Biotechnology

ScienceDaily (Sep. 24, 2012) — Life in extreme environments -- hot acids and heavy metals, for example -- can apparently make very similar organisms deal with stress in very different ways, according to new research from North Carolina State University. One single-celled organism from a hot spring near Mount Vesuvius in Italy fights uranium toxicity directly -- by eating the heavy metal and acquiring energy from it. Another single-celled organism that lives on a "smoldering heap" near an abandoned uranium mine in Germany overcomes uranium toxicity indirectly -- essentially shutting down its cellular processes to induce a type of cellular coma when toxic levels of uranium are present in its environment. Interestingly, these very different responses to environmental stress come from two organisms that are 99.99 percent genetically identical. In a paper published this week online in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , NC State res...

ScienceDaily (Sep. 24, 2012) — When it comes to germ-busting power, the eyes have it, according to a discovery by UC Berkeley researchers that could lead to new, inexpensive antimicrobial drugs. Proteins in the eye can help keep pathogens at bay, finds a new UC Berkeley study. A team of UC Berkeley vision scientists has found that small fragments of keratin protein in the eye play a key role in warding off pathogens. The researchers also put synthetic versions of these keratin fragments to the test against an array of nasty pathogens. These synthetic molecules effectively zapped bacteria that can lead to flesh-eating disease and strep throat ( Streptococcus pyogenes ), diarrhea ( Escherichia coli ), staph infections ( Staphylococcus aureus ) and cystic fibrosis lung infections ( Pseudomonas aeruginosa ). The findings, to be published in the October issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation , could lead to a powerful new weapon in the battle agai...

ScienceDaily (Sep. 20, 2012) — For nearly 260 years -- since Carl Linnaeus developed his system of naming plants and animals -- researchers classified species based on visual attributes like color, shape and size. In the past few decades, researchers found that sequencing DNA can more accurately identify species. A group of single-celled algae -- Symbiodinium -- that live inside corals and are critical to their survival -- are only now being separated into species using DNA analysis, according to biologists. "Unfortunately with Symbiodinium , scientists have been hindered by a traditional morphology-based system of species identification that doesn't work because these organisms all pretty much look the same -- small round brown cells," said Todd LaJeunesse, assistant professor of biology at Penn State. "This delay in adopting the more accurate convention of identifying species using genetic techniques has greatly impeded progress in t...

ScienceDaily (Sep. 23, 2012) — Mayo Clinic researchers and an international team of scientists have developed a highly-efficient means of editing zebrafish genomes for research purposes, eliminating a bottleneck that has stymied biomedical scientists from using the fish as a model for human disease. The details appear online today in the journal Nature . For many researchers, zebrafish are becoming the model of choice for genetic studies. However, the inability to efficiently target genetic modifications has delayed their use by some. The Mayo team used an improved variant of artificial transcription activator-like effector nucleases, or TALENs, to provide a new approach. "By using genetic engineering tools called TALENs and synthetic DNA to make defined changes in the genomes of our fish, we are able to make small changes (just a few nucleotides) as well as add a specific sequence for biological gene switch applications," says Stephen Ekker...

ScienceDaily (Sep. 21, 2012) — The seeds of greenhouse-grown corn could hold the key to treating a rare, life-threatening childhood genetic disease, according to researchers from Simon Fraser University. SFU biologist Allison Kermode and her team have been carrying out multidisciplinary research toward developing enzyme therapeutics for lysosomal storage diseases -- rare, but devastating childhood genetic diseases -- for more than a decade. In the most severe forms of these inherited diseases, untreated patients die in early childhood because of progressive damage to all organs of the body. Currently, enzyme treatments are available for only six of the more than 70 diverse types of lysosomal storage diseases. "In part because mammalian cell cultures have been the system of choice to produce these therapeutics, the enzymes are extremely costly to make, with treatments typically ranging from $300,000 to $500,000 per year for children, with even h...

ScienceDaily (Sep. 20, 2012) — Everyone knows that what mom eats when pregnant makes a huge difference in the health of her child. Now, new research in mice suggests that what she ate before pregnancy might be important too. According to a new research report published online in The FASEB Journal , what a group of female mice ate -- before pregnancy -- chemically altered their DNA and these changes were passed to her offspring. These DNA alterations, called "epigenetic" changes, drastically affected the pups' metabolism of many essential fatty acids. These results could have a profound impact on future research for diabetes, obesity, cancer, and immune disorders. "As parents, we have to understand better that our responsibilities to our children are not only of a social, economical, or educational nature, but that our own biological status can contribute to the fate of our children, and this effect can be long-lasting," said Miha...

ScienceDaily (Sep. 20, 2012) — A mosquito sample collected three decades ago in Israel's Negev Desert has yielded an unexpected discovery: a previously unknown virus that's closely related to some of the world's most dangerous mosquito-borne pathogens but, curiously, incapable of infecting non-insect hosts. Researchers believe this attribute could make the Eilat virus a uniquely useful tool for studying other alphaviruses, a genus of largely mosquito-borne pathogens that includes the viruses responsible for chikungunya, Venezuelan equine encephalitis, western equine encephalitis and eastern equine encephalitis. In addition, the researchers say, Eilat could also aid in the development of new alphavirus vaccines, therapies and diagnostic techniques. "This virus is unique -- it's related to all of these mosquito-borne viruses that cause disease and cycle between mosquitoes and animals, and yet it is incapable of infecting vertebrate ce...