Category Archives: DNA

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Opinion:'Halo' will change the DNA of F1 Autoweek The FIA decided on introducing the Halo safety device for the 2018 Formula 1 season and it doesn't seem like anyone is happy about it. Although there appears to be a social media banning order on discussing the Halo for both teams and drivers, three ... and more »

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Opinion:'Halo' will change the DNA of F1 - Autoweek

The Wabash Valley Genealogy Society on Tuesday will offer a free, public program to help others better understand DNA testing and what is involved in deciphering some of the intriguing family connections found through DNA matches.

The program, Which DNA Test is Right For Me?,is set for 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. in the lower level conference rooms at the Vigo County Public Library, Seventh and Poplar streets.

Presenter andgenealogy society presidentTim Phipps is an acknowledged DNA expert as it relates to genealogy and family history.During his presentation, Phipps will give an overview of the types of DNA tests that are available, what each test can reveal, and which tests are offered by the major DNA testing companies.

A third generation native of Terre Haute, Phipps works in private business management but completed his bachelor of arts degree with a double major in history and religion and his masters with a concentration in American religious history at Olivet Nazarene University.

In addition to his work in genealogy and DNA, Phipps spent nearly 10 years researching the history of the Civil War in and around Parke County, where his Phipps family settled in the 1830s. He has given several presentations on his historical work about the political turmoil of the Parke County home during the American Civil War.

For more information, visitwww.inwvgs.org.

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Genealogy society offering 'Which DNA Test is For You?' session on Tuesday - Terre Haute Tribune Star

Pet owners are getting their furry friends DNA tested to discover if they have a deadly disease, what their ancestral background is and even discover if they have a GREEDY gene.

Costing about 40 for a postal test, where you swab your pets cheek with a little brush, dogs are the domestic animals most commonly screened but it is also possible to get your cats DNA examined.

The Animal Health Trust (AHT), a charity which fights disease and injury in animals, offers over 30 DNA tests, reinvesting profits for further research.

Cathryn Mellersh, head of canine genetics at the organisation, explained: Our focus is on health and preventing disease. For dog breeders, having their animals DNA tested, which you only need to do once in their lifetime, is responsible because it means they can make sensible breeding decisions.

Vets use the DNA test to help diagnose what the dog has wrong with it, so they might find out a dog has two copies of the mutation that causes a particular eye disease.

For owners, it can be useful to know that the dog is going to develop a disease. If my dog has the inherited glaucoma gene its better to have regular eye tests so the early signs can be spotted.

Cathryn says DNA testing is continually developing and the AHTs brand new test shows a glimpse of the future for dog owners.

Our most recent DNA test is for a mutation that has been shown to make a dog more interested in food, more greedy and more likely to become obese, she says. Think labradors and flat-coated retrievers.

Were aiming that test really at the dog owner and in particular the puppy buyer. If you know your puppy has two copies of that mutation, on average they are about 4kg heavier than dogs without the mutation.

You can be aware throughout that dogs life they are likely to be extra greedy, so you can keep an eye on its treats and make sure it gets lots of extra exercise.

Pet DNA testing can also be undertaken for more lighthearted reasons.

If youve got a dog from a rescue centre that looks a bit like a Labrador you can have its DNA tested for about 50 or 60, Cathryn explains. They will estimate for you what its breed make-up is.

I have a crossbreed and they were able to tell me one parent was probably a German Shepherd and the other parent was a Greyhound crossed with a Saluki. But it depends how much of a Heinz 57 your dog is, that will determine how much information they can give you.

A new company in the States, Embark, will tell you where the dogs ancestors came from. Certain breeds were developed in Asia, some Africa. DNA has quite distinct signatures.

Developments in DNA testing for pets can even help to advance human genetic research.

Sometimes the research that we do points us to genes that may be responsible for the same disease in humans, explains Cathryn.

A couple of years ago we found a mutation that caused a neurological disease in Parson Russell Terriers and Jack Russell Terriers.

Since we published our findings people working on humans have found mutations in the same gene cause the same disease in humans.

