strain that is sensitive to the drugs.
Gene-gene and gene-environment interactions in prostate, breast and colorectal cancer
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Kopp, Tine Iskov
single-gene mutations due to their low frequency in the general population. Overall, the contribution from hereditary factors to the causation of BC is only 27%, whereas genetics contributes to 35% and 42% for CRC and PC, respectively. Additionally, immigrations studies point to environmental factors...... as having strong influence on carcinogenesis. Therefore, very frequent, low effect polymorphisms may have a greater contribution on a population level in combination with environmental factors. Indeed, several dietary and life style factors are now well-established risk factors for different cancer types......, such as alcohol consumption, smoking, obesity, inflammation and high meat intake; whereas other factors protect against cancer, such as high intake of dietary fibre, fruits and vegetables, and physical activity. Investigating the interactions between genetic variations and environmental factors, such as dietary...
Brain disorders: getting 'Down' to the gene.
Tessarollo, Lino
Narrowing down the genetic basis of Down syndrome, in which hundreds of genes are triplicated, has been difficult. A new study finds that the expression of two affected genes, Olig1 and Olig2, is critical for maintaining the balance of inhibitory and excitatory signaling in a mouse model of Down syndrome.
Current gene therapy for stomach carcinoma
Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)
Chang-Tai Xu; Lian-Tian Huang; Bo-Rong Pan
astric cancer is common in China [1-42],and its early diagnosis and treatment in advanced stage are difficult [31-50].In recent years ,gene study in cancer is a hotspot ,and great progress has been achieved [41-80] .Cancer gene therapy has shifted from the imagination into the laboratory and clinical trials.
Conrad: gene prediction using conditional random fields.
DeCaprio, David; Vinson, Jade P; Pearson, Matthew D; Montgomery, Philip; Doherty, Matthew; Galagan, James E
We present Conrad, the first comparative gene predictor based on semi-Markov conditional random fields (SMCRFs). Unlike the best standalone gene predictors, which are based on generalized hidden Markov models (GHMMs) and trained by maximum likelihood, Conrad is discriminatively trained to maximize annotation accuracy. In addition, unlike the best annotation pipelines, which rely on heuristic and ad hoc decision rules to combine standalone gene predictors with additional information such as ESTs and protein homology, Conrad encodes all sources of information as features and treats all features equally in the training and inference algorithms. Conrad outperforms the best standalone gene predictors in cross-validation and whole chromosome testing on two fungi with vastly different gene structures. The performance improvement arises from the SMCRF's discriminative training methods and their ability to easily incorporate diverse types of information by encoding them as feature functions. On Cryptococcus neoformans, configuring Conrad to reproduce the predictions of a two-species phylo-GHMM closely matches the performance of Twinscan. Enabling discriminative training increases performance, and adding new feature functions further increases performance, achieving a level of accuracy that is unprecedented for this organism. Similar results are obtained on Aspergillus nidulans comparing Conrad versus Fgenesh. SMCRFs are a promising framework for gene prediction because of their highly modular nature, simplifying the process of designing and testing potential indicators of gene structure. Conrad's implementation of SMCRFs advances the state of the art in gene prediction in fungi and provides a robust platform for both current application and future research. PMID:17690204
HMM-Based Gene Annotation Methods
Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)
Haussler, David; Hughey, Richard; Karplus, Keven
Development of new statistical methods and computational tools to identify genes in human genomic DNA, and to provide clues to their functions by identifying features such as transcription factor binding sites, tissue, specific expression and splicing patterns, and remove homologies at the protein level with genes of known function.
Noise minimization in eukaryotic gene expression.
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Hunter B Fraser
Full Text Available All organisms have elaborate mechanisms to control rates of protein production. However, protein production is also subject to stochastic fluctuations, or "noise." Several recent studies in Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Escherichia coli have investigated the relationship between transcription and translation rates and stochastic fluctuations in protein levels, or more generally, how such randomness is a function of intrinsic and extrinsic factors. However, the fundamental question of whether stochasticity in protein expression is generally biologically relevant has not been addressed, and it remains unknown whether random noise in the protein production rate of most genes significantly affects the fitness of any organism. We propose that organisms should be particularly sensitive to variation in the protein levels of two classes of genes: genes whose deletion is lethal to the organism and genes that encode subunits of multiprotein complexes. Using an experimentally verified model of stochastic gene expression in S. cerevisiae, we estimate the noise in protein production for nearly every yeast gene, and confirm our prediction that the production of essential and complex-forming proteins involves lower levels of noise than does the production of most other genes. Our results support the hypothesis that noise in gene expression is a biologically important variable, is generally detrimental to organismal fitness, and is subject to natural selection.
Inferring gene networks from discrete expression data
Zhang, L.
The modeling of gene networks from transcriptional expression data is an important tool in biomedical research to reveal signaling pathways and to identify treatment targets. Current gene network modeling is primarily based on the use of Gaussian graphical models applied to continuous data, which give a closedformmarginal likelihood. In this paper,we extend network modeling to discrete data, specifically data from serial analysis of gene expression, and RNA-sequencing experiments, both of which generate counts of mRNAtranscripts in cell samples.We propose a generalized linear model to fit the discrete gene expression data and assume that the log ratios of the mean expression levels follow a Gaussian distribution.We restrict the gene network structures to decomposable graphs and derive the graphs by selecting the covariance matrix of the Gaussian distribution with the hyper-inverse Wishart priors. Furthermore, we incorporate prior network models based on gene ontology information, which avails existing biological information on the genes of interest. We conduct simulation studies to examine the performance of our discrete graphical model and apply the method to two real datasets for gene network inference. © The Author 2013. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.
Bioinformatics strategies for disease gene identification
Driel, M.A. van
Disease gene identification based on chromosomal localisation is sometimes difficult and often time-consuming. It requires collecting as much information on the disease as possible. Combining positional information with disease characteristics might give hints by which candidate disease genes can be
Parkinson's disease and mitochondrial gene variations
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Andalib, Sasan; Vafaee, Manouchehr Seyedi; Gjedde, Albert
Parkinson's disease (PD) is a common disorder of the central nervous system in the elderly. The pathogenesis of PD is a complex process, with genetics as an important contributing factor. This factor may stem from mitochondrial gene variations and mutations as well as from nuclear gene variations...
