Body

Focusing on parts rather than the whole, when it comes to genome sequencing, might be extremely useful, finds research in BioMed Central's open access journal Genome Medicine. The research compares several sequencing technologies in the same individual with Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease (CMT), and shows that sequencing the coding regions alone at high depth of coverage can identify the genetic variation behind this disease, and was also able to resolve previous ambiguities.

Scientists at the University of East Anglia have made a major advancement in understanding tissue development that has important implications for cancer.

Findings published today in the Journal of Cell Science show how the protein EB2 is a key regulator of tube-like structures inside cells and critical for normal tissue development and function.

The findings are an important step in the race to find cures for cancers including gut, breast and pancreatic cancer.

Runners who complete one of the world's most challenging ultra-marathons experience less neuromuscular fatigue, muscle damage and inflammation compared to those who run distances half to one quarter as long, according to the results of research published June 26 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Jonas Saugy and colleagues from the University of Lausanne, Switzerland.

RICHLAND, Wash. -- The blockbuster battles between good and evil are not just on the big screen this summer. A new study that examined food poisoning infection as-it-happens in mice revealed harmful bacteria, such as a common type of Salmonella, takes over beneficial bacteria within the gut amid previously unseen changes to the gut environment. The results provide new insights into the course of infection and could lead to better prevention or new treatments.

Scientists from the University of Sheffield have paved the way for new treatments for a common genetic disorder thanks to pioneering research on zebrafish – an animal capable of mending its own heart.

Charcot Marie Tooth disease (CMT) is the most common genetic disorder affecting the nervous system. More than 20,000 people in the UK suffer from CMT, which typically causes progressive weakness and long-term pain in the feet, leading to walking difficulties. There is currently no cure for CMT.

New research suggests that the rapid rise of antibiotic resistance correlates with oral ingestion of antibiotics, raising the possibility that other routes of administration could reduce the spread of resistance. The manuscript appears online ahead of print in the journal Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy.

From obesity to substance abuse, from anxiety to cancer, genetically modified mice are used extensively in research as models of human disease. Researchers often spend years developing a strain of mouse with the exact genetic mutations necessary to model a particular human disorder. But what if that mouse, due to the mutations themselves or a simple twist of fate, was infertile?

You say tomato, I say comparative transcriptomics. Researchers in the U.S., Europe and Japan have produced the first comparison of both the DNA sequences and which genes are active, or being transcribed, between the domestic tomato and its wild cousins.

ANN ARBOR — It's been known for more than two centuries that pneumonia cases increase during flu epidemics.

But population-level epidemiological studies looking at seasonal patterns of influenza and pneumococcal pneumonia incidence have revealed either a modest association or have failed to identify any signature of interaction between the two.

STANFORD, Calif. — A clinical trial of a vaccine, led by Stanford University School of Medicine researchers and designed to combat type-1 diabetes, has delivered initially promising results, suggesting that it may selectively counter the errant immune response that causes the disease.

To keep costs low, companies often incentivize healthy lifestyles. Now, new research suggests that how these incentives are framed — as benefits for healthy-weight people or penalties for overweight people — makes a big difference.

The research, published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, shows that policies that carry higher premiums for overweight individuals are perceived as punishing and stigmatizing.

A new UC San Francisco study highlights the potential importance of the vast majority of human DNA that lies outside of genes within the cell.

The researchers found that about 85 percent of these stretches of DNA make RNA, a molecule that increasingly is being found to play important roles within cells. They also determined that this RNA-making DNA is more likely than other non-gene DNA regions to be associated with inherited disease risks.

When University of Alberta researcher Duane Froese found an unusually large horse fossil in the Yukon permafrost, he knew it was important. Now, in a new study published online today in Nature, this fossil is rewriting the story of equine evolution as the ancient horse has its genome sequenced.

It's easy to marvel at the athleticism required to throw a 90-mile-per-hour fastball, but when Neil Roach watches baseball, he sees something else at work – evolution.

It is nothing short of a world record in DNA research that scientists at the Centre for GeoGenetics at the Natural History Museum of Denmark (University of Copenhagen) have hit. They have sequenced the so far oldest genome from a prehistoric creature. They have done so by sequencing and analyzing short pieces of DNA molecules preserved in bone-remnants from a horse that had been kept frozen for the last 700.000 years in the permafrost of Yukon, Canada.