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Dog owners can now give pets a DNA test to see if their pooch overeats - Mirror.co.uk

21 Jul 2017

Hexanucleotide expansions in the C9ORF72 genethe most common genetic cause of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and frontotemporal dementiamount a multipronged attack on the DNA repair system, according to a July 17 study in Nature Neuroscience. Researchers led by Mimoun Azzouz and Sherif El-Khamisy at the University of Sheffield in England reported that the repeat expansions trigger the formation of DNA-RNA hybrids, called R-loops, that break DNA. At the same time, the unusual dipeptide repeats (DPRs) translated from these expansions derail efforts to mend the damage. The researchers found evidence of broken DNA and a subpar repair response in mice expressing the expansions, and also in postmortem tissue from C9-ALS patients. They proposed that the onslaught of DNA damage in neurons ultimately leads to their demise, and that targeting the pathway could become a therapeuticstrategy.

DNA damage is a common hazard inside cells, and an extensive repair system exists to lessen its toll. Neurons are acutely dependent on this repair machinery, as they cannot easily wipe the slate clean through replication (see Pan et al., 2014).Making matters worse, oxidative DNA damage increases in the brain, and repair mechanisms start to falter with age and in the context of neurodegenerative disease (Sep 2011 news; Feb 2013 conference news).

Against this backdrop, El-Khamisy and colleagues wondered if an additional stressorC9ORF72 hexanucleotide expansionsmight add fuel to the fire. These expansions of the GGGGCC sequence exist in hundreds to thousands of copies in people with ALS/FTD. Both RNA foci formed from their transcription, and the DPRs generated by their translation, reportedly inflict damage on neurons. The researchers hypothesized that due to the expansions repetitive nature, and the abundance of GC repeats within them, the C9ORF72 expansions could be extremely prone to folding into R-loops, a type of DNA-RNA hybrid structure that can form during transcription (Aguilera and Garcia-Muse, 2012). R-loops are known triggers of double-stranded DNA breaks (Hamperl and Cimprich, 2014).

To learn if the expansions caused R-loops, first author Callum Walker and colleagues transfected the expansions into human fetal lung fibroblasts. Then they probed with antibodies specific to R-loops and phosphorylated histone H2AX, an established indicator of double-stranded breakages. Indeed, they found that cells expressing 102 repeats that could not be translatedand thus only formed RNA foci, not DPRsharbored elevated numbers of R-loops and breaks. This was also the case in cells transfected with constructs that did result in the translation of 34 or 69 DPRs. Notably, overexpression of senataxin, an RNA helicase known to resolve R-loops, reduced the number of breakages and even normalized the uptick in cell death the breakages triggered. Together, the findings suggested that the repeat expansions caused R-loops, which snapped DNA and harmedcells.

Cells transfected with dipeptide repeats (green) build up R-loops (red) in their DNA. [Courtesy of Walker et al., Nature Neuroscience2017.]

The researchers further wondered whether the repeat expansions would affect DNA repair. In both human fibroblasts and primary rat cortical neurons expressing the expansions, the researchers found the repair machinery to be profoundly hobbled. For starters, ataxia telangiectasia (ATM), the master DNA repair kinase, was hypophosphorylated and failed to activate when the researchers treated cells with DNA-damaging toxins. This led to a dismal nuclear recruitment of 53BP1, a factor that rejoins broken DNA, as well as subpar phosphorylation of another key ATM target,p53.

Through an extensive battery of biochemical and immunostaining experiments, the researchers zeroed in on the mechanisms that derailed the DNA repair machinery. The E3 ubiquitin ligase RN168 normally ubiquitylates histone H2A, an adornment that is needed to recruit 53BP1 to damaged DNA. However, in cells expressing the expansions, the researchers found RN168 tied up in p62 inclusions instead. This led to a reduction in ubiquitylated H2A and stymied 53BP1 recruitment. Interestingly, previous studies have reported that successful recruitment of 53BP1 to DNA helps sustain further ATM signaling (Lee et al., 2010). Therefore, RN168s entrapment in p62 inclusions could potentially derail the entire DNA repair process. In support of this idea, overexpression of RN168, or depletion of p62, restored 53BP1 recruitment and reduced the number of DNA breaks in cells expressing the repeatexpansions.