Developments in gene therapy for muscular dystrophy.
Hartigan-O'Connor, D; Chamberlain, J S
Gene therapy for muscular dystrophy (MD) presents significant challenges, including the large amount of muscle tissue in the body, the large size of many genes defective in different muscular dystrophies, and the possibility of a host immune response against the therapeutic gene. Overcoming these challenges requires the development and delivery of suitable gene transfer vectors. Encouraging progress has been made in modifying adenovirus (Ad) vectors to reduce immune response and increase capacity. Recently developed gutted Ad vectors can deliver full-length dystrophin cDNA expression vectors to muscle tissue. Using muscle-specific promoters to drive dystrophin expression, a strong immune response has not been observed in mdx mice. Adeno-associated virus (AAV) vectors can deliver small genes to muscle without provocation of a significant immune response, which should allow long-term expression of several MD genes. AAV vectors have also been used to deliver sarcoglycan genes to entire muscle groups. These advances and others reviewed here suggest that barriers to gene therapy for MD are surmountable. PMID:10679969
Spatial gene expression quantification in changing morphologies
D. Botman
In systems biology, an organisms' behavior is explained from the interactions among individual components such as genes and proteins. With few exceptions, interactions among genes and proteins are not measured directly and are therefore inferred from the observed output of a biological system. A net
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Müller-Uri, Frieder; Cameron-Mills, Verena; Mundy, John
The barley gene (Jip23) encoding a 23,000-Da protein of unknown function was isolated and shown to be induced by jasmonate methyl ester (MeJA) in leaves. 5'upstream Jip23 sequence was isolated and fused to the beta-glucuronidase gene (GUS), and this reporter was introduced by particle bombardment...
Gene finding: putting the parts together
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Krogh, Anders Stærmose
In this paper, the author discusses ways of combining information of splice sites, coding potential, etc. into a prediction of a complete gene structure.......In this paper, the author discusses ways of combining information of splice sites, coding potential, etc. into a prediction of a complete gene structure....
Distribution of introns in fungal histone genes.
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Choong-Soo Yun
Full Text Available Saccharomycotina and Taphrinomycotina lack intron in their histone genes, except for an intron in one of histone H4 genes of Yarrowia lipolytica. On the other hand, Basidiomycota and Perizomycotina have introns in their histone genes. We compared the distributions of 81, 47, 79, and 98 introns in the fungal histone H2A, H2B, H3, and H4 genes, respectively. Based on the multiple alignments of the amino acid sequences of histones, we identified 19, 13, 31, and 22 intron insertion sites in the histone H2A, H2B, H3, and H4 genes, respectively. Surprisingly only one hot spot of introns in the histone H2A gene is shared between Basidiomycota and Perizomycotina, suggesting that most of introns of Basidiomycota and Perizomycotina were acquired independently. Our findings suggest that the common ancestor of Ascomycota and Basidiomycota maybe had a few introns in the histone genes. In the course of fungal evolution, Saccharomycotina and Taphrinomycotina lost the histone introns; Basidiomycota and Perizomycotina acquired other introns independently. In addition, most of the introns have sequence similarity among introns of phylogenetically close species, strongly suggesting that horizontal intron transfer events between phylogenetically distant species have not occurred recently in the fungal histone genes.
Candidate genes in ocular dominance plasticity
M.L. Rietman; J.-P. Sommeijer; C.N. Levelt; J.A. Heimel; A.B. Brussaard; J.G.G. Borst; Y. Elgersma; N. Galjart; G.T. van der Horst; C.M. Pennartz; A.B. Smit; B.M. Spruijt; M. Verhage; C.I. de Zeeuw
Many studies have been devoted to the identification of genes involved in experience-dependent plasticity in the visual cortex. To discover new candidate genes, we have reexamined data from one such study on ocular dominance (OD) plasticity in recombinant inbred BXD mouse strains. We have correlated
Maternal genes and facial clefts in offspring
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Jugessur, Astanand; Shi, Min; Gjessing, Håkon Kristian;
BACKGROUND: Fetal conditions can in principle be affected by the mother's genotype working through the prenatal environment. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Genotypes for 1536 SNPs in 357 cleft candidate genes were available from a previous analysis in which we focused on fetal gene effects [1...
Venom Evolution: Gene Loss Shapes Phenotypic Adaptation.
Casewell, Nicholas R
Snake venoms are variable protein mixtures with a multitude of bioactivities. New work shows, surprisingly, that it is the loss of toxin-encoding genes that strongly influences venom function in rattlesnakes, highlighting how gene loss can underpin adaptive phenotypic change. PMID:27676304
Searching for candidate genes for male infertility
Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)
B.N.Truong; E.K.Moses; J.E.Armes; D.J.Venter; H.W.G.Baker
Aim: We describe an approach to search for candidate genes for male infertility using the two human genome databases: the public University of California at Santa Cruz (UCSC) and private Celera databases which list known and predicted gene sequences and provide related information such as gene function, tissue expression,known mutations and single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). Methods and Results: To demonstrate this in silico research, the following male infertility candidate genes were selected: (1) human BOULE, mutations of which may lead to germ cell arrest at the primary spermatocyte stage, (2) mutations of casein kinase 2 alpha genes which may cause globozoospermia, (3) DMR-N9 which is possibly involved in the spermatogenic defect of myotonic dystrophy and (4) several testes expressed genes at or near the breakpoints of a balanced translocation associated with hypospermatogenesis. We indicate how information derived from the human genome databases can be used to confirm these candidate genes may be pathogenic by studying RNA expression in tissue arrays using in situ hybridization and gene sequencing. Conclusion: The paper explains the new approach to discovering genetic causes of male infertility using information about the human genome. ( Asian J Andro1 2003 Jun; 5:137-147 )
Horizontal gene transfer in the phytosphere
Elsas, van J.D.; Turner, S.; Bailey, M.J.
