Friday, August 05, 2011

ScienceDaily: Biotechnology News

ScienceDaily: Biotechnology News


Why plant 'clones' aren't identical

Posted: 04 Aug 2011 06:29 PM PDT

A new study of plants that are reproduced by 'cloning' has shown why cloned plants are not identical. Scientists have known for some time that 'clonal' (regenerant) organisms are not always identical. Now researchers believe they have found out why this is the case in plants: the genomes of regenerant plants carry relatively high frequencies of new DNA sequence mutations that were not present in the genome of the donor plant.

Targeting innate immunity in malaria: Novel DNA sensing pathway linked to increased susceptibility to malaria

Posted: 04 Aug 2011 02:00 PM PDT

Scientists have uncovered a novel DNA-sensing pathway important to the triggering of an innate immune response for malaria. Activation of this pathway appears to stimulate production of an overabundance of type-1 interferon by the immune system that may contribute to inflammation and fever in malaria patients and could play a part in susceptibility for the most common and lethal form of malaria known as plasmodium falciparum.

Screening effort turns up multiple potential anti-malaria compounds; Possible resistance-proof drug pairs found

Posted: 04 Aug 2011 11:17 AM PDT

Numerous potential anti-malarial candidate drugs have been uncovered by researchers. Researchers used robotic, ultra-high-throughput screening technology to test more than 2,800 chemical compounds for activity against 61 genetically diverse strains of lab-grown malaria parasites. They found 32 compounds that were highly effective at killing at least 45 of the 61 strains.

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