Category Archives: DNA

Moms, Is Government Collecting Your Baby's DNA Without Your Consent? CNSNews.com More than 10 years ago, CCHF began educating Americans on the use and storage of baby DNA without parental consent. In fact, CCHF successfully helped 21 Minnesota families win a lawsuit that required that all baby DNA specimens be destroyed by the ...

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Moms, Is Government Collecting Your Baby's DNA Without Your Consent? - CNSNews.com

Sonia Azad, WFAA 8:37 AM. CDT May 09, 2017

Most of us at some point in our lives have tried something to lose weight. So we can relate to Monica Fair.

Ive always had this 12 to 15 pounds that I couldn't get rid of," said Fair, 47, who has experimented with trendy exercise programs and fad diets to no avail.

I never could lose the weight, said Fair. As a matter of fact, I would gain muscle which would push the fat out and make me look bigger."

It turns out the answer may be on the inside.

DNA testing

"We're looking at genes that are responsible for your body composition, said Kurt Johnsen, co-founder of a Dallas-based company called Simplified Genetics.

Hes a Kung Fu master, founder of American Power Yoga, and overall a pretty fit guy with a passion for helping others get healthy, too.

I'm not a doctor, I'm not a scientist, said Johnsen, who sat down with WFAA at Plum Yoga, along Dallas popular stretch of Lower Greenville.I want to make sure what we do makes a difference."

Since 2012, Johnsen says his company has tested the DNA of 11,000 people, analyzing genes to match you with the best type of workout, diet, and vitamins for your body.

This is the most revolutionary thing I have seen in over 35 years," said Leisa Hart, the blonde bombshell behindBuns of Steel. Now shes 49, a mom, and still a beautiful fitness trainer.

This is my job! I'm in good shape, said Hart, admitting that there is a side of her that the public didn't see.

Working out that often and that intensely -- my face would be red, my head pounding. I would have to take a nap many times throughout the week, she recalled. That was my body screaming at me saying -- please just slow down! You're not supposed to work out that hard that often."

Then Hart got genetic testing, which is really just a simple cheek swab. The swab is sent to a lab in Louisiana where your DNA is extracted and prepared for analysis. Results are put through algorithms that generate specific recommendations for you.

I found out that when I was working out intensely, I was working out at much too high of a heart rate and I was working out for too long of a duration, said Hart.

Based on her results, she actually needed to do less.

To the eye, 53-year-old Rosanne Lewis is similar to Hart. But her genetic makeup is completely different.

I stopped eating all this bread because I thought it wasn't very good for me. I started having nuts instead or I would eat cheese -- things I thought were healthier-- and I gained four pounds."

Lewis results showed she can get away with mostly low intensity exercise. But this type of DNA analysis goes deeper: identifying your idea diet. The bread-lover, Lewis, is more sensitive to fats than carbohydrates, meaning she can eat her bread and do yoga in peace.

I know now for the rest of my life what I'm supposed to do, said Lewis.

With people putting a lot of stock -- and money -- into these tests, we wanted to get a doctors take on them.

This is the start, at the very least, of something very interesting, said Dr. Leslie Cler, chief medical officer of Methodist Dallas Medical Center.

Dr. Cler told WFAA that this type of genetics testing has been on the market -- offered directly to consumers -- for a decade, but still is in its infancy.

Further, according to Cler, while different companies may get you the same results, their recommendations are open to interpretation.

I don't think these tests are recommending anything dangerous to the patients -- not at all, said Cler. But as a doctor, if you came to see me and you said, I heard about this test, if I get it do you think that I'd be likely to lose weight? The answer is -- I don't know."

Fair enough. But losing weight isn't always the goal. Remember Hart -- who scaled back on her workouts since getting her results?

I feel so much better, said Hart. I feel like I could actually do more but I don't have to.

