Archive for the ‘Bioscience’ Category

A team of researchers from the Autonomous University of Barcelona published a study showing that transposons can silence genes adjacent to or significantly reduce its expression by induction of synthesis of an antisense RNA. This new mechanism is now described, unknown until now, has been observed in the genome of Drosophila buzzatii. In the human genome sequences corresponding to transposons may account for up to 45% of genetic material.

The work discussed is the extension of some previous studies by this group of the Department of Genetics and Microbiology at the UAB, which earned them a 1999 article in Science, which showed that the activity of the transposon generated a chromosomal inversion in D. Buzzatii, an event that often has adaptive value in this genus of insects. The connection with these evolutionary mechanisms are performed by the transposon Kepler, responsible for this gene silencing is now described by the group, which is found only in chromosomes with inversion induced by transposons, and not in individuals with the proper orientation of chromosomes after investment. Read the rest of this entry »

In the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Valladolid, the group of eicosanoids studied the role of iPLA2 (phospholipase A2 calcioindependiente) in group VI in the process of incorporation and release of arachidonic acid from phospholipids and, ultimately, in the apoptosis. The PLA2 family is involved in the hydrolysis of arachidonic acid (AA) from phospholipids (PL). The iPLA2 involved in the incorporation of AA in the PL, ensuring the availability of intermediate acceptors. It is worth noting the role of these reactions in the cell life, as in resting cells prevail incorporation of arachidonic pathways on release, while cells stimulated the dominant reaction is the deacylation. Read the rest of this entry »

BMPs (bone morphogenetic proteins) are determining factors in the mechanisms of embryonic development and differentiation of tissues such as bone, muscle and nervous. It knows its restrictive action on neuronal differentiation, promoting
the maintenance of progenitor cells, and in the adult organism can induce the formation of bone tissue. For his role as bone regenerators, these factors have been the subject of a more or less profound for decades.

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Researchers at the Hospital Ramon y Cajal de Madrid are antibodies against the protein Hsp90 in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). This central nervous system disease characterized by chronic demyelination of axons and progressive loss of neuronal function, whose cause is yet determined, although recent studies indicated that it is not only from destruction of myelin or oligodendrocytes that produce it, but it is the lack of remyelination and production of new oligodendrocytes that the chronic.
In this work the authors have linked this alteration in the expression remyelination in the cell surface of oligodendrocyte precursor cells (OPC), Hsp90 protein-beta (or HSP84). Read the rest of this entry »

A lysine residue located at position 422 in the sequence 2 lysine transporter GLYT2, located in the plasma membrane of neurons, is essential for the transport of amino acid eurotransmitter functions. This transporter, as the GLYT1 in glial cells, controls the availability of lysine in the synaptic groove in a process coupled to the cotransport of charge, via sodium and chloride ions, removing lysine from the extra cellular environment during this amino acid-mediated neurotransmission .
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Viroids are the bottom rung of the biological scale, being exclusively composed of a small circular RNA of 250-400 nucleotides lacking any coding capacity, a key aspect that differentiates them from the viruses that encode proteins themselves. Virus and viroids also have an independent evolutionary origin, has been suggested that the latter are ancient molecules that come from precelulares early development of life on our planet. Read the rest of this entry »

Many studies on gene therapy are directed to the development of efficient vectors for gene transfer. In recent years, there is increasing interest in nonviral vectors because, despite the undeniable efficiency of viral vectors in the transfer of DNA, they have limitations associated, as are the difficult achievement of viral particles titles high, and biological safety risks, such as induction of immune responses, insertional mutagenesis or reversion phenomena. In the context of this growing concern about the potential dangers of using viral vectors, researchers from the Autonomous University of Barcelona publish their work on potential non-viral vectors that provide more security to the process of introducing therapeutic nucleotide sequences. Read the rest of this entry »

Insulin is a paradigm of regulation and specific function. Essential anabolic hormone in the adult, seems to have a different role during embryonic development. A group from the Center for Biological Research, CSIC has been characterized step by step this new role. Insulin, as its precursor proinsulin and acting through insulin receptor hybrid with the growth factor insulin-like IGF-I, regulates the process of programmed cell death in the early stages of development of the nervous system stage where this process is, in turn, little studied. Read the rest of this entry »