Just as a boat can be driven off course by a log in its path, a single, random mutation can send life in a new direction. That scenario, says University of Oregon biochemist Ken Prehoda, illustrates how a random mutation ...
Biochemistry
Nov 16, 2016
0
929
By studying more than 50,000 variants of a jellyfish gene, researchers at the Centre for Genomic Regulation in Barcelona (Spain) have drawn a detailed picture of how changes in that gene affect its function. The study, carried ...
Biotechnology
May 12, 2016
0
13
All it took was one mutation more than 600 million years ago. With that random act, a new protein function was born that helped our single-celled ancestor transition into an organized multicellular organism.
Cell & Microbiology
Jan 7, 2016
0
122
HIV, or human immunodeficiency virus, is the retrovirus that leads to acquired immunodeficiency syndrome or AIDS. Globally, about 35 million people are living with HIV, which constantly adapts and mutates creating challenges ...
Biochemistry
Jul 1, 2015
1
178
Nowhere is the adage "form follows function" more true than in the folded chain of amino acids that makes up a single protein macromolecule. But proteins are very sensitive to errors in their genetic blueprints. One single-letter ...
Biochemistry
Apr 16, 2015
0
45
In an advance that will help scientists design and engineer proteins, a team including researchers from SLAC and Stanford has found a way to identify how protein molecules flex into specific atomic arrangements required to ...
Biochemistry
Aug 9, 2013
0
0
RNA editing gives organisms a way to adapt the instructions that their DNA provides for making proteins. Few people would have described RNA editing as a simple process, but a new paper in Nature Communications demonstrates ...
Biotechnology
Aug 1, 2013
0
0
In the past year a group of synthetic proteins called CRISPR-Cas RNA-guided nucleases (RGNs) have generated great excitement in the scientific community as gene-editing tools. Exploiting a method that some bacteria use to ...
Biotechnology
Jun 23, 2013
0
0
With mutations, it turns out that context can be everything in determining whether or not they are beneficial to their evolutionary fate.
Evolution
Jun 13, 2013
1
0
What makes one Argonaute a slicer and another one not? Human Argonaute proteins are key players in the gene regulation process known as RNA interference, RNAi. Professor Joshua-Tor's group of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jun 6, 2013
0
0
