Of the three billion base pairs in the human genome, less than two percent contain the information encoding the ~20,000 proteins. That is, because at least half of our genetic material originated from selfish genetic elements ...
Cell & Microbiology
Aug 9, 2019
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27
Organisms from bacteria to humans must defend themselves against parasitic genetic elements called transposons, and the stakes are high. These pieces of DNA, which disrupt genes by jumping around in the genome, can cause ...
Biotechnology
Oct 15, 2015
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457
A so-called "jumping gene" that researchers long considered either genetic junk or a pernicious parasite is actually a critical regulator of the first stages of embryonic development, according to a new study in mice led ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jun 21, 2018
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143
A team of Texas A&M University and Texas AgriLife Research scientists have made a new discovery of how a single protein, Serrate, plays dual roles in controlling jumping genes.
Biotechnology
Jun 22, 2018
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27
One of the biggest current threats to global health is the rise of multi-drug resistant bacteria, caused by the spread of antibiotic resistance amongst them. In an attempt to fight this threat, EMBL researchers have unraveled ...
Cell & Microbiology
Mar 15, 2018
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24
A common bacteria is furthering evidence that evolution is not entirely a blind process, subject to random changes in the genes, but that environmental stressors can also play a role.
Evolution
Jul 20, 2017
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45
The story of why we are all so different goes well beyond the endless mixing and matching of DNA through breeding. A new study in the journal Nature Communications, for instance, reports a new molecular mechanism of individual ...
Biotechnology
Nov 8, 2013
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0
Sometime between 5 million and 13 million years ago, both maize and soybeans underwent genome duplications, but Purdue University scientists believe they happened in very different manners.
Biotechnology
Jan 11, 2018
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24
Researchers from the University of Cambridge's Sainsbury Laboratory (SLCU) and Department of Plant Sciences have discovered that drought stress triggers the activity of a family of jumping genes (Rider retrotransposons) previously ...
Biotechnology
Sep 16, 2019
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29
(Phys.org)—Transposable elements—or transposons—are DNA sequences that move in the genome from one location to another. Discovered in the 1940s, for years they were thought to be unimportant and were called "junk DNA." ...
Biotechnology
Nov 29, 2012
0
0