Here, the ecological aspects of gene transfer processes between bacteria in the phytosphere are examined in the context of emerging evidence for the dominant role that horizontal gene transfer (HGT) has played in the evolutionary shaping of bacterial communities. Moreover, the impact of the putative
Zhou, Jindan; Rudd, Kenneth E
EcoGene (http://ecogene.org) is a database and website devoted to continuously improving the structural and functional annotation of Escherichia coli K-12, one of the most well understood model organisms, represented by the MG1655(Seq) genome sequence and annotations. Major improvements to EcoGene in the past decade include (i) graphic presentations of genome map features; (ii) ability to design Boolean queries and Venn diagrams from EcoArray, EcoTopics or user-provided GeneSets; (iii) the genome-wide clone and deletion primer design tool, PrimerPairs; (iv) sequence searches using a customized EcoBLAST; (v) a Cross Reference table of synonymous gene and protein identifiers; (vi) proteome-wide indexing with GO terms; (vii) EcoTools access to >2000 complete bacterial genomes in EcoGene-RefSeq; (viii) establishment of a MySql relational database; and (ix) use of web content management systems. The biomedical literature is surveyed daily to provide citation and gene function updates. As of September 2012, the review of 37 397 abstracts and articles led to creation of 98 425 PubMed-Gene links and 5415 PubMed-Topic links. Annotation updates to Genbank U00096 are transmitted from EcoGene to NCBI. Experimental verifications include confirmation of a CTG start codon, pseudogene restoration and quality assurance of the Keio strain collection.
Gene Polymorphism Studies in a Teaching Laboratory
Shultz, Jeffry
I present a laboratory procedure for illustrating transcription, post-transcriptional modification, gene conservation, and comparative genetics for use in undergraduate biology education. Students are individually assigned genes in a targeted biochemical pathway, for which they design and test polymerase chain reaction (PCR) primers. In this…
Streptomyces hygroscopicus Has Two Glutamine Synthetase Genes
Kumada, Y.; Takano, E.; Nagaoka, Kozo; Thompson, C.J.
Streptomyces hygroscopicus, which produces the glutamine synthetase inhibitor phosphinothricin, possesses at least two genes (glnA and glnB) encoding distinct glutamine synthetase isoforms (GSI and GSII). The glnB gene was cloned from S. hygroscopicus DNA by complementation in an Escherichia coli gl
Translational control of gene expression and disease
Calkhoven, Cornelis F; Müller, Christine; Leutz, Achim
In the past decade, translational control has been shown to be crucial in the regulation of gene expression. Research in this field has progressed rapidly, revealing new control mechanisms and adding constantly to the list of translationally regulated genes. There is accumulating evidence that trans
Transgenic Cotton and Disease Resistance Genes
Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)
RAJASEKARAN; Kanniah
Success in conventional breeding for resistance to mycotoxin-producing or other phytopathogenic fungi is dependent on the availability of resistance gene(s) in the germplasm.Even when it is available,breeding for disease-resistant crops is very time consuming,especially in perennial crops such as
Perspectives: Gene Expression in Fisheries Management
Nielsen, Jennifer L.; Pavey, Scott A.
Functional genes and gene expression have been connected to physiological traits linked to effective production and broodstock selection in aquaculture, selective implications of commercial fish harvest, and adaptive changes reflected in non-commercial fish populations subject to human disturbance and climate change. Gene mapping using single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) to identify functional genes, gene expression (analogue microarrays and real-time PCR), and digital sequencing technologies looking at RNA transcripts present new concepts and opportunities in support of effective and sustainable fisheries. Genomic tools have been rapidly growing in aquaculture research addressing aspects of fish health, toxicology, and early development. Genomic technologies linking effects in functional genes involved in growth, maturation and life history development have been tied to selection resulting from harvest practices. Incorporating new and ever-increasing knowledge of fish genomes is opening a different perspective on local adaptation that will prove invaluable in wild fish conservation and management. Conservation of fish stocks is rapidly incorporating research on critical adaptive responses directed at the effects of human disturbance and climate change through gene expression studies. Genomic studies of fish populations can be generally grouped into three broad categories: 1) evolutionary genomics and biodiversity; 2) adaptive physiological responses to a changing environment; and 3) adaptive behavioral genomics and life history diversity. We review current genomic research in fisheries focusing on those that use microarrays to explore differences in gene expression among phenotypes and within or across populations, information that is critically important to the conservation of fish and their relationship to humans.
Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)
Objective Cloning and sequencing of the human neurotrophin-4(hNT-4) gene.Methods With the chromosomal DNA of human blood lymphocytes as template,hNT-4 coding genes were amplified by polymerase chain reaction(PCR) and recombinated into phage vector pGEM-T Easy,which were sequenced by using Sanger's single stranded DNA terminal termination method.Results The sequence of the cloned gene is completely the same as that reported in the literature(GenBank data base,M86528).Conclusion This study successfully cloning and sequenced the gene of mhNT-4,and it would be convenient for us to study the expression of mhNT-4 in eukaryote,and to continue the research on the gene therapy of Alzheimer's disease intensively.This study indicate that the hNT-4 is conservative in different races and individuals.
Cyclodextrins in non-viral gene delivery.
Lai, Wing-Fu
Cyclodextrins (CDs) are naturally occurring cyclic oligosaccharides. They consist of (α-1,4)-linked glucose units, and possess a basket-shaped topology with an "inner-outer" amphiphilic character. Over the years, substantial efforts have been undertaken to investigate the possible use of CDs in drug delivery and controlled drug release, yet the potential of CDs in gene delivery has received comparatively less discussion in the literature. In this article, we will first discuss the properties of CDs for gene delivery, followed by a synopsis of the use of CDs in development and modification of non-viral gene carriers. Finally, areas that are noteworthy in CD-based gene delivery will be highlighted for future research. Due to the application prospects of CDs, it is anticipated that CDs will continue to emerge as an important tool for vector development, and will play significant roles in facilitating non-viral gene delivery in the forthcoming decades. PMID:24103652
Gene transfer to promote cardiac regeneration.
Collesi, Chiara; Giacca, Mauro
There is an impelling need to develop new therapeutic strategies for patients with myocardial infarction and heart failure. Leading from the large quantity of new information gathered over the last few years on the mechanisms controlling cardiomyocyte proliferation during embryonic and fetal life, it is now possible to devise innovative therapies based on cardiac gene transfer. Different protein-coding genes controlling cell cycle progression or cardiomyocyte specification and differentiation, along with microRNA mimics and inhibitors regulating pre-natal and early post-natal cell proliferation, are amenable to transformation in potential therapeutics for cardiac regeneration. These gene therapy approaches are conceptually revolutionary, since they are aimed at stimulating the intrinsic potential of differentiated cardiac cells to proliferate, rather than relying on the implantation of exogenously expanded cells to achieve tissue regeneration. For efficient and prolonged cardiac gene transfer, vectors based on the Adeno-Associated Virus stand as safe, efficient and reliable tools for cardiac gene therapy applications.
