Height Linked to Genetic Variants

The largest genome-wide association study conducted, which was published in the journal Nature, used DNA from nearly 5 million individuals from 281 contributing studies. Of the individuals used, more than one million were of non-European heritage, which included African, East Asian, Hispanic, and South Asian. There were 12,111 genetic variants that offered a strong genetic predictor of height in individuals. The identified variants accounted for 40% of height variance in individuals of European ancestry, with 10-20% of height variance in non-European individuals.

The findings could help doctors identify individuals who are not able to reach their genetically predicted height, and could help in the diagnosis of hidden genetic conditions and diseases that impact height. The research done also has the "blueprint" for how genome-wide studies can be used to identify the biology and hereditary components of diseases.

After reading the article, I was astonished to find that there are many different variants and genes that affect how tall a person is. From previous knowledge, as well as the use of the internet, I knew that tall parents produced tall offspring, short parents produced short offspring, and a mix produced offspring of medium height. Though, I did not know that there were more than 12,000 variants that do so.

CRISPR Gene-Editing Tested in Human Immune cells

The CRISPR/Cas9 gene-editing technology is allowing a Chinese team of scientists, lead by oncologist Lu You at Sichuan University in Chengdu, to repair genes in order to treat a disease.  As a part of a clinical trial, the Chinese team used CRISPR/Cas9 to treat a patient with non-small-cell lung cancer.  CRISPR/Cas9 has only ever been tested in lab animals, but this latest news, reported in the journal Nature, describes the researchers testing the gene-editing technique in a living person for the first time.

Dr. Lu and his team isolated immune cells from a cancer patient’s blood, and using the CRISPR/Cas9 technique, they genetically modified them to eliminate the function of the PD-1 gene which encodes for a protein that is capable of shutting down the body's natural immune response to cancer.  PD-1 was targeted because the protein allows cancer cells to proliferate.  Once the immune cells were cultured with modified genes, the modified cells were then injected back into the patient; the idea being that the modified immune cells won't be susceptible to being shut down as easily as the patients unmodified immune cells, (since the modified cells are unable to produce PD-1 protein).  Without producing PD-1 protein, the modified cells are thought to be able to combat against the cancer.

This technique is reported to allow the ability to edit any part of DNA of any organism, and it could potentially be used to cure diseases, engineer crops, and eradicate pathogens.  Jennifer Doudna, at the University of California, Berkeley, and Emmanuelle Charpentier, at the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin, first reported this discovery in the US back in 2012, and it was met with much controversy.  As a result, further public/private research was restricted, and it also lead some scientists to continue research in other countries.  The National Institutes of Health, (NIH), has an established Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee to review and make recommendations on any research studies that involves using gene-editing techniques on humans.  Though a conservative approach is important, I personally think it slows progress.

This could be one of the biggest biotechnology breakthroughs of our century.  It is an awesome example of personalized medicine, and I genuinely hope that China’s clinical trials are successful in providing the world insight to a completely new therapeutic approach to combat cancer.  The value of the research lies in its potential to be used in medical care to treat diseases.  I’d like to eventually see cell cultures and genetic manipulations be significantly automated/streamlined to allow them to become a mainstream option.  Similar therapies have already been shown to have amazing effects in blood-based cancers, but this is the first time that the cells were modified using the new CRISPR gene editing tool.  CRISPR/Cas9 gene-editing is described as being cost-effective and efficient, and if successful, China’s clinical studies could be very beneficial for all mankind.

Genetic Heart Disease Risk Eased by Healthy Habits, Study Finds

A new study has found that by living right you can lower your risk of heart disease , no matter how high your genetic risk. Living right means not smoking, eating a healthy balanced diet, and exercising moderately. Dr. Sekar Kathiresan, the director of the Center for Human Genetic Research at Massachusetts General Hospital said, “DNA is not destiny; it is not deterministic for this disease. You do have control over the problem, even if you have been dealt a bad genetic hand.” The scientists found that genes can double the risk of heart disease, but with a healthy lifestyle you can split that. But in return, a horrible lifestyle can erase almost half of the benefits of good genetics. There were multiple groups with a high number of participants that were analyzed, which has never been done before to this degree. Overall, the experiment showed that it’s not a situation where it’s either nature or nurture, it is both. They developed a genetic score based on the 50 genes associated with heart disease. A lifestyle score was also developed based on if people smoked, ate well, exercised, or were obese. The ideal lifestyle score would have at least three or the four elements. The biggest change you could make is going from a terrible lifestyle to one that is moderately positive. Basically, its all up to you to have a healthy lifestyle so you can live a long life.

