Category Archives: Transhuman News

Alzheimer #39;s disease - Identified regions of the human genome that are altered over the life course
Alzheimer #39;s disease - Identified regions of the human genome that are altered over the life-course in a way. Subscribe this channel to watch more motivationa...

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Alzheimer's disease - Identified regions of the human genome that are altered over the life course - Video

Project Altered Beast (PS2): Story Cut Scene #46 - Acquired Genome Chip (Dragon)
This is the cut scene when you acquire the dragon genome chip. It #39;s from the video game, Project Altered Beast on the PlayStation 2. Ripped from the disc its...

By: Bobby Albert

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Project Altered Beast (PS2): Story Cut Scene #46 - Acquired Genome Chip (Dragon) - Video

By creating a global database an international consortium of scientists has increased the detailed knowledge of the variation in the cattle genome by several orders of magnitude. The first generation of the new data resource, which will be open access, forms an essential tool for scientists working with cattle genetics and livestock history. The results are published in an article in the scientific journal Nature Genetics.

"It's momentous," says one of the scientists behind the international effort, associate professor Bernt Guldbrandtsen from the Center for Quantitative Genetics and Genomics, Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Aarhus University. Scientists from Aarhus University -- the only Danish university to participate -- have been part of the consortium from the start and have contributed 15 percent of the data.

Ancestral bulls

The data used in the huge database are derived from key ancestor bulls. These bulls have produced millions of descendants and have enormous influence on the genetic composition and characteristics of modern cattle breeds. For example, Holstein bulls in the database have fathered at least 6.3 million daughters worldwide.

The data consist of sequenced genomes for a number of bulls and are based on new sequencing techniques. The article in Nature Genetics describes data from 232 bulls and two cows of the breeds Angus, Holstein, Jersey and Fleckvieh. Since these animals are key ancestors, they carry most of the genetic variations present in the three races.

Currently, the database contains genomes of more than 1,200 animals of different cattle breeds, but as more scientists from other countries gradually join the project, there is a continual inflow of data. Key ancestor bulls have daughters all around the world, so it is a considerable strength of the project that such data are connected into one database.

High level of detail

What makes the database so special is the level of detail of the data. Where previously only the location of the genes on the genome and some of the gene variants were known, a large part of the total variation has now been identified and the genetic types carried by new offspring can be predicted. These data can be linked to data on key attributes such as health, calving, fertility, milk yield and growth allowing the identification of genetic variatiants that result in differences between animals.

"In the past we had only mapped approximately two percent of the variation. Now we have knowledge of it all for a great number of key ancestors. If you use the analogy of a road map, we previously only had sufficient information to see the mileposts on the chromosomal roadmap, but now we can see the entire roadmap," says Bernt Guldbrandtsen. He is supplemented by professor Mogens Sand Lund, director of the Center for Quantitative Genetics and Genomics at the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Aarhus University: "Before we only knew about 700,000 markers. With the new and detailed database we have over 30 million markers to work with. We can predict the genotypes of all animals on the basis of the resource that we have created here."

New basis for genetic work

Originally posted here:
Global database: Cattle genome cracked in detail

A powerful scientific tool for editing the DNA instructions in a genome can now also be applied to RNA, the molecule that translates DNA's genetic instructions into the production of proteins. A team of researchers with Berkeley Lab and the University of California (UC) Berkeley has demonstrated a means by which the CRISPR/Cas9 protein complex can be programmed to recognize and cleave RNA at sequence-specific target sites. This finding has the potential to transform the study of RNA function by paving the way for direct RNA transcript detection, analysis and manipulation.

Schematic shows how RNA-guided Cas9 working with PAMmer can target ssRNA for programmable, sequence-specific cleavage.

Led by Jennifer Doudna, biochemist and leading authority on the CRISPR/Cas9 complex, the Berkeley team showed how the Cas9 enzyme can work with short DNA sequences known as "PAM," for protospacer adjacent motif, to identify and bind with specific site of single-stranded RNA (ssRNA). The team is designating this RNA-targeting CRISPR/Cas9 complex as RCas9.

"Using specially designed PAM-presenting oligonucleotides, or PAMmers, RCas9 can be specifically directed to bind or cut RNA targets while avoiding corresponding DNA sequences, or it can be used to isolate specific endogenous messenger RNA from cells," says Doudna, who holds joint appointments with Berkeley Lab's Physical Biosciences Division and UC Berkeley's Department of Molecular and Cell Biology and Department of Chemistry, and is also an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). "Our results reveal a fundamental connection between PAM binding and substrate selection by RCas9, and highlight the utility of RCas9 for programmable RNA transcript recognition without the need for genetically introduced tags."

From safer, more effective medicines and clean, green, renewable fuels, to the clean-up and restoration of our air, water and land, the potential is there for genetically engineered bacteria and other microbes to produce valuable goods and perform critical services. To exploit the vast potential of microbes, scientists must be able to precisely edit their genetic information.

In recent years, the CRISPR/Cas complex has emerged as one of the most effective tools for doing this. CRISPR, which stands for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, is a central part of the bacterial immune system and handles sequence recognition. Cas9 -- Cas stands for CRISPR-assisted -- is an RNA-guided enzyme that handles the sniping of DNA strands at the specified sequence site.

Together, CRISPR and Cas9 can be used to precisely edit the DNA instructions in a targeted genome for making desired types of proteins. The DNA is cut at a specific location so that old DNA instructions can be removed and/or new instructions inserted.

Until now, it was thought that Cas9 could not be used on the RNA molecules that transcribe those DNA instructions into the desired proteins.

"Just as Cas9 can be used to cut or bind DNA in a sequence-specific manner, RCas9 can cut or bind RNA in a sequence-specific manner," says Mitchell O'Connell, a member of Doudna's research group and the lead author of a paper in Nature that describes this research titled "Programmable RNA recognition and cleavage by CRISPR/Cas9." Doudna is the corresponding author. Other co-authors are Benjamin Oakes, Samuel Sternberg, Alexandra East Seletsky and Matias Kaplan.

In an earlier study, Doudna and her group showed that the genome editing ability of Cas9 is made possible by presence of PAM, which marks where cutting is to commence and activates the enzyme's strand-cleaving activity. In this latest study, Doudna, Mitchell and their collaborators show that PAMmers, in a similar manner, can also stimulate site-specific endonucleolytic cleavage of ssRNA targets. They used Cas9 enzymes from the bacterium Streptococcus pyogenes to perform a variety of in vitro cleavage experiments using a panel of RNA and DNA targets.

Originally posted here:
RCas9: A programmable RNA editing tool