Then theres Fair, who went from a size 10 to a size 6 after putting her results to use. She added fish to her vegetarian diet, and now incorporates a blend of low-and-high intensity workouts.

It was life-changing to be able to actually get to my goal," Fair said.

But what works for Fair wont work for everyone. Makes perfect sense if it boils down to DNA.

On Tuesday morning Sonia Azad, Ron Corning, and Alexa Conomos got their tests back -- see their results below!

Medical Study 1 by wfaachannel8 on Scribd

Medical Study 2 by wfaachannel8 on Scribd

2017 WFAA-TV

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DNA test tells you which workout, diet is perfect for you | WFAA.com - WFAA

Minneapolis Star Tribune

ACLU of MN sues Dakota County sheriff to stop routine DNA collection Minneapolis Star Tribune In Dakota County, the sheriff's office collects DNA samples from those charged with violent crimes, in some cases doing so before the suspect is convicted. The practice is unconstitutional, says a court challenge issued in late April by the ACLU-MN ...

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ACLU of MN sues Dakota County sheriff to stop routine DNA collection - Minneapolis Star Tribune

Cancer cells shown to co-opt DNA 'repair crew' -- ScienceDaily Science Daily In experiments with human colon cancer cells and mice, a team led by scientists say they have evidence that cancer arises when a normal part of cells' ... and more »

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Cancer cells shown to co-opt DNA 'repair crew' -- ScienceDaily - Science Daily

No doubt youve seen commercials in which someone is certain she was of this or that heritage, but finds out her line dates back to ice-loving aliens who settled in Antarctica. Or something like that.

This curiosity is why I submitted to DNA testing: to get a clearer sense of the ancestral population groups from which I derive. Having previously traced some maternal lineage to Chickasaw County, Miss., Ive suspected I have Chickasaw Indian ties.

Now National DNA Day, April 25, was coming up, and several providers of such testing offered specials. Why not take advantage?

I went with Family Tree DNA. The procedure is simple enough. You receive a sterile kit to swab the inside of your cheeks, and you send it back and wait six to eight weeks for the results. Virginian-Pilot reporter Denise Watson and I set up the reveal to be like the time TV personality Geraldo Rivera went inside Al Capones vault on live TV in 1986. We had a camera ready to capture my reaction as I opened the results.

Would I have enough Indian ancestry in my bloodline to set up a sovereign nation in my backyard?

DNA testing has driven home the point that theres no use keeping secrets. I recall a time in 1989 or 90 when Id driven to my fathers house. There was a young man mowing the yard. I got out, explained that I was the homeowners daughter, and told him that he didnt have to worry about the task and that I could take it from there.

The young man one-upped me. He said he didnt mind doing it because he was a grandson, visiting from out of town. He then warmly pointed out his toddler son who was outside playing. I went to the kitchen door for my father. He was unaware of the conversation that had just taken place. I asked if I should know these people, including the others who were inside. He shook his head no.

I said nothing more and left.

And here we are, 22 years after my fathers death. A person has to do little digging or none at all to discover connections. Within a couple of hours of my test results being shared, a cousin with DNA from the Miller line of Yazoo County, Miss., where my father is from, reached out to explain how she is connected to others whose names show up in our Family Tree DNA matches. Some of these people have the highest autosomal DNA matches with me. I wasnt even sniffing for anyone in that bloodline. I was looking for ethnic background.

And to boot, it turns out I have DNA connections to people white and black right here under my nose as close as Hertford, Smithfield and Rocky Mount, N.C.

So again I ask, do I need to know any of them? Maybe, maybe not. But it sure wouldnt hurt to untangle the ties.

So this is what came back:

93 percent African, which is a higher percentage of African than most African Americans, Family Tree DNA founder Bennett Greenspan explained in a phone interview. Most fall within the 70 percent to 80 percent range, rounded out with Caucasian and American Indian percentages, he said. The takeaway for me is that no one much wanted to mess with my folks, so Im good with that. Of that 93 percent, 89 percent is from West African population groups, and 4 percent is from East Central Africa.

