BioQuakes

AP Biology class blog for discussing current research in Biology

Author: mahmmalia

CRISPR-Cas9 Can Now Be Applied to Not Only DNA But RNA

Anyone who has seen the movie Gattaca knows that the plot is set in a futuristic society that is able to edit the human genome. Of course, there’s a reason that it’s set in the future. Scientists of today couldn’t possibly dream of being able to edit genes in our DNA…right?

Well, wrong. Say hello to CRISPR-Cas9. CRISPER-Cas9 is, in short, a highly effective and popular DNA-editing technique that scientists started to use to sequence and edit human genes.

However, thanks to scientists at University of California-San Diego, CRISPR-Cas9 is not only limited to editing DNA. By altering only a few key features, this mechanism can now also be used with RNA, another highly important and fundamental molecule in the human body. CRISPR-Cas9 as of now can be used to track RNA in its movement, such as its many essential roles in protein synthesis. Below is a picture that briefly shows the importance of mRNA and tRNA:

 

Screen Shot 2016-04-11 at 12.01.31 AM

(Source: http://www.proteinsynthesis.org/protein-synthesis-steps/)

It’s an exciting development in that certain diseases, such as cancer and autism, are linked to mutations in RNA. By using CRISPR-Cas9 to their advantage, scientists could study the movement of RNA in the cell—and how and when it gets there—to track any defective RNA that can potentially lead to such diseases and then hopefully develop treatments. Gene Yeo, PhD, an associate professor of cellular and molecular medicine at UC-San Diego, expresses hope that “future developments could enable researchers to measure other RNA features or advance therapeutic approaches to correct disease-causing RNA behaviors”.

Intrigued? Confused? Please leave any comments or questions below!

 

Original Article

A Living Supercomputer is No Longer Science Fiction

“A supercomputer that’s alive? No way, sounds like a bunch of nonsense sci-fi to me!” Well, an international team of researchers at McGill University would beg to differ.

These researchers recently created a supercomputer that uses biological agents as an energy source, rather than electricity. Their new “biocomputer” is also significantly smaller and more energy efficient than the typical supercomputer.

The secret? ATP, or energy used by almost all living, breathing creatures. ATP speeds up the “thinking” process in a computer by allowing it to make parallel computations instead of sequencing only one signal at a time.

Screen Shot 2016-02-29 at 7.07.57 PM(Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adenosine_triphosphate#/media/File:ATP-xtal-3D-balls.png)

Strings of biological agents arranged in a very miniscule (on the nano scale) but highly organized circuit grid are powered by ATP to move in a controlled fashion to send parallel signals in the computer.

One of the most famous supercomputers, IBM’s Watson, is very large, as depicted by the image below:

Screen Shot 2016-02-29 at 7.06.36 PM(Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watson_%28computer%29#/media/File:IBM_Watson.PNG)

But this new biocomputer is about the size of a book due to the nano scale of the biological agents. Also due to these agents, there is less heat produced, so the computer uses a lot less energy than an electronic supercomputer (which often needs its own power plant to function).

Of course, further research needs to be done, but this creation of the biocomputer is a huge achievement in the world of artificial intelligence.

Check out this other article regarding the new biocomputer, and these articles on more information about the supercomputers of today, such as Watson and Google’s AlphaGO, and artificial intelligence in general.

 

Questions? Thoughts? Opinions? Worries? Leave a comment below!

 

 

 

Original Article

Infants’ Feces Says a Lot about the Gut Microbiome

Who knew studying babies’ poop can actually lead to amazing discoveries about childbirth, breastfeeding, antibiotics, allergies, and asthma?

That’s exactly what scientists Fredrik Bäckhed and Jovanna Dahlgren at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, and Wang Jun at the Beijing Genomics Institute-Shenzhen, China recently learned when they conducted a study analyzing feces from 98 Swedish infants.

But before we get into the details of the study, let’s get down the basics first. What exactly is the gut microbiome?

Gut microbiome is the name given to the population of microbiota organisms that live in the human intestine. These microorganisms are unique, not only because there are trillions of them but also because they have milliions of genes, and can function as a person’s identity card (much like a fingerprint or a strand of hair).

Screen Shot 2016-01-08 at 10.45.15 PM

(Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fecal_bacteriotherapy#/media/File:E_coli_at_10000x,_original.jpg)

Recently there’s been a lot of buzz in the science world about the gut microbiome because it seems as though it plays various crucial functions, and this study is just one of many. The Swedish and Chinese scientists discovered a few ways in how the gut microbiome affects childbirth, breastfeeding, and development.

There are two ways to give birth: vaginally or via a cesarean section, or C-section. Comparing the feces collected from babies born vaginally and from babies born via C-section, scientists discovered that the feces from the latter contains a significantly less similar microbiome to the microbiome of their mothers.

They also determined that nutrition during the early stages of an infant’s life is a core factor in the development of the gut microbiome.

Our findings surprisingly demonstrated that cessation of breastfeeding, rather than introduction of solid foods, is the major driver in the development of an adult-like microbiota

-Fredrik Bäckhed, lead study author

Bacteria rely on the mother’s milk to grow. Once the bacteria’s access to that milk stops, the bacteria stops growing. In its place, adult-like microorganisms emerge.

In addition, the gut microbiome acts as nutrients and vitamins to the infant’s growth and development, and gives aid to important processes such as making amino acids.

The study also critiques the amount of antibiotics given to babies when they’re born. There’s speculation that the baby’s gut microbiome is negatively impacted by the overabundance and overexposure of antibiotics. Besides the obvious risk of antibiotic resistance, one hypothesis is that when exposed to antibiotics early on, the gut microbiome loses important bacteria that helps immune cells mature. This is believed to be the reason why allergies and asthma are now widely prevalent.