Strikingly, the researchers also observed R-loops, double-stranded breaks, and signs of weak ATM signaling in neurons from mice injected with viral vectors harboring the repeat expansions. These animals suffered a 20 percent loss in brainstem neurons, as well as motor deficits. The researchers proposed that DNA damage was the primary cause of this neurodegeneration, a hypothesis they will test by overexpressing senataxin and/or RN168 in the animals, El-Khamisy toldAlzforum.

The researchers also found evidence of DNA in disrepair in postmortem spinal cord tissue from ALS patients, which were wrought with R-loops, double-stranded DNA breaks, and signs of ATM signalingdefects.

Repeat Assault. In the proposed model, C9ORF72 repeat expansions damage DNA and thwart its repair. [Courtesy of Walker et al., Nature Neuroscience2017.]

The researchers proposed that C9ORF72 hexanucleotide expansions attacked DNA via two distinct, yet intertwined, pathways: through directly causing damage via R-loops, and by dismantling ATM-mediated DNA repair. El-Khamisy proposed that the repeat-laden RNA causes R-loops, while the DPRs manifest the p62 inclusions that sequester RN168 and disrupt repair. Interestingly, the latter pathway meshes with other recent findings implicating RN168 sequestration in p62 inclusions in the disruption of DNA repair (Wang et al., 2016).

Walkers findings dovetail with a previous study led by Li-Huei Tsai of MIT, which reported that the ALS gene FUS is recruited to DNA breaks and helps orchestrate repair (Sep 2013 news). The findings of the current paper are very consistent with ours, and together make a strong argument for the role of unrepaired DNA breaks in ALS, Tsaicommented.

This paper is particularly well done, commented Ray Truant of McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada. It really establishes ATM-mediated DNA repair as a common node in neurodegenerative disease, hesaid.

Truant recently reported that mutated huntingtin protein disrupted DNA repair (Maiuri et al., 2017). He added that as reactive oxidation builds in the brain with age, the efficiency of the DNA repair response could strongly influence the onset of neurodegenerative disease, a hypothesis supported by recent genome wide association studies (Bettencourt et al., 2016;Jones et al., 2017).

The study also provides researchers with a number of therapeutic targets, some of which may prove useful across neurodegenerative diseases, Truant added.JessicaShugart

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C9ORF72 Throws a Wrench into DNA Repair Machinery | ALZFORUM - Alzforum

A Decatur man was arrested Thursday after DNA collected from the scene of a burglary matched his DNA in the CODIS criminal DNA database, Decatur police said.

Eric Deondre Warner, 35, of 416 10th Ave. N.W., was charged Thursday with third-degree burglary, police said.

On Monday, DNA collected from the scene of the burglary matched with his DNA, which was on file in the CODIS database, police said.

On April 19, a burglary in the 400 block of Finley Drive N.W. was reported to police, reports show. The victim said items were taken from the home and it was "completely ransacked," according to reports.

Investigators were able to collect DNA evidence from the scene, which ultimately led to Warner being developed as a suspect, police said.

Warrants for Warner's arrest were obtained Thursday and were served on him in the Morgan County Jail, where he was incarcerated for other charges, police said.

Bail for his new burglary charge was set at $2,500.

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Police: DNA links Decatur man to April burglary - The Decatur Daily

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ROSEMONT -- Cold case investigators said Robin Brooks was raped and stabbed to death inside her apartment in the Rosemont area of Sacramento County more than 37 years ago.

Detectives have a full DNA profile of the suspected killer from his blood, but the case is still unsolved after all these years. But now, new technology is giving detectives a different way to look at the DNA and a glimpse at what the killer could possibly look like.

Its called DNA phenotyping. It sounds like science fiction, but this forensic method uses an unknown suspects DNA to create a composite sketch of the mystery persons physical characteristics.

