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The research group led by Prof. Alex Schier, director of the University of Basel’s Biozentrum, has identified 30 genes associated with schizophrenia. The team was able to show which pathological changes in the brain and behavioral abnormalities are triggered by these genes. The results of the study have now been published in Cell. The research […]
CRISPR/Cas enables the targeted deactivation of genes by cutting DNA at pre-determined sites. This is accomplished by providing the Cas enzyme with a genetic zip code. Using an entire library of zip codes, it is then possible to simultaneously probe multiple sites within the genome, for example to determine which genes are essential for cancer […]
As an organism grows and responds to its environment, genes in its cells are constantly turning on and off, with different patterns of gene expression in different cells. But can changes in gene expression be passed on from parents to their children and subsequent generations? Although indirect evidence for this phenomenon, called “transgenerational epigenetic inheritance,” […]
DNA is small. Really, really, small. So, when researchers want to study the structure of a single-stranded DNA, they can’t just pull out their microscopes: they have to get creative. In a study published this week in Scientific Reports, researchers from Japan’s Osaka University explain how they came up with a really small solution to […]
A nationwide consortium of researchers has identified the first genetic defect linked to biliary atresia, a mysterious liver disease that is the leading cause for liver transplantation in children. The results were published in the journal Hepatology. The causes of biliary atresia were unknown, so this is a major advance that will move the field […]
Analysis of genetic data from more than 94,000 individuals has revealed five new risk genes for Alzheimer’s disease, and confirmed 20 known others. An international team of researchers also reports for the first time that mutations in genes specific to tau, a hallmark protein of Alzheimer’s disease, may play an earlier role in the development […]
A study headed by researchers from the Danish project iPSYCH and the Broad Institute in the U.S., has found the first common genetic risk variants for autism and uncovered genetic differences in clinical subgroups of autism. The discovery means that we will in future be able to determine the genes that separate the diagnostic groups, […]
Cholesterol carried in high-density lipoprotein particles, or HDL cholesterol, has been dubbed the good cholesterol, because people whose HDL levels are high have a lower risk of developing heart disease. That link was first established in 1977 and has been confirmed over and over in epidemiological studies. But in the past 15 years, a string […]
Scientists from Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), Department of Medicine 3 — Rheumatology and Immunology, headed by Prof. Dr. Georg Schett, have now decrypted a molecular network that controls these processes and could in future provide a new way to treat organ scarring. The results show that the protein PU.1 causes pathological deposition of connective tissue. The […]
Overuse of insecticides, which leads to the selection of resistant mosquitoes, affects interactions between mosquitoes and the pathogens they transmit. Researchers from the Institut Pasteur (Paris) and its partners have now shown that mechanisms of insecticide resistance, observed in Culex quinquefasciatus vector, impact the transmission of West Nile virus. In recent decades, arthropod-borne viruses (arboviruses) […]