In the trace lineage, roughly 2 percent is from South Central Africa. That lineage is something Id suspected. Ive always felt some Zulu warrior in me. You better get back!

And there is indeed a percentage of North and Central American ancestral lineage, about 1 percent. The test is not sophisticated enough to pinpoint particular tribes. And, of course, at such a low percentage, I dont have enough recent ancestry in my bloodline to operate a tax-free casino, which is good. But at least I can sleep easy knowing my folks didnt totally make up the origin of the high cheekbones.

Rounding out the trace percentages are Finland (less than 2 percent), Northeast Asia (less than 1 percent) Scandinavia (less than 1 percent), Southeast Europe (less than 1 percent) and Asia Minor (less than 2 percent).

I am intrigued by the map that lets you click on the percentages and see density shadings of the population cluster related to the findings. The stronger the color, the stronger the link to the region.

Its too bad footage of the reveal was destroyed along with all the other files on the videographers hard drive. Id wanted to archive it in my digital family tree. Because now that I am hooked, I will take one of Family Tree DNAs more advanced tests, the mtDNA, which can more finely trace the maternal line. I also plan to test through Ancestry DNA, where more possible connections are registered.

The world is smaller than we think. Swab and discover.

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Who are any of us, really? As DNA testing has become widely available, it's easier than ever to now know. - Virginian-Pilot

May 9, 2017 by Chungui Lu, The Conversation Credit: Ravi Pinisetti/Unsplash

The world's most popular drink (after water) is under threat. We already know much about the threat of climate change to staple crops such as wheat, maize and rice, but the impact on tea is just coming into focus. Early research indicates that tea grown in some parts of Asia could see yields decline by up to 55% thanks to drought or excessive heat, and the quality of the tea is also falling.

The intensive use of pesticides and chemical fertilisers in tea plantations has also led to soil degradation at an average annual rate of 2.8%. This also causes chemical runoff into waterways, which can lead to serious problems for human health and the environment.

However, hope may be on the horizon now that scientists at the Kunming Institute of Botany at the Chinese Academy of Sciences have sequenced the entire tea genome. Mapping the exact sequence of DNA in this way provides the foundation for extracting all the genetic information needed to help breed and speed up development of new varieties of the tea plant. And it could even help improve the drink's flavour and nutritional value.

In particular, the whole tea tree genome reveals the genetic basis for tea's tolerance to environmental stresses, pest and disease resistance, flavour, productivity and quality. So breeders could more precisely produce better tea varieties that produce higher crop yields and use water and nutrients more efficiently. And they could do this while widening the genetic diversity of tea plants, improving the overall health of the tea plant population.

This is also an important milestone for scientists because it provides a deeper understanding of the complex evolution and the functions of key genes associated with stress tolerance, tea flavour and adaptation.

The new tea genome is very large, with nearly 37,000 genes more than four times the size of the coffee plant genome. The process of evolution by natural selection has already helped the tea plant develop hundreds of genes related to resisting environmental stress from drought and disease.

These genes are like molecular markers that scientists can identify when selecting plants for use in breeding. This will allow them to be more certain that the next generation of plants they produce will have the genes and so the traits they want, speeding up the breeding process. Sequencing the genome also raises the possibility of using genetic modification (GM) technologies to turn on or enhance desirable genes (or turn off undesirable ones).

The same principles could also be used to enhance the nutritional or medicinal value of certain tea varieties. The genome sequence includes genes associated with biosynthesis. This is the production of the proteins and enzymes involved in creating the compounds that make tea so drinkable, such as flavonoids, terpenes and caffeine. These are closely related to the aroma, flavour and quality of tea and so using genetic breeding techniques could help improve the taste of tea and make it more flavourful or nutritional.