Breast Cancer Susceptibility Gene1 (BRCA1
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Wasiksiri, S.
Full Text Available Breast Cancer Susceptibility Gene1 (BRCA1 is a tumor suppressor gene for breast and ovarian cancers. The gene locates at chromosome 17q21 and encodes for 1863 amino acids protein. It is believed that BRCA1 protein is involved in many functions such as DNA repair, centrosome replication, cell cycle checkpoint and replication of other genes. More than 800 mutations have been found in the population with an increased risk of cancer incidence in their families. Germ-line mutation of BRCA1 accounts for 5-10 percent of all breast cancer cases. Epigenetic modifications also reduce the function of normal BRCA1 gene. Several methods are used for laboratory diagnosis of cancer-related mutations. The development of breast cancer in carriers at risk with BRCA1 mutations may be prevented by suitable prevention plans such as breast cancer screening, ovarian cancer screening, surgery and cancer chemotherapy.
Quality measures for gene expression biclusters.
Pontes, Beatriz; Girldez, Ral; Aguilar-Ruiz, Jess S
An noticeable number of biclustering approaches have been proposed proposed for the study of gene expression data, especially for discovering functionally related gene sets under different subsets of experimental conditions. In this context, recognizing groups of co-expressed or co-regulated genes, that is, genes which follow a similar expression pattern, is one of the main objectives. Due to the problem complexity, heuristic searches are usually used instead of exhaustive algorithms. Furthermore, most of biclustering approaches use a measure or cost function that determines the quality of biclusters. Having a suitable quality metric for bicluster is a critical aspect, not only for guiding the search, but also for establishing a comparison criteria among the results obtained by different biclustering techniques. In this paper, we analyse a large number of existing approaches to quality measures for gene expression biclusters, as well as we present a comparative study of them based on their capability to recognize different expression patterns in biclusters. PMID:25763839
A gene map of the human genome
Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)
Schuler, G.D.; Boguski, M.S. [National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, MD (United States); Stewart, E.A. [Stanford Univ. School of Medicine, CA (United States)] [and others
The human genome is thought to harbor 50,000 to 100,000 genes, of which about half have been sampled to date in the form of expressed sequence tags. An international consortium was organized to develop and map gene-based sequence tagged site markers on a set of two radiation hybrid panels and a yeast artificial chromosome library. More than 16,000 human genes have been mapped relative to a framework map that contains about 1000 polymorphic genetic markers. The gene map unifies the existing genetic and physical maps with the nucleotide and protein sequence databases in a fashion that should speed the discovery of genes underlying inherited human disease. 45 refs., 4 figs., 3 tabs.
Bacillus caldolyticus prs gene encoding phosphoribosyldiphosphate synthase
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Krath, Britta N.; Hove-Jensen, Bjarne
The prs gene, encoding phosphoribosyl-diphosphate (PRPP) synthase, as well as the flanking DNA sequences were cloned and sequenced from the Gram-positive thermophile, Bacillus caldolyticus. Comparison with the homologous sequences from the mesophile, Bacillus subtilis, revealed a gene (gca......D) encoding N-acetylglucosamine-l-phosphate uridyltransferase upstream of prs, and a gene homologous to ctc downstream of prs. cDNA synthesis with a B. caldolyticus gcaD-prs-ctc-specified mRNA as template, followed by amplification utilising the polymerase chain reaction indicated that the three genes are co......-transcribed. Comparison of amino acid sequences revealed a high similarity among PRPP synthases across a wide phylogenetic range. An E. coli strain harbouring the B. caldolyticus prs gene in a multicopy plasmid produced PRPP synthase activity 33-fold over the activity of a haploid B. caldolyticus strain. B. caldolyticus...
Bioinformatics analysis of estrogen-responsive genes
Handel, Adam E.
Estrogen is a steroid hormone that plays critical roles in a myriad of intracellular pathways. The expression of many genes is regulated through the steroid hormone receptors ESR1 and ESR2. These bind to DNA and modulate the expression of target genes. Identification of estrogen target genes is greatly facilitated by the use of transcriptomic methods, such as RNA-seq and expression microarrays, and chromatin immunoprecipitation with massively parallel sequencing (ChIP-seq). Combining transcriptomic and ChIP-seq data enables a distinction to be drawn between direct and indirect estrogen target genes. This chapter will discuss some methods of identifying estrogen target genes that do not require any expertise in programming languages or complex bioinformatics. PMID:26585125
Rb1 GENE MUTATIONS IN OSTEOSARCOMA
Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)
ZENG Ji-bin; SONG Yue; WANG Yi; SHI Yu-yuan
@@ Genetic alternations, such as mutations caused inactivities of tumor suppressor gene, have been identified in a wide variety of tumors, including osteosarcoma. Osteosarcoma is the most frequent primary malignant bone tumor that occurs in the extremities of young adolescents in most cases. Because of the high frequent occurrence of this type of tumor in hereditary retinoblastoma patients, involvement of the Rb1 gene mutations was suspected in the development of osteosarcoma, and a few reports have shown alternations of the Rb1 gene in osteosarcoma. We studied Rb1 gene mutations in 9 osteosarcoma samples and one cell line (OS 732) to explore the types and mechanism of Rb1 gene mutations in osteosarcoma.
Gene expression profiling in autoimmune diseases
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Bovin, Lone Frier; Brynskov, Jørn; Hegedüs, Laszlo;
A central issue in autoimmune disease is whether the underlying inflammation is a repeated stereotypical process or whether disease specific gene expression is involved. To shed light on this, we analysed whether genes previously found to be differentially regulated in rheumatoid arthritis (RA...... differences in peripheral blood mononuclear cell (MNC) gene expression patterns between 15 newly diagnosed HT patients and 15 matched healthy controls. However, the MNC expression levels of five genes were significantly upregulated in 25 IBD patients, compared to 18 matched healthy controls (CD14, FACL2, FCN1...... immunoinflammatory diseases, but only if accompanied by pronounced systemic manifestations. This suggests that at least some of the genes activated in RA are predominantly or solely related to general and disease-nonspecific autoimmune processes...