Salmon is the first Genetically Engineered Animal to win US Approval for Food

     

          The first genetically modified animal approved by the FDA for consumption is the Atlantic Salmon.  A company named AquaBounty Technologies have been breeding the genetically enhanced fish in closed off farms.  The main improvement to this AquaAdvantage salmon is that it takes much shorter for them to grow to full length. They are able to grow year round rather than just in the Spring and the Summer.  This allows the fish to grow to full size in 18 months rather than how long it usually takes which is 3 years.
      Transgenic organisms are animals or plants that have a foreign gene from a different species that was deliberately inserted into its genome.  The foreign gene is formed using Recombinant DNA technology. This is done in order to improve a specific aspect of the host animal.  For the atlantic salmon it was to enhanced its growth rate.  One of the foreign genes added to the salmon's genome of 40,000 genes was a growth hormone regulating gene from a Chinook Salmon.  The other foreign gene was a DNA promoter from an ocean pout.
        Of course with all genetic modified organisms there is always controversy.  This case is no different.  The opponents of the AquaAdvantage salmon are concerned that if the salmon are able to escape their farm that they will alter the ecosystems of surrounding fish.  Also the opponents believe that the salmon that is genetically modified should at least be labeled, however at the moment the FDA says they do not need to be labeled.
        In my opinion I feel like this is an enormous step for the science community.  Hopefully this will lead to more approvals from the FDA of genetically improved food.  I feel that with the technology that we have we can do so much to make the starvation problem around the world diminish.

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Clam Cancer Outbreak, Spread by One Set of Cells

       
          There are currently three known cancers in nature. It is shocking that the third cancer known in nature occurred in clams. For the last 40 years, there have been leukemia-like disease outbreaks that have been depleting soft-shell clam populations along the United State's East cost. These outbreaks cause a significantly lowered harvest populations and job loss. The disease's cause and how it spread were unknown. It was speculated that the cause was from environmental factors, and it was spread by a virus. Researchers analyzed the cancer cell sequences and discovered that the cancer cells from different locations were the same. In one clam, they found that original cancer cell left its host and spread to another clam population. Cancers occur in an animal due to metastasis. Normally cancer cells have the same genes as the animal or person suffering from cancer, but it was found that none of the cancer cells had DNA matching the clams they were in. Instead, the cancer cells were the same as one another with the same DNA. It can be concluded that they all came from one original case of cancer in one clam. The cancer cells were being transmitted, not the virus. In water, the cancer cells can only live a few hours; however, this is more than enough time to infect other clams. Cancers normally do not spread in the same way as the clam since the cancer cell must leave the host, live long enough to enter another, and then it must still overcome the immune system's foreign rejection process. This cancer process may explain how cancers spread within the body from one organ to another.
           There is warning to stop eating clams or swimming since the human immune system would block the cancer cells from clams. I thought this article was pretty unique. I never thought about cancer occurring in animals. This case is interesting, and it could also correlate to the process of cancer cells transferring in the human body since it travels through the water to get to the clam. My only is question is how come the other clam does not reject the cancer cell, but humans would reject the clam's cancer cell?

Original Link: Link1
Supplemental Link: Link2

Resurrection Biology: Is It Possible to Bring Them Back?

       Extinct animals have always been an interest of biologists all over the world and the mystery behind them raises a lot of questions.  Recently there have been a lot of ideas about bringing extinct animals back to life, namely animals as small as passenger pigeons to the extreme woolly mammoths.  The ideas are here, but the technology to pull this off is years, even decades away.  There are a couple large issues with bringing these animals back to life.  Some include how will we be able to birth them and how will we make it so that cells in the lab can read the DNA we want them to read.