Its not intended to be a photo ID, said Dr. Ellen Greytak over the phone to FOX40. Its a genetic witness in the absence of an eye witness.

Doctor Greytak works for Parabon NanoLabs, a Reston, Virginia-based biotech company that offers the tool called Snapshot. The Sacramento County Sheriffs Department has contracted the company to come up with two profiles of the suspected killer in Brooks unsolved murder case.

We have DNA, we have the person who did this, said retired Sacramento County sheriffs Detective Micki Links. There's no doubt about who it is. We just need their name.

The DNA profile of the suspected killer in Brooks case was put into all the criminal databases in 2004, but a match has never been made.

Links said she believes these two profiles will aid in the investigation by giving fading memories a look back at what the killers face may have looked like when he was 25. Another profile has the suspect aged to 56.

Links also shared new details on Robins whereabouts before her death.

For decades, investigators thought Brooks finished her shift at Donut Time off Keifer Boulevard and walked straight home to her apartment on Tallyho Drive. That apartment has been renamed the Garden Club Apartments.

But detectives said an informant, who has been cleared as a suspect, has come forward with a different timeline. He told them he saw Brooks at a house party somewhere off Roseport Way. The unnamed informant also told investigators Brooks went to the party after work and then went home.

The informant added that the party was made up of mostly teens, between 15 and 19 years old, many from Hiram Johnson High School and the nearby Lincoln Village.

You're not going to get away with this, said Links. I'm going to do whatever I can to find you, and make you pay for what you did.

Robins family is also still fighting for answers. Maria Arrick, Robins older sister, is offering up to a $10,000 reward for information that leads to the arrest of Brooks killer.

If you have any information regarding this case, please contact the Sacramento County Sheriffs Department main homicide line at (916) 874-5057. Or you can go to a special website set up for the victims of unsolved homicides in Sacramento County.

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Who Killed Robin Brooks? DNA Technology Helps Paint Portrait of Killer - FOX40

FIGUERES, Spain -- A court spokeswoman says that forensic experts have opened Salvador Dal's coffin to obtain DNA samples that could help settle a paternity lawsuit.

The coffin was opened half an hour after it was lifted from the crypt where Dal's remains have been for the past 27 years, the official with the court administration in northeastern Spain's Catalonia said in an emailed statement. She made the comments anonymously in line with internal rules.

Only five people are handling this part of the process, the official said, in order to reduce the risk of contaminating the DNA samples.

Picture dated in the 50s of Spanish artist Salvador Dal.

AFP/Getty

One hour after the doors closed to visitors, four people carrying a coffin entered the Dal Theater Museum. Technicians needed to install a pulley system on scaffolding to lift a 1.5-ton stone slab that covers the crypt where painter's embalmed body was interred 27 years ago.

A marquee will also be installed under the museum's glass dome to prevent any photography or video of the process, even from drones.

Dal's body is in the Spanish city of Figueres, in a tomb inside a palatial museum designed by the artist himself and then named in his honor, "CBS This Morning" reports.

Like an Egyptian pharaoh, the eccentric painter planned his own afterlife, and he wanted to remain forever surrounded by some of his greatest works; The surrealism that made Dal one of the most prolific artists of the 20th century lives on.

A committee of judges, corners and technicians immediately started working to obtain biological samples that could shed light on whether a 61-year-old tarot card reader, Pilar Abel, is, as she claims, Dal's daughter.

"I asked my mother if Salvador Dal was my father, because he was a little bit ugly," a very frank Abel said during a news conference on Wednesday. "My mother responded, 'yes, he was your father.'"

Abel first claimed the bloodline 10 years ago, saying her mother, who was a nanny near Dal's home, had an affair with him. A judge ruled in her favor.

In this May 21, 1973 file photo, Spanish surrealist painter Salvador Dal, presents his first Chrono-Hologram in Paris, France.

AP

Experts will take DNA samples from bone and tooth fragments and send them to Madrid for analysis.

Dal died in 1989, married but without any children, and always insisting he had been faithful.