Role of cryptic genes in microbial evolution.
Hall, B G; Yokoyama, S; Calhoun, D H
Cryptic genes are phenotypically silent DNA sequences, not normally expressed during the life cycle of an individual. They may, however, be activated in a few individuals of a large population by mutation, recombination, insertion elements, or other genetic mechanisms. A consideration of the microbial literature concerning biochemical evolution, physiology, and taxonomy provides the basis for a hypothesis of microbial adaptation and evolution by mutational activation of cryptic genes. Evidence is presented, and a mathematical model is derived, indicating that powerful and biologically important mechanisms exist to prevent the loss of cryptic genes. We propose that cryptic genes persist as a vital element of the genetic repertoire, ready for recall by mutational activation in future generations. Cryptic genes provide a versatile endogenous genetic reservoir that enhances the adaptive potential of a species by a mechanism that is independent of genetic exchange.
Human proton/oligopeptide transporter (POT) genes
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Botka, C. W.; Wittig, T. W.; Graul, R. C.;
The proton-dependent oligopeptide transporters (POT) gene family currently consists of approximately 70 cloned cDNAs derived from diverse organisms. In mammals, two genes encoding peptide transporters, PepT1 and PepT2 have been cloned in several species including humans, in addition to a rat...... histidine/peptide transporter (rPHT1). Because the Candida elegans genome contains five putative POT genes, we searched the available protein and nucleic acid databases for additional mammalian/human POT genes, using iterative BLAST runs and the human expressed sequence tags (EST) database. The apparent...... and introns of the likely human orthologue (termed hPHT2). Northern analyses with EST clones indicated that hPHT1 is primarily expressed in skeletal muscle and spleen, whereas hPHT2 is found in spleen, placenta, lung, leukocytes, and heart. These results suggest considerable complexity of the human POT gene...
Bioinformatics Analysis of Estrogen-Responsive Genes.
Handel, Adam E
Estrogen is a steroid hormone that plays critical roles in a myriad of intracellular pathways. The expression of many genes is regulated through the steroid hormone receptors ESR1 and ESR2. These bind to DNA and modulate the expression of target genes. Identification of estrogen target genes is greatly facilitated by the use of transcriptomic methods, such as RNA-seq and expression microarrays, and chromatin immunoprecipitation with massively parallel sequencing (ChIP-seq). Combining transcriptomic and ChIP-seq data enables a distinction to be drawn between direct and indirect estrogen target genes. This chapter discusses some methods of identifying estrogen target genes that do not require any expertise in programming languages or complex bioinformatics. PMID:26585125
Gene therapy in India: A focus
Indian Academy of Sciences (India)
Sarvani Chodisetty; Everette Jacob Remington Nelson
Gene therapy refers to the treatment of genetic diseases using normal copies of the defective genes. It has the potential to cure any genetic disease with long-lasting therapeutic benefits. It remained an enigma for a long period of time, which was followed by a series of setbacks in the late 1990s. Gene therapy has re-emerged as a therapeutic option with reports of success from recent clinical studies. The United States and Europe has been pioneers in this field for over two decades. Recently, reports of gene therapy have started coming in from Asian countries like China, Japan and Korea. This review focuses on the current status of gene therapy in India.
Identification and validation of suitable endogenous reference genes for gene expression studies in human peripheral blood
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Turner Renee J
Full Text Available Abstract Background Gene expression studies require appropriate normalization methods. One such method uses stably expressed reference genes. Since suitable reference genes appear to be unique for each tissue, we have identified an optimal set of the most stably expressed genes in human blood that can be used for normalization. Methods Whole-genome Affymetrix Human 2.0 Plus arrays were examined from 526 samples of males and females ages 2 to 78, including control subjects and patients with Tourette syndrome, stroke, migraine, muscular dystrophy, and autism. The top 100 most stably expressed genes with a broad range of expression levels were identified. To validate the best candidate genes, we performed quantitative RT-PCR on a subset of 10 genes (TRAP1, DECR1, FPGS, FARP1, MAPRE2, PEX16, GINS2, CRY2, CSNK1G2 and A4GALT, 4 commonly employed reference genes (GAPDH, ACTB, B2M and HMBS and PPIB, previously reported to be stably expressed in blood. Expression stability and ranking analysis were performed using GeNorm and NormFinder algorithms. Results Reference genes were ranked based on their expression stability and the minimum number of genes needed for nomalization as calculated using GeNorm showed that the fewest, most stably expressed genes needed for acurate normalization in RNA expression studies of human whole blood is a combination of TRAP1, FPGS, DECR1 and PPIB. We confirmed the ranking of the best candidate control genes by using an alternative algorithm (NormFinder. Conclusion The reference genes identified in this study are stably expressed in whole blood of humans of both genders with multiple disease conditions and ages 2 to 78. Importantly, they also have different functions within cells and thus should be expressed independently of each other. These genes should be useful as normalization genes for microarray and RT-PCR whole blood studies of human physiology, metabolism and disease.
Assessment of Suitable Reference Genes for Quantitative Gene Expression Studies in Melon Fruits.
Kong, Qiusheng; Gao, Lingyun; Cao, Lei; Liu, Yue; Saba, Hameed; Huang, Yuan; Bie, Zhilong
Melon (Cucumis melo L.) is an attractive model plant for investigating fruit development because of its morphological, physiological, and biochemical diversity. Quantification of gene expression by quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) with stably expressed reference genes for normalization can effectively elucidate the biological functions of genes that regulate fruit development. However, the reference genes for data normalization in melon fruits have not yet been systematically validated. This study aims to assess the suitability of 20 genes for their potential use as reference genes in melon fruits. Expression variations of these genes were measured in 24 samples that represented different developmental stages of fertilized and parthenocarpic melon fruits by qRT-PCR analysis. GeNorm identified ribosomal protein L (CmRPL) and cytosolic ribosomal protein S15 (CmRPS15) as the best pair of reference genes, and as many as five genes including CmRPL, CmRPS15, TIP41-like family protein (CmTIP41), cyclophilin ROC7 (CmCYP7), and ADP ribosylation factor 1 (CmADP) were required for more reliable normalization. NormFinder ranked CmRPS15 as the best single reference gene, and RAN GTPase gene family (CmRAN) and TATA-box binding protein (CmTBP2) as the best combination of reference genes in melon fruits. Their effectiveness was further validated by parallel analyses on the activities of soluble acid invertase and sucrose phosphate synthase, and expression profiles of their respective encoding genes CmAIN2 and CmSPS1, as well as sucrose contents during melon fruit ripening. The validated reference genes will help to improve the accuracy of gene expression studies in melon fruits.
