Researchers in Lund, Copenhagen and Norwich have shown that harmful mutations present in the DNA play an important—yet neglected—role in the conservation and translocation programs of threatened species.
Evolution
Jun 7, 2021
0
10
New insights into the ability of DNA to overcome harmful genetic changes have been discovered by scientists at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, the University of Lausanne and their collaborators. The team found that 26 percent ...
Evolution
May 27, 2021
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9
SARS-CoV-2 has evolved to acquire mutations on the spike protein—the part of the virus that protrudes from its surface and latches onto cells to infect them—that enhance the coronavirus' ability to bind to human cells ...
Biotechnology
May 19, 2021
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126
In early 2020, a few months after the Covid-19 pandemic began, scientists were able to sequence the full genome of the virus that causes the infection, SARS-CoV-2. While many of its genes were already known at that point, ...
Biotechnology
May 11, 2021
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28
While the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing system has become the poster child for innovation in synthetic biology, it has some major limitations. CRISPR-Cas9 can be programmed to find and cut specific pieces of DNA, but editing the ...
Biotechnology
Apr 30, 2021
2
3355
A mutation that deletes a large segment of human chromosome 16 and is associated with neurodevelopmental disorders doesn't work alone. A new functional assay demonstrates how the deletion could be sensitizing the genome such ...
Cell & Microbiology
Apr 28, 2021
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17
A study led by researchers at the Centre for Palaeogenetics in Stockholm shows that the last remaining populations of the Sumatran rhinoceros display surprisingly low levels of inbreeding. The researchers sequenced the genomes ...
Plants & Animals
Apr 26, 2021
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62
Antibiotics on the cocoon protect the offspring of beewolves, a group of digger wasps, from detrimental fungi. These protective substances are produced by symbiotic bacteria of the genus Streptomyces, which live in these ...
Ecology
Apr 19, 2021
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230
It has been known for about a year that minks can become infected with SARS-CoV-2. The virus had been transmitted from humans to farmed mink and mutated in infected animals. Mutations were acquired in the spike protein, which ...
Ecology
Apr 19, 2021
1
394
Understanding the effects of specific mutations in gene regulatory regions—the sections of DNA and RNA that turn genes on and off—is important to unraveling how the genome works, as well as normal development and disease. ...
Biotechnology
Apr 13, 2021
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28