For example, we could also remove the caffeine biosynthetic genes from the tea plant to help breeding of low or non-caffeine varieties. By boosting certain compounds at the same time, we could make tea healthier and develop entirely new flavours to make caffeine tea more appealing.

An estimated 5.56m tons of tea is commercially grown on more than 3.8m hectares of land (as of 2014). And its huge cultural importance, as well as its economic value, mean securing a sustainable future for tea is vitally important for millions of people. So the first successful sequencing of the tea genome is a crucial step to making tea plants more robust, productive and drinkable in the face of massive environmental challenges.

Explore further: Tea tree genome contains clues about how one leaf produces so many flavors

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

The most popular varieties of teaincluding black tea, green tea, Oolong tea, white tea, and chaiall come from the leaves of the evergreen shrub Camellia sinensis, otherwise known as the tea tree. Despite tea's immense ...

Scientists and mungbean growers around the world now have access to an open-source website containing the latest genetic information on the qualities of 560 accessions of mungbean.

Greater resistance to pests, less sensitivity to drought, higher yields this is just a small selection of the requirements that crops will have to fulfil in future. Humanity needs new crops that can withstand the changes ...

Scientists have created the most accurate navigation system for the bread wheat genome to dateallowing academics and breeders to analyse its genes more easily than ever before.

Scientists at the University of Liverpool have been awarded 1.7 million to decode the genome of wheat, in order to help farmers increase the yield of British wheat varieties.

Because plants cannot relocate when resources become scarce, they need to efficiently regulate their growth by responding to environmental cues. Drought is the most important cause of reduced plant growth and crop yield, ...

In a proof-of-concept experiment, a 4-billion-year-old protein engineered into modern E. coli protected the bacteria from being hijacked by a bacteria-infecting virus. It was as if the E. coli had suddenly gone analogue, ...

Trap-jaw ants, with their spring-loaded jaws and powerful stings, are among the fiercest insect predators, but they begin their lives as spiny, hairy, fleshy blobs hanging from the ceiling and walls of an underground nest. ...

The relentless roar of natural gas compressors influences the numbers of insects and spiders nearby, triggering decreases in many types of arthropods sensitive to sounds and vibrations, a collaborative Florida Museum of Natural ...

Lyme disease an infection contracted from the bite of an infected tick is an important emerging disease in the UK, and is increasing in incidence in people in the UK and large parts of Europe and North America.

Resistance to malaria drugs means that pregnant women are unable to overcome the anaemia caused by the malaria parasite and their babies are born undersized. A study carried out at Karolinska Institutet, however, exposes ...

Understanding evolution is one of the cornerstones of biologyevolution is, in fact, the sole explanation for life's diversity on Earth. Based on the evolution of proteins, researchers may explain the emergence of new species ...

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Scientists have mapped the DNA of tea and it could stave off a pending crisis - Phys.Org

Lawrence Avenue Streetcar Tracks View Full Caption

LINCOLN SQUARE A piece of Chicago history, buried just inches underground, was unearthed during a recent routine street repair on Lawrence Avenue.

As crews from the Department of Water Management excavated the area around a sewer manhole in the 2600 block of Lawrence, remnants of the city's streetcar system were revealed.

Neighbor Blake Valkier captured images of the temporarily exposed streetcar tracks, which have since disappeared under a fresh layer of concrete.

The streetcar system, operated by Chicago Surface Lines, grew from a single horse-drawn car in 1859 to a peak of more than 3,200 passenger cars and 1,000 miles of tracks.

When the CTA took over Surface Lines in 1947, the agency beganphasing out streetcars in favor of buses. Some of the rail tracks were torn out, but most were left in place and covered with asphalt. The last streetcar made its final run on Vincennes Avenue in 1958.

The Lawrence Avenue track terminated at Broadway on the east and Austin on the west. It was abandoned in 1951 when the route was converted to a trolley bus.