The Salvador Dal Foundation has tried to fight off the exhumation, but barring an 11th hour legal surprise, a court spokesman said the test will go on.

Regardless of lineage, both the fortune teller and the surrealist know how to put on an elaborate show. Case in point: Abel once told a Spanish newspaper the only thing she was missing, was a mustache.

She insists the test is not about money -- a fortune worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Abel may not know the results of the test until September, when the court ruling is expected.

2017 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Forensic experts open Salvador Dal's coffin for DNA test, court says - CBS News

BOYNTON BEACH

A 48-year-old man was arrested Thursday for sexually assaulting a 17-year-old girl after DNA evidence linked him to her child, city police said.

George Simms Jr. was charged for one count of sexual battery and taken into custody in Delray Beach by members of the U.S. Marshals South Regional Fugitive Task Force, said the Boynton Beach Police Department. He was taken to the Palm Beach County Jail.

The victim told detectives the rape occurred around Valentines Day 2016, the report said. The teen said she went to a party with a friend near Gateway Boulevard and Northeast Second Street in Boynton Beach and had a glass of liquor that made her feel tipsy, a police report said. Her friend left the party with a male to go to a store.

After the friend left, Simms started kissing the girl. She told him no as he proceeded to take off their pants and rape her, the report said. He left the house by the time she could put her clothes back on.

The age of consent in Florida is 18 years old, according to Florida Statutes. People between the ages of 16 and 17 can give consent to a partner to the age of 23. Anyone 24 years old or older commits a felony if he or she engages in sexual activity with someone under the age of 18.

The woman went to a clinic in Boynton Beach on April 28, 2016, and discovered that she was pregnant and due to give birth in October, the report said. In May of that year, authorities met with Simms, who denied having any sexual relationship with the victim and agreed to give a DNA sample.

The girl gave birth Oct. 14 and consented for a DNA swab of the child, the report said. On June 28, a laboratory report said that Simms cant be excluded as the biological father. It determined that the odds are 150 billion times more likely that Simms is the father versus a random male.

This is a breaking story. Check back for updates.

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NEW: Man accused of sexual battery on girl after baby shows DNA match - Palm Beach Post

On Wednesday, a 16 year old boy who went missing from his home more than 40 years ago in Minnesota, has been identified by Chicago police as a victim of the serial killer John Wayne Gacy. USA TODAY

This 1978 file photo shows serial killer John Wayne Gacy.(Photo: AP)

CHICAGO A St. Paul, Minn. teen who went missing more than 40 years ago has been identified as a victim of serial killer John Wayne Gacy, authorities announced Wednesday.

DNA samplesfrom the remains of a body found in the crawl space of the notorious killer match those ofJames "Jimmie"Haakenson, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart said. The sheriffsaid the 16-year-old boy who went missing in August 1976is one of seven victims of Gacy who authorities have long been seeking to identify.

Gacy tortured, assaulted and murdered 33 men and boys, many who he lured to his home by impersonating a police officer or promising them construction work. Most of the victims were found hidden in his homeon the city's Northwest Side after hewas caught in 1978.

"He was a young man who wanted to go out on his own to a bigger city," Dart said of Haakenson. "He was in touch with his mom...we believe hours before he was killed."

Authorities for years have struggled to identify several of Gacy's victims, who were killed long before the advent of DNA testing.

Haakenson's mother, who died in 2005, had visited the sheriff's department in 1979 to inquire about whether her son, who was known as Jimmie, might beone of Gacy's unidentified victims. She had last heard from him on Aug. 5, 1976, after he had called to tell her he had gone to Chicago.

She did not have dental records, limiting the detectives' abilities at the timeto ascertain if her son's body was among the unidentified remains,Dart said.

In 2011, Dart, whose jurisdiction includes Chicago, announced that he was reopening the investigation into the deaths of eight unidentified victims of Gacy who were found stuffed in the crawl space of his home or elsewhere on his property.

The sheriff asked family members whose missing loved ones fit the profile of Gacy's victims to contact his detectives, and asked many to submit DNA samples.

