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A new study finds that coffees, teas and "liquid smoke" flavoring could be activating a repair gene in our bodies.

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(TIME.com) -- Plants are all-natural sources of all things good for us, right? It turns out some of our favorite plant-based flavorings may do more harm than good.

Scientists from Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center report in the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology that teas, coffees and "smoky flavoring" could be damaging our DNA at levels comparable to that caused by chemotherapy drugs.

The food chemistry and biology researchers tested the effects of some popular foods and food flavorings on cell cultures in the lab and discovered that a well-known repair gene called p53 that protects cells from becoming cancerous, was highly activated by compounds in black and green teas, coffee and liquid smoke flavoring, which is used to add smokey flavor to sausages and meat substitutes.

The foods caused a 30-fold increase in p53 activity when they were added to the cells, which is comparable to the effect that the chemotherapy drug etoposide can have on the cancer-suppressing gene.

p