A close-up of the tracks and brick pavers. [Blake Valkier]

The tracks have disappeared under a fresh layer of concrete. [DNAinfo/Patty Wetli]

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Lawrence Avenue Streetcar Tracks Unearthed During Construction - DNAinfo

3d render of a DNA spirals

One thing cells must do in order to become cancerous is to overthrow the normal checks on their growth. As a part of this process, the stringent controls on things like copying and repairing DNA start to break down. As a result, tumors often contain chromosomal rearrangements, which are places where genes are cut and pasted back together in ways that they shouldnt be.

In some cases, the breaks bring twogenes together in a way that causes what are called "driver mutations," forming a fusion protein thatpushes the cells further along the road to malignancy. For some types of cancer, nearly every tumor contains one of these chromosome breaks, making itsfusion genes ahallmark of that cancer. A group of researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine just took advantage of this specificity by targeting thefusion genes to attackcancer cells and take them down.

The work relies on the CRISPR-Cas system, which is used by bacteria to recognize foreign DNA (like that of avirus) and chop it up. We've since learned how totarget any DNA sequence, making ita formidable means of gene editing. Here, the researchers used a CRISPR-Cas system to make a nicka single stranded cut in the double helixin the tumor DNA, right at the point where two genes are fused.

This break should trigger the cell'srepair pathway to fix that single stranded nick, sothe researchers hijacked this system by providing it with DNA to use in the repair. With the DNA supplied by the researchers, the repair system inserted an enzyme into the location of the gene fusion. The enzyme they chose takes a harmless drug precursor and metabolizes itinto its active form. So: they target the tumor cell because only it has this DNA rearrangement; then, when they apply the drug, only tumor cells are affected by it. Normal cells arent.

First, the researchers tested the approach by generating cells with the gene rearrangement they wanted; they took a fusion gene that recurs in prostate cancer and put it into a cell line that usually lacks it. Their approach worked: only cells that received all of the components (fusion gene, CRISPR-Cas, new enzyme, and drug) were killed. Cells without the fusion gene could not express the enzyme and thus were unaffected by the drug.

Next the researchers took the engineered cells and transplanted them into immunodeficient mice, where the cells grew into tumors. (This is a pretty standard way of generating tumors on which drugs can be tested.) If the mice were given all of the components of the CRISPR/drug system, the tumors shrank by 30percent. Control mice, whosetumors did not have the fusion gene, exhibited a metastasis rate of 50percenteven if they were given the CRISPR/drugcomponentsand died.

Then the researchers tried it in a human hepatocellular carcinoma cell line that had a different chromosomal rearrangement. This means they had to modify the CRISPR-Cas system to target this rearrangement. But they saw the same effect: up to 27percent of the cells expressed the enzyme (this rate is typical for gene editing using CRISPR-Cas), and up to 27percent of cells were killed by the drug.

Lastly, they put these cells in mice, and saw the same thing: mice that also got all of the other components had their tumors shrink, but mice that didnt died.

Current cancer therapeutics often rely on interrupting the signaling pathways that drive tumor growth and are thus almost begging the tumor to develop resistance. Since fusion-gene breakpoints may not be cancer drivers, using them to target tumor cells might not induce resistance in the same way. And even if using breakpoints does, some other bit of DNA damage in the tumorscan just be targeted, as long as one can be identified. Since the DNA damage isso highly specific, targeting itwith drugs doesnt generate the nasty side effects that result when drugs run afoul of normal cells instead of just cancer cells.

Since chromosomal breakpoints may differ among peopleand even among different tumors in the same personthis would be a highly individualized therapy. But if it is technically feasible, it might hold promise.

Nature Biotechnology, 2017. DOI: 10.1038/nbt.3843 (About DOIs).

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DNA damage in cancer cells targeted to kill them | Ars Technica - Ars Technica

Matsuyama Police suspect a woman in her 30s who recently committed suicide following police questioning about a murder in Imabari, Ehime Prefecture, may have been involved in an earlier killing in the city, investigative sources said Sunday.