Genes with minimal phylogenetic information are problematic for coalescent analyses when gene tree estimation is biased.
Xi, Zhenxiang; Liu, Liang; Davis, Charles C
The development and application of coalescent methods are undergoing rapid changes. One little explored area that bears on the application of gene-tree-based coalescent methods to species tree estimation is gene informativeness. Here, we investigate the accuracy of these coalescent methods when genes have minimal phylogenetic information, including the implementation of the multilocus bootstrap approach. Using simulated DNA sequences, we demonstrate that genes with minimal phylogenetic information can produce unreliable gene trees (i.e., high error in gene tree estimation), which may in turn reduce the accuracy of species tree estimation using gene-tree-based coalescent methods. We demonstrate that this problem can be alleviated by sampling more genes, as is commonly done in large-scale phylogenomic analyses. This applies even when these genes are minimally informative. If gene tree estimation is biased, however, gene-tree-based coalescent analyses will produce inconsistent results, which cannot be remedied by increasing the number of genes. In this case, it is not the gene-tree-based coalescent methods that are flawed, but rather the input data (i.e., estimated gene trees). Along these lines, the commonly used program PhyML has a tendency to infer one particular bifurcating topology even though it is best represented as a polytomy. We additionally corroborate these findings by analyzing the 183-locus mammal data set assembled by McCormack et al. (2012) using ultra-conserved elements (UCEs) and flanking DNA. Lastly, we demonstrate that when employing the multilocus bootstrap approach on this 183-locus data set, there is no strong conflict between species trees estimated from concatenation and gene-tree-based coalescent analyses, as has been previously suggested by Gatesy and Springer (2014).
Assessment of Suitable Reference Genes for Quantitative Gene Expression Studies in Melon Fruits
Kong, Qiusheng; Gao, Lingyun; Cao, Lei; Liu, Yue; Saba, Hameed; Huang, Yuan; Bie, Zhilong
Melon (Cucumis melo L.) is an attractive model plant for investigating fruit development because of its morphological, physiological, and biochemical diversity. Quantification of gene expression by quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) with stably expressed reference genes for normalization can effectively elucidate the biological functions of genes that regulate fruit development. However, the reference genes for data normalization in melon fruits have not yet been systematically validated. This study aims to assess the suitability of 20 genes for their potential use as reference genes in melon fruits. Expression variations of these genes were measured in 24 samples that represented different developmental stages of fertilized and parthenocarpic melon fruits by qRT-PCR analysis. GeNorm identified ribosomal protein L (CmRPL) and cytosolic ribosomal protein S15 (CmRPS15) as the best pair of reference genes, and as many as five genes including CmRPL, CmRPS15, TIP41-like family protein (CmTIP41), cyclophilin ROC7 (CmCYP7), and ADP ribosylation factor 1 (CmADP) were required for more reliable normalization. NormFinder ranked CmRPS15 as the best single reference gene, and RAN GTPase gene family (CmRAN) and TATA-box binding protein (CmTBP2) as the best combination of reference genes in melon fruits. Their effectiveness was further validated by parallel analyses on the activities of soluble acid invertase and sucrose phosphate synthase, and expression profiles of their respective encoding genes CmAIN2 and CmSPS1, as well as sucrose contents during melon fruit ripening. The validated reference genes will help to improve the accuracy of gene expression studies in melon fruits. PMID:27536316
Cloning and sequencing genes related to preeclampsia
Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)
SHI Juan-zi; LIU Yan-fang; YAO Yuan-qing; YAN Wei; ZHU Feng; ZHAO Zhong-liang
To clone genes specifically expressed in the placenta of patients with preeclampsia, and to explain the mechanism in the etiopathology ofpreeclampsia. Methods: The placentae ofpreeclamptic and normotensive subjects with pregnancy were used as models, and the cDNA Library was constructed and 20 differentially expressed fragments were cloned after a new version of PCR-based subtractive hybridization. The false positive clones were identified by reverse dot blot analysis. With one of the obtained gene taken as the probe, the placentas of 10 normal pregnant women and 10 preeclamptic patients were studied by using dot hybridization methods. Results: Six false positive clones were identified by reverse dot blot, and the rest 14 clones were identified as preeclampsia-related genes. These clones were sequenced, and analyzed with BLAST analysis system. Eleven of 14 clones were genes already known, among which one belongs to necdin family; the rest 3 were identified as novel genes. These 3 genes were acknowledged by GenBank, with the accession numbers AF232216, AF232217, AF233648. The results of dot hybridization using necdin gene as probe were as follows: (1) There was this mRNA in the placental tissues of normal pregnancy as well as in that ofpreeclampsia.(2) The intensity of transcription of this mRNA in the placental tissues of preeclampsia increased significantly compared with that of the normal pregnancy (P<0.05). Conclusions: This study for the first time reported this group of genes, especially necdin-expressing gene, which are related to the etiopathology of preeclampsia. In addition, the overtranscription ofnecdin gene has been found in preeclampsia. It is helpful in further studies of the etiology ofpreeclampsia.
Origin of saxitoxin biosynthetic genes in cyanobacteria.