       DNA is very complicated and it has to be very carefully handled in a lab.  Scientists don't have too much of a problem finding or reading the DNA, or even making DNA.  A full length of mammoth DNA can be made with a lot of time, effort, and money but it's not impossible with what we have today.  The real problem, as previously mentioned, is getting a living cell to read the DNA made in the lab.  Folding the DNA into chromosomes is an arduous task and it has to be done so precisely that it's near impossible to get perfect.  The only thing that can fold DNA perfectly every time is a cell and until we can somehow get man-made DNA into a cell and have the cell fold it for us, we need properly preserved cells with intact chromosomes.  Another obstacle is developing the embryo.  Scientists are going to need a lot of surrogate mothers and having animals give birth to sick or dead babies can be physically and emotionally draining for them, especially elephants that would be surrogate mothers for potential mammoths.  

       I personally do not think the 'bringing extinct species back to life' thing is a good idea.  The process is elaborate and expensive as it is, and then once the animal is brought back, then what?  How will it survive?  How will it reproduce?  I don't think there is any way that a mammoth could live on the planet anymore given the environmental conditions, let alone have a mammoth live where elephants currently live.  There must be some animals that could thrive in certain locations and I do think bringing animals back that humans killed off would be interesting in theory, but in practice I don't think it's worth it for humans, animals, or Mother Nature.

Study About Memories Being Passed to Offspring

A study was done with mice where they were trained to fear the smell of cherry blossoms in a Nature Neuroscience Study. This test affected the sperm production in these mice which sent a signal to the brain and altered the DNA. The Emory University School of Medicine looked at what happened to the sperm and it showed that a section of DNA responsible for sensitivity to the scent were made more active in the sperm. Then the offspring of the mice were sensitive to the smell of cherry blossom and avoided the scent even though they never personally encountered it.



This study showed that the experience of a parent even before reproducing does influence genes, the structure of the  brain, and the nervous system in the following generations. This provides evidence of transgenerational epigenetic inheritance and should be something that is looked at more in humans. This study also helps scientists understand more about neuropsychiatric disorders and other health problems.
Transgenerational epigenetic inheritance was something that I used to wonder about a lot and wondered how it affected offspring and the differences in them. Athletic ability used to be one of those that I thought could influence offspring but most of the time I heard that the idea of that was ridiculous. If mice can be scared of a scent for no reason other than their grandparents being scared of it, then it makes me wonder what other experiences previous generations can pass on to offspring.

Article: http://www.bbc.com/news/health-25156510

A new study from China proposes the 5-HT1A genes may be linked to chances of being in a stable relationship.

            Three researchers in China proposed the theory of the 5-HT1A having a corresponding linked on how an individual behaves when around a significant other. In simpler terms individuals that are bad in relationships, such as those that have frequent break ups.  Difficult to believe that besides the previous beliefs that looks, economic standings, and personality was a huge factor in engaging in a relationship, there was also a hidden factor, a gene that can be passed down from the parents. In a paper titled, “The Association between romantic relationship status and 5-HT1A genein young adults, ”published in scientific reports. They stated that the G allele of a polymorphism labeled-1019G is able to increase the 5-HT1A genes to express more and this has a correlation with the individuals by having an increase in discomfort with close.

Individuals with CG/GG genotypes has a higher chance of being single then a persons with a CC genotype. 

The study they conducted with 579 Chinese undergraduate student resulted by students that have the "G gene" are most likely to have relationship issues and be single more longer and often. The result showed that gender is not a large factor, and the study showed that about 50% individuals without the G gene were in a relationship, 39% with a CG/GG were in a relationship and within the 39%, approximately 5% of them had GG genes. What was interesting was they were able to get the DNA of the students through their hair follicle cells and use a Chelex-100 method.   

The researchers are taking a step forward of understanding the concept of love and why some people prefer to go against the instinct of finding a signifiant other and reproducing. Could also help in understanding why some people like other, that for some would never even consider.  

Original:http://www.nature.com/srep/2014/141120/srep07049/full/srep07049.html

Articles:

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2014-11-science-romantic-relationships-gene-factor.html

http://www.cnet.com/news/is-there-a-gene-that-keeps-you-single/

Stem Cell Therapy Regenerates Heart Muscle Damaged from Heart Attacks In Primates

Heart cells created from human stem cells successfully restored damaged heart cells in monkeys. This was published in Nature magazine on April 30th, and the scientist came to the conclusion that if it can work in monkeys, it could probably work in humans too. The main question before the experiment begun was if it was possible to create enough heart cells to remuscularize damaged hearts in a large animal whose heart size and physiology is similar to that of the human heart. The scientist induced a heart attack on these monkeys and injected them with 1 billion heart cells derived from human stem cells and put the monkeys on immunosuppressive therapy to prevent rejection of the transplanted human cells. On average the transplanted stem cells regenerated 40 percent of the damaged heart tissue over subsequent weeks.
          This new research is very interesting because if this same experiment can be duplicated in human, the possibilities are endless with what else stem cells can help cure. This approach with stem cells could be ready for clinical trials in four years. The only problem with stem cell therapy is where to get the stem cells from. There are a lot of ethical and moral dilemmas because the best stem cells come from a human fetus.

The role of genetics in our social interactions and environment

Nature vs. Nurture has been constantly applied to human interactions for decades. This article provides adequate detail about just how genetics has been apart of this process. The context of this work touches on issues such as how studies of the 5-HTT mutations can affect the person's emotions, more specifically how they can regulate them. Another main concern would be how our levels of oxytocin are controlled by inheritable genes or are they? There are millions of outcomes inside the human body that result from the intermixing of our parents genes. This article takes that idea a step further to see how the outside world can too make an influence on our genotypes and phenotypes. I find it very interesting that there are so many different factors that can affect how a person acts and matures to be. 

Source:  http://fx5ly8ju5l.search.serialssolutions.com

Another useful article that can be used to further explore this side of genetics can be found : http://www.sciencedaily.com

A More Effective Way of Converting Sugars Into Biofuels

Recently, scientists have taken interest in corn because it can be used in the production of ethanol. This is a biofuel that can potentially be a clean-burning, renewable fuel. Corn was chosen because of how abundant it is in the United States. This is the only type of biofuel that is produced in serious quantities. However, the current issue with the production of ethanol is the processing of the lignocellulosic biomass (plant dry matter). The yield is not greater than the costs of creating the ethanol. In a ScienceDaily article, a new synthetic metabolic pathway for breaking down glucoses was tested and confirmed to produce 50% more ethanol. 

This new pathway is called non-oxidative glycolysis (NOG). NOG was created to potentially replace the current natural processed called glycolysis. This pathway utilizes enzymes from several different pathways found in nature. In the preliminary in vitro studies, NOG was shown to be successful. With a genetically engineered recombinant strain of E. coli, the results indicated that there was complete carbon conservation unlike glycolysis which loses carbon through the production of CO², a byproduct. In conjunction with CO² fixation, biofuels yield would increase and therefore making the conversion process more effective.

E. coli using non-oxidative glycolysis

Biofuels are one of the most discussed advances in today's society. I strongly believe that biofuel can solve a lot of the problems found in United States economy. On the other hand, the dependence on corn (or other commonly produced crops that are used for fuel and food) could also lead to higher prices if droughts occurred. Specifically, gas, animal products and meats would all increase in price if corn production is halted. I believe that extra precautions need to be taken when combining sections of the food and energy economies together. 

Batman Be Aware of White Nose Syndrome!

Geomyces destructans is a fungus that has been associated with the epidemic among bats known as the white nose syndrome. Bats infected with this fungus, die of the combination of starvation and dehydration. Little is known about why this fungus affects bats in this way. So far approximately 8,000 to 11,000 bats have died. Sixteen US states and four Canadian provinces that bats inhabit have been affected. So far there has been 100 percent mortality rate among bats that are infected. From researching other websites about Geomyces destructans, it is safe to say that this is a fairly new fungus which is apart of the Ascomycota family. Fungal DNA analysis of the ITS and SSU regions confirmed this.

The Battle for Bats: White Nose Syndrome <--- Video link