Though this study is just a preliminary, it’s amazing just how big of an effect the gut microbiome has on us, and how much new research is coming out.

Want to learn more about the gut microbiome? Check out other sources about the microbiome, such as it’s relationship on the brain, and how it can change the brain’s function, how it can help reduce weight, and junk food’s negative impact on it, and make sure to comment below!

 

 

Original Article

Just Because My D1 Neurons Are Excited, Doesn’t Mean My Risk of Alcoholism Increases…Does it?!

Alcoholism can now not only be studied and analyzed at the psychological level, but also at the molecular level, thanks to researchers at the Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine. They recently conducted a study that found how alcohol influences the dorsomedial striatum, the part of the brain that participates in decision-making and goal-driven behaviors.

The dorsomedial striatum is composed of medium spiny neurons, neurons that have many branches, or spines, protruding off their dendrites.

(Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Confocal_image_of_spiny_neuron_-_1.jpg)

Spiny neurons have receptors for dopamine, which is further categorized into dopamine D1 and D2 neurotransmitters. D1 neurons have receptors for D1 neurotransmitters. They send excitatory postsynaptic potentials and encourage the action potential/signal to continue. D2 neurons counteract D1 neurons; they send inhibitory postsynaptic potentials and discourage further actions. In this study, D1 neurons prove to be a major part of alcoholism and addiction.

High consumption of alcohol, scientists learned, excites D1 neurons. The more excited they become, the more compelled one feels to perform an action…in this case, the action is drinking another alcoholic beverage.

More drinking induces more D1 neuron excitement, which leads to even more drinking.

Not only does it affect a D1 neuron’s excitability, alcohol also makes physical changes to the neuron itself at the molecular level, and consequently affects the neuron’s function.

In their study, researchers divided their test subjects into two groups: one that’s exposed to alcohol and one that’s not. Analyzing their spiny neurons, scientists saw that though the number of spines in the neurons of the individuals of each group didn’t change, the ratio of the difference between mature and immature spines was dramatic. The subjects that drank alcohol had notably longer branches and a high number of mature mushroom-shaped spines. The abstainers’ neurons had shorter branches and more immature mushroom-shaped spines. Mature, mushroom-shaped spines are involved in long-term memory; activation of long-term memory through alcohol underlies addiction.

However, there’s promising news! The study also showed results that blocking, or at least partially blocking, D1 receptors via a drug can inhibit and reduce the desire for consumption of another drink.

This is a huge step towards finding a cure for alcoholism. Alcoholism is a disease that affects not only the individual, but also his or her family, relatives, friends, etc…With this study, the scientific community has more of an understanding of how to go about creating new drugs and combating alcoholism.

If we suppress this activity, we’re able to suppress alcohol consumption. This is the major finding. Perhaps in the future, researchers can use these findings to develop a specific treatment targeting these neurons.

-Jun Wang, M.D., Ph.D., the lead author on the paper and an assistant professor in the Department of Neuroscience and Experimental Therapeutics at the Texas A&M College of Medicine.

What do you think? Do you think this study promotes a viable option towards curing alcoholism and addiction, or is there another method out there that we should be pursuing? Leave a comment below!

 

Original Article

New Understanding in Telomerase Structure: Can It Lead to New Cancer Treatment Medications?

Telomerase. They know what it is. They know what it does. They know it is involved with the formation of malignant tumors. Yet for years, cancer researchers could not figure out a way to curb telomerase activity. Not until recently, when a group of researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz discovered an important structural component of telomerase that could lead to the development of new and more efficient cancer treatment medications.

But first things first: what even is telomerase? To understand the role of telomerase, we must first understand what a telomere is. Analogous to the “plastic tips of shoelaces”, telomeres are located at the tips of chromosomes to keep the ends of DNA from “fraying”, consisting of the repetition of the same nitrogenous base sequence over and over again. In humans, this base sequence is TTAGGG.

Screen Shot 2015-10-05 at 7.44.26 PM(Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telomere#/media/File:Telomere.png)

The sequence can be up to 15,000 base pairs long; however, each time a cell divides, the telomeres get shorter and shorter until they become they become too small to divide again. That is when the telomerase comes in; it adds nucelotides to the telomere to prevent it from becoming senescent, or at least prolong the cell’s life span.

Sounds like a good thing, right? Not when the telomerase gets out of control and does not allow for cells to die, causing a huge growth of cells that eventually evolve into malignant tumors.

What makes it hard for scientists to combat excessive telomerase activity is due to the enzyme’s unique and complex structure. In addition to its sophisticated quaternary structure, telomerase also has an RNA template that allows the telomerase to make the DNA bases (TTAGGG) for the telomere.

Screen Shot 2015-10-05 at 10.24.26 PM

(Source: https://vi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telomerase#/media/File:Telomerase_illustration.jpg)

Researchers at UC Santa Cruz determined the structure of the RNA binding domain of telomerase and how the template border is dependent on how the protein and RNA components interact with each other. Understanding this interaction can help scientists develop cancer medications that more specifically inhibit telomerase. This is the first major advancement in telomerase research since November of 2010 when biochemists at UCLA created an unprecedented 3D model of telomerase’s RNA structure.

While this discovery is a major step forward in cancer treatment research,  some experts have their reservations against finding methods of inhibiting telomerase altogether.

However, regardless of the controversy surrounding telomerase inhibition in cancer treatment, this discovery will be useful in coming up with tactics to prevent aging, and improve treatments in other medical fields, such as burns, bone marrow transplants, and heart disease.

What do you think? Leave a comment below!

 

 

Original Article

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