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Ahmed Moustafa
Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP is a potentially fatal syndrome associated with the consumption of shellfish that have accumulated saxitoxin (STX. STX is produced by microscopic marine dinoflagellate algae. Little is known about the origin and spread of saxitoxin genes in these under-studied eukaryotes. Fortuitously, some freshwater cyanobacteria also produce STX, providing an ideal model for studying its biosynthesis. Here we focus on saxitoxin-producing cyanobacteria and their non-toxic sisters to elucidate the origin of genes involved in the putative STX biosynthetic pathway. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We generated a draft genome assembly of the saxitoxin-producing (STX+ cyanobacterium Anabaena circinalis ACBU02 and searched for 26 candidate saxitoxin-genes (named sxtA to sxtZ that were recently identified in the toxic strain Cylindrospermopsis raciborskii T3. We also generated a draft assembly of the non-toxic (STX- sister Anabaena circinalis ACFR02 to aid the identification of saxitoxin-specific genes. Comparative phylogenomic analyses revealed that nine putative STX genes were horizontally transferred from non-cyanobacterial sources, whereas one key gene (sxtA originated in STX+ cyanobacteria via two independent horizontal transfers followed by fusion. In total, of the 26 candidate saxitoxin-genes, 13 are of cyanobacterial provenance and are monophyletic among the STX+ taxa, four are shared amongst STX+ and STX-cyanobacteria, and the remaining nine genes are specific to STX+ cyanobacteria. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Our results provide evidence that the assembly of STX genes in ACBU02 involved multiple HGT events from different sources followed presumably by coordination of the expression of foreign and native genes in the common ancestor of STX+ cyanobacteria. The ability to produce saxitoxin was subsequently lost multiple independent times resulting in a nested relationship of STX+ and STX- strains among Anabaena
The gsdf gene locus harbors evolutionary conserved and clustered genes preferentially expressed in fish previtellogenic oocytes.
Gautier, Aude; Le Gac, Florence; Lareyre, Jean-Jacques
The gonadal soma-derived factor (GSDF) belongs to the transforming growth factor-β superfamily and is conserved in teleostean fish species. Gsdf is specifically expressed in the gonads, and gene expression is restricted to the granulosa and Sertoli cells in trout and medaka. The gsdf gene expression is correlated to early testis differentiation in medaka and was shown to stimulate primordial germ cell and spermatogonia proliferation in trout. In the present study, we show that the gsdf gene localizes to a syntenic chromosomal fragment conserved among vertebrates although no gsdf-related gene is detected on the corresponding genomic region in tetrapods. We demonstrate using quantitative RT-PCR that most of the genes localized in the synteny are specifically expressed in medaka gonads. Gsdf is the only gene of the synteny with a much higher expression in the testis compared to the ovary. In contrast, gene expression pattern analysis of the gsdf surrounding genes (nup54, aff1, klhl8, sdad1, and ptpn13) indicates that these genes are preferentially expressed in the female gonads. The tissue distribution of these genes is highly similar in medaka and zebrafish, two teleostean species that have diverged more than 110 million years ago. The cellular localization of these genes was determined in medaka gonads using the whole-mount in situ hybridization technique. We confirm that gsdf gene expression is restricted to Sertoli and granulosa cells in contact with the premeiotic and meiotic cells. The nup54 gene is expressed in spermatocytes and previtellogenic oocytes. Transcripts corresponding to the ovary-specific genes (aff1, klhl8, and sdad1) are detected only in previtellogenic oocytes. No expression was detected in the gonocytes in 10 dpf embryos. In conclusion, we show that the gsdf gene localizes to a syntenic chromosomal fragment harboring evolutionary conserved genes in vertebrates. These genes are preferentially expressed in previtelloogenic oocytes, and thus, they
The gene expression data of Mycobacterium tuberculosis based on Affymetrix gene chips provide insight into regulatory and hypothetical genes
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Fu-Liu Casey S
Full Text Available Abstract Background Tuberculosis remains a leading infectious disease with global public health threat. Its control and management have been complicated by multi-drug resistance and latent infection, which prompts scientists to find new and more effective drugs. With the completion of the genome sequence of the etiologic bacterium, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, it is now feasible to search for new drug targets by sieving through a large number of gene products and conduct genome-scale experiments based on microarray technology. However, the full potential of genome-wide microarray analysis in configuring interrelationships among all genes in M. tuberculosis has yet to be realized. To date, it is only possible to assign a function to 52% of proteins predicted in the genome. Results We conducted a functional-genomics study using the high-resolution Affymetrix oligonucleotide GeneChip. Approximately one-half of the genes were found to be always expressed, including more than 100 predicted conserved hypotheticals, in the genome of M. tuberculosis during the log phase of in vitro growth. The gene expression profiles were analyzed and visualized through cluster analysis to epitomize the full details of genomic behavior. Broad patterns derived from genome-wide expression experiments in this study have provided insight into the interrelationships among genes in the basic cellular processes of M. tuberculosis. Conclusion Our results have confirmed several known gene clusters in energy production, information pathways, and lipid metabolism, and also hinted at potential roles of hypothetical and regulatory proteins.
Experimental gene therapy using p21Waf1 gene for esophageal squamous cell carcinoma by gene gun technology.
Tanaka, Yuichi; Fujii, Teruhiko; Yamana, Hideaki; Kato, Seiya; Morimatsu, Minoru; Shirouzu, Kazuo
In our previous study, the proliferation rate of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma cell lines, which poorly expressed p21Waf1, was found to be regulated by p21Waf1 gene transfection using adenovirus vector. In the present study, in order to examine the effect of p21Waf1 gene therapy in esophageal cancer, we used gene gun technology, which proved to be a powerful method to introduce the p21Waf1 gene into esophageal cancer cells. p21Waf1 transfection to KE3 and YES2 cells (weakly expressed p21Waf1 protein cells) showed a high expression of p21Waf1 protein after applying this gene gun technique. In KE3 and YES2 cells, statistical significant growth inhibition was observed after p21Waf1 transfection compared with LacZ transfection (KE3, p=0.0009; YES2, pgun technique significantly inhibited the low basal p21Waf1 expressed esophageal cancer cell growth in vitro and in vivo. Furthermore, p21Waf1 transfection strongly enhanced the effect of 5Fu suggesting that p21Waf1 may prove beneficial in chemotherapy combined with gene therapy using gene gun technology in patients with esophageal cancer who have a low level of p21Waf1 expressed tumor.
The Renilla luciferase gene as a reference gene for normalization of gene expression in transiently transfected cells
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Kolch Walter
Full Text Available Abstract Background The importance of appropriate normalization controls in quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR experiments has become more apparent as the number of biological studies using this methodology has increased. In developing a system to study gene expression from transiently transfected plasmids, it became clear that normalization using chromosomally encoded genes is not ideal, at it does not take into account the transfection efficiency and the significantly lower expression levels of the plasmids. We have developed and validated a normalization method for qPCR using a co-transfected plasmid. Results The best chromosomal gene for normalization in the presence of the transcriptional activators used in this study, cadmium, dexamethasone, forskolin and phorbol-12-myristate 13-acetate was first identified. qPCR data was analyzed using geNorm, Normfinder and BestKeeper. Each software application was found to rank the normalization controls differently with no clear correlation. Including a co-transfected plasmid encoding the Renilla luciferase gene (Rluc in this analysis showed that its calculated stability was not as good as the optimised chromosomal genes, most likely as a result of the lower expression levels and transfection variability. Finally, we validated these analyses by testing two chromosomal genes (B2M and ActB and a co-transfected gene (Rluc under biological conditions. When analyzing co-transfected plasmids, Rluc normalization gave the smallest errors compared to the chromosomal reference genes. Conclusions Our data demonstrates that transfected Rluc is the most appropriate normalization reference gene for transient transfection qPCR analysis; it significantly reduces the standard deviation within biological experiments as it takes into account the transfection efficiencies and has easily controllable expression levels. This improves reproducibility, data validity and most importantly, enables accurate
Gene Duplication and Gene Expression Changes Play a Role in the Evolution of Candidate Pollen Feeding Genes in Heliconius Butterflies.
Smith, Gilbert; Macias-Muñoz, Aide; Briscoe, Adriana D
Heliconius possess a unique ability among butterflies to feed on pollen. Pollen feeding significantly extends their lifespan, and is thought to have been important to the diversification of the genus. We used RNA sequencing to examine feeding-related gene expression in the mouthparts of four species of Heliconius and one nonpollen feeding species, Eueides isabella We hypothesized that genes involved in morphology and protein metabolism might be upregulated in Heliconius because they have longer proboscides than Eueides, and because pollen contains more protein than nectar. Using de novo transcriptome assemblies, we tested these hypotheses by comparing gene expression in mouthparts against antennae and legs. We first looked for genes upregulated in mouthparts across all five species and discovered several hundred genes, many of which had functional annotations involving metabolism of proteins (cocoonase), lipids, and carbohydrates. We then looked specifically within Heliconius where we found eleven common upregulated genes with roles in morphology (CPR cuticle proteins), behavior (takeout-like), and metabolism (luciferase-like). Closer examination of these candidates revealed that cocoonase underwent several duplications along the lineage leading to heliconiine butterflies, including two Heliconius-specific duplications. Luciferase-like genes also underwent duplication within lepidopterans, and upregulation in Heliconius mouthparts. Reverse-transcription PCR confirmed that three cocoonases, a peptidase, and one luciferase-like gene are expressed in the proboscis with little to no expression in labial palps and salivary glands. Our results suggest pollen feeding, like other dietary specializations, was likely facilitated by adaptive expansions of preexisting genes-and that the butterfly proboscis is involved in digestive enzyme production. PMID:27553646
Visualizing Gene Expression In Situ
Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)
Burlage, R.S.
Visualizing bacterial cells and describing their responses to the environment are difficult tasks. Their small size is the chief reason for the difficulty, which means that we must often use many millions of cells in a sample in order to determine what the average response of the bacteria is. However, an average response can sometimes mask important events in bacterial physiology, which means that our understanding of these organisms will suffer. We have used a variety of instruments to visualize bacterial cells, all of which tell us something different about the sample. We use a fluorescence activated cell sorter to sort cells based on the fluorescence provided by bioreporter genes, and these can be used to select for particular genetic mutations. Cells can be visualized by epifluorescent microscopy, and sensitive photodetectors can be added that allow us to find a single bacterial cell that is fluorescent or bioluminescent. We have also used standard photomultipliers to examine cell aggregates as field bioreporter microorganisms. Examples of each of these instruments show how our understanding of bacterial physiology has changed with the technology.
Radiation-induced gene responses
Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)
Woloschak, G.E.; Paunesku, T.; Shearin-Jones, P.; Oryhon, J.
In the process of identifying genes that are differentially regulated in cells exposed to ultraviolet radiation (UV), we identified a transcript that was repressed following the exposure of cells to a combination of UV and salicylate, a known inhibitor of NF-kappaB. Sequencing this band determined that it has identify to lactate dehydrogenase, and Northern blots confirmed the initial expression pattern. Analysis of the sequence of the LDH 5` region established the presence of NF-kappaB, Sp1, and two Ap-2 elements; two partial AP- 1; one partial RE, and two halves of E-UV elements were also found. Electromobility shift assays were then performed for the AP-1, NF- kappaB, and E-UV elements. These experiments revealed that binding to NF-kappaB was induced by UV but repressed with salicylic acid; UV did not affect AP-1 binding, but salicylic acid inhibited it alone or following UV exposure; and E-UV binding was repressed by UV, and salicylic acid had little effect. Since the binding of no single element correlated with the expression pattern of LDH, it is likely that multiple elements govern UV/salicylate-mediated expression.
Correlating Information Contents of Gene Ontology Terms to Infer Semantic Similarity of Gene Products
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Mingxin Gan
Full Text Available Successful applications of the gene ontology to the inference of functional relationships between gene products in recent years have raised the need for computational methods to automatically calculate semantic similarity between gene products based on semantic similarity of gene ontology terms. Nevertheless, existing methods, though having been widely used in a variety of applications, may significantly overestimate semantic similarity between genes that are actually not functionally related, thereby yielding misleading results in applications. To overcome this limitation, we propose to represent a gene product as a vector that is composed of information contents of gene ontology terms annotated for the gene product, and we suggest calculating similarity between two gene products as the relatedness of their corresponding vectors using three measures: Pearson's correlation coefficient, cosine similarity, and the Jaccard index. We focus on the biological process domain of the gene ontology and annotations of yeast proteins to study the effectiveness of the proposed measures. Results show that semantic similarity scores calculated using the proposed measures are more consistent with known biological knowledge than those derived using a list of existing methods, suggesting the effectiveness of our method in characterizing functional relationships between gene products.