A DNA sample, taken from the woman when she was questioned by police over the death on Wednesday of 92-year-old Yukie Okamoto, matched DNA collected from an object in the home of 81-year-old Satsuki Ochi, who was found dead with stab wounds on April 26, the sources said.

Knives, believed to be the murder weapons, were left in the victims homes, which were located only 400 meters apart.

Okamotos son, Hisayuki, 70, who was severely wounded, told investigators he had been stabbed by an unknown woman.

The woman in her 30s, who lived near to where Okamoto lived, underwent questioning on a voluntary basis last Thursday.

She was found dead Friday morning, just before investigators planned to take her in for further questioning. The woman left a suicide note in which she denied involvement in Okamotos death, one of her family members said.

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DNA evidence suggests woman who killed self was involved in second Ehime murder - The Japan Times

Researchers who have completed the first genetic analysis on the bones from the crew of the doomed Franklin expedition in Canada's Arctic say they're hoping to meet living descendants to match them with the remains of their ancestors.

Anne Keenlyside, an anthropologist at Trent University and co-author of a study on the remains, performed DNA analysis of tooth and bone samples recovered from eight sites where sailors died after they deserted the HMS Erebus and HMS Terror in April 1848.

Keenlyside said the analysis doesn't shed much light on what befell the expedition, which became icebound while looking for the Northwest Passage. But researchers have put a call out to genealogists in Canada and the United Kingdom for anyone who can trace a family tree to the Franklin sailors.

Matching the DNA with the living would indicate who died where, the study says.

"If we can find those living descendants if they're directly descended from those crew members and if they're willing to submit a DNA sample in the form of a ... cheek swab, then we can analyze their DNA, compare it to the DNA extracted from these skeletal remains and see if there is a match," Keenlyside told The Canadian Press.

Doug Stenton, lead author of the study released online in the Journal of Archeological Science: Reports, said knowing who the men were would shed light on their rank. That information would add to a bank of knowledge that could one day unlock the mystery of the failed mission.

"I think it's going to be a combination of things that ultimately lead to an understanding of what happened," said Stenton, who is with Nunavut's Culture and Heritage Department. "It's important we take advantage of as many sources as we can."

The Franklin expedition left England and headed north, never to return, in 1845. Its two ships were found within the last three years by underwater archeologists.

How things went so badly wrong has remained a mystery and a legend.

DNA analysis was difficult because many of the remains were exposed to the harsh northern elements for more than 150 years, Keenleyside said. DNA also degrades over time.

A cairn that was found in 1859 indicated that 105 men left the icebound ships in April 1848 and came ashore on the northwest coast of King William Island. It's believed their plan was to walk along the Back River to a Hudson Bay Co. post.

Franklin died almost a year earlier in June 1847.

The DNA study concluded that 21 people, or 20 per cent of the sailors who left the ships, died at five of the sites within a small area of Erebus Bay, which is only about 70 kilometres from where the crew came ashore. Since a few crew members made it 230 kilometres further to Montreal Island, the study's authors suggest there must have been significant health differences between the men when they left the ships.

"Why did so many men die so early on? Something must have gone severely wrong," Stenton said.

Some theories about why the mission failed include lead poisoning and spoiled tinned preserves.

This summer, Parks Canada's underwater archaeology team is to return to Nunavut to conduct some preliminary dives on HMS Terror and continue the archeological work on HMS Erebus.

Stenton said more clues are likely to be uncovered as dive teams explore the shipwrecks.

The researchers say they've already made preliminary contact with some descendants of the crews. And they say more clues are out there.

"Of the 129 crew members, we've only recovered the remains of maybe 30 of those individuals," Keenleyside said.

"What happened to the rest of them? It leaves you wondering whether additional human remains will be found of these crew members."

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Franklin researchers hope to link DNA from sailors' bones with descendants - Brandon Sun