The identity of one of the original eight unidentified victims, 19-year-old William George Bundy, was confirmed through DNA testing in late 2011, just months after Dart launched the Gacy inquiry, but the sheriff's officehad no more positive hits until now.

Gacy inquiry helps sheriff identify 1979 murder victim

Still, Dart persisted oncalling on families and friends of young men who went missing during the years Gacy preyed in the Chicago area to contact his office. His office has submitted DNA samples from the relatives of 57 missing men and boys whose loved ones went missing around the time Gacy was on his killing spree.

In March of this year, the sheriff's department was contacted by a nephew of Haakenson, who stumbled upon a Sheriff's Department web site that explained the effort to try to identify the missing. Soon after, Haakenson's brother and sister submitted DNA that the University of Northern Texas Center for Human Identification used to test against the unidentified victims remains.

"The nephew never met him but felt very compelled to find out about (what happened) to his uncle," Dart said.

DNA testing has helped authorities identify one of seven unidentified victims of serial killer John Wayne Gacy. James Haakenson was 16 when he went missing more than 40 years ago. His family members only learned this week he was one of the notorious serial killer's victims.(Photo: Cook County Sheriff's Department)

Dart said the Haakenson's corpse appeared to have been stacked in the crawl space of Gacy's homeunderneaththe body of Rick Johnston, a high school student who went missing after attending a concert in August 1976at the city's Aragon Ballroom. That was right around the same time Haakenson last had contact with his mother, Dart said.

A third body, one of six victims who have not yet been identified, was lying underneath Haakenson's remains, the sheriff said.

Gacy was executed in 1994.

Follow USA TODAY Chicago correspondentAamer Madhani on Twitter:@AamerISmad

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DNA test confirms teen missing since 1976 was John Wayne Gacy victim - USA TODAY

Dogs have loved us for thousands of years, despite humanitys many flaws and foibles. New research suggests dogs were domesticated from wolves just oncethats all it might have taken for puppers and people to form an everlasting alliance.

The study, which was published online yesterday in Nature Communications, analyzed the genomes of two ancient German doggosone 7,000 years-old and the other 4,700 years-old. The researchers compared their dog DNA data to the genome of a 4,800 year old dog from Ireland that other scientists had studied in 2016, and to modern dog genomes. In that study, published last year in Science, researchers put forth a dual origin idea that dogs were domesticated from wolves on two separate occasions, in Europe and Asia. But in this recent study, researchers wrote their ancient doggos predominantly share[d] ancestry with modern European dogs. In other words, there might have actually been a single origin, although the precise location where dogs were first domesticated is still somewhat of a mystery.

We came to the conclusion that our data consisting of prehistoric three Neolithic genomes and DNA from thousands of modern dogs from across the world supported only a single domestication event from a group of wolves somewhere in Eurasia sometime between 20,000 to 40,000 years ago, co-author Krishna Veeramah, an assistant professor of ecology and evolution at Stony Brook University, told Gizmodo. In addition, most of the dogs people keep as pets today are likely genetically the descendants of the dogs that lived amongst the first European farmers 7,000 years ago, and perhaps even as far back as 14,000 years ago when people were still practicing a hunter-gatherer lifestyle.

Dogs were the first animal to be domesticated by humans. Anyone who owns a cat can tell you that felines were definitely domesticated long afterward. While this new study wont end the argument over how many times dogs were domesticated, it does offer a compelling, simple solution.

One the face of it you might think, why is it important that there was one, two, three or even four domestication events? Veeramah explained. But if youre trying to find out how and why it occurs, whether it was one or more is important. Humans and wolves have likely lived in the same region for maybe 40,000 years. So if the process of domestication only occurred once, this tells us it was likely very hard to do.

Humanity is constantly evolving, and has reinvented and embarrassed itself so many ways over the course of thousands of years. But in this ever-shifting nebula of chaos we call life, at least one thing remains true: the dogs are good.

[Nature]

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DNA Testing Suggests Dogs Needed No Convincing to Befriend Humans - Gizmodo