Medicine

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (April 2, 2009) – Whitehead Institute researchers have quintupled the number of identifiable prion proteins in yeast and have further clarified the role prions play in the inheritance of both beneficial and detrimental traits. "The big debate in the field is are the prions functional – are they evolved to be prions, or are they always a disease, as in "mad cow'" disease in mammals," says Randal Halfmann, a research assistant in Whitehead Member Susan Lindquist's lab, and coauthor of the paper featured on the cover of the April 3 issue of the journal Cell. "We wanted to find…

Excess amounts of a naturally fluorescent molecule found in all living cells could serve as a natural biomarker for cancer, according to bioengineers. NADH, or nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, is a key coenzyme -- a non-protein molecule necessary for the functioning of an enzyme -- found mostly in the inner membrane of a cell's power plant, or mitochondria. It fuels a series of biochemical reactions that involve various enzymes to produce ATP, the major energy source in cells. In the event of disease or a metabolic disorder, these enzymes and their related reactions can become disabled,…

A couple's sexual orientation determines whether or not they prefer to adopt a boy or a girl. Gay men are more likely to have a gender preference for their adopted child whereas heterosexual men are the least likely. What's more, couples in heterosexual relationships are more likely to prefer girls than people in same-gender relationships, according to Dr. Abbie Goldberg from Clark University in the US. These couples also have very different reasons for their preferences, depending on their sexuality. These findings (1), from the first study to compare the child gender preferences of…

Ali Shilatifard, Ph.D., Investigator, has joined with a team of colleagues to propose an operational definition of "Epigenetics" — a rapidly growing research field that investigates heritable alterations in gene expression caused by mechanisms other than changes in DNA sequence. Dr. Shilatifard's publication appeared today in Genes and Development and resulted from a meeting on December 7-10, 2008 that he co-organized at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York to discuss aspects of epigenetic control in genomic function and to develop a consensus definition of "epigenetics" for…

Scientists have come to agree that different environments impact the evolution of new species. Now experiments conducted at the University of British Columbia are showing for the first time that the reverse is also true. Researchers from the UBC Biodiversity Research Centre created mini-ecosystems in large aquatic tanks using different species of three-spine stickleback fish and saw substantial differences in the ecosystems in as little as 11 weeks. Their findings are published in today's Advanced Online Publication of the journal Nature. Stickleback fish originated in the ocean but began…

COLD SPRING HARBOR, N.Y. (Wednesday, April 1, 2009) – Along with new cutting-edge methods, Cold Spring Harbor Protocols is home to an in-depth library of basic laboratory methods. The April issue (www.cshprotocols.org/TOCs/toc4_09.dtl) features two of these standard techniques. From molecular biology researchers to law enforcement forensics laboratories, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is the commonly used method for nucleic acid amplification. But PCR is often difficult to optimize, and failure to do so can lead to undefined and unwanted products, or a complete lack of amplification…

AMES, Iowa -- As a major food source for much of the world, rice is one of the most important plants on earth. Keeping it safe from disease has become, in part, the task of a group of three researchers from Iowa State University and one from Kansas State University. The researchers are looking at two bacterial diseases of rice. The most costly is bacterial blight of rice, which is caused by a bacterium called Xanthomonas oryzae pathovar oryzae, and can diminish yield by up to 50 percent. "This is the most important bacterial disease in rice, and in some areas, it is the most important rice…

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — New research from UC Davis Cancer Center shows that a protein called Muc4 may be the essential ingredient that allows breast cancer to spread to other organs and resist therapeutic treatment. The study, which appears in the April 1 issue of Cancer Research, is one of the first to characterize the role of Muc4 in the disease. Kermit Carraway, senior author of the study, knew that Muc4 was not always expressed in primary breast cancer tumors, yet it could be present in lymph node metastases. He suspected that it may have a specialized function in the process of metastasis…

COLUMBIA, Mo. ¬— For years, researchers and physicians have known that infants' immune systems do not respond well to certain vaccines, thus the need for additional boosters as children develop. Now, in a new study from the University of Missouri, one researcher has found an explanation for that poor response. In the study, the MU scientist found evidence that the immune systems of newborns might require some time after birth to mature to a point where the benefits of vaccines can be fully realized. Habib Zaghouani, a professor of molecular microbiology and immunology and child health at the…

A new study pinpoints certain aspects of the immune system that may play a role in the recurrence and progression of hepatitis C virus (HCV) after liver transplantation. The study is in the April issue of Liver Transplantation, a journal published by John Wiley & Sons. The article is also available online at Wiley Interscience (www.interscience.wiley.com). Hepatitis C virus (HCV), which can lead to cirrhosis and liver cancer, is the leading indication for liver transplantation in the U.S. Unfortunately, the infection almost always recurs, and in about 30 percent of cases, it causes…