ScienceDaily: Biotechnology News |
- Bacterial plasmids -- the freeloading and the heavy-lifters -- balance the high price of disease
- Chaos in the cell's command center
- Available information on the free release of genetically modified insects into the wild is highly restricted
- Genetic information migrates from plant to plant
| Bacterial plasmids -- the freeloading and the heavy-lifters -- balance the high price of disease Posted: 01 Feb 2012 10:53 AM PST Studying self-replicating genetic units, called plasmids, found in one of the world's widest-ranging pathogenic soil bacteria -- the crown-gall-disease-causing microorganism Agrobacterium tumefaciens -- biologists are showing how freeloading, mutant derivatives of these plasmids benefit while the virulent, disease-causing plasmids do the heavy-lifting of initiating infection in plant hosts. The research confirms that the ability of bacteria to cause disease comes at a significant cost that is only counterbalanced by the benefits they experience from infected host organisms.  |
| Chaos in the cell's command center Posted: 01 Feb 2012 10:53 AM PST Researchers have determined the critical role one enzyme, lysine-specific demethylase 1 (LSD1), plays as mouse embryonic stem cells (ESCs) differentiate. This research may provide targets for developing drugs to push cells with dysfunctional gene expression programs back to a more normal, healthier state.  |
| Posted: 01 Feb 2012 07:46 AM PST Scientists analyzing the release of genetically modified insects into the environment have found that access to accurate scientific information can be misleading.  |
| Genetic information migrates from plant to plant Posted: 01 Feb 2012 06:31 AM PST To generate phylogenetic trees and investigate relationships between organisms, scientists usually look for similarities and differences in the DNA. Plant scientists were confounded by the fact that the DNA extracted from the plants' green chloroplasts sometimes showed the greatest similarities when related species grew in the same area. Scientists have now discovered that a transfer of entire chloroplasts, or at least their genomes, can occur in contact zones between plants. Inter-species crossing is not necessary. The new chloroplast genome can even be handed down to the next generation and, thereby, give a plant with new traits. These findings are of great importance to the understanding of evolution as well as the breeding of new plant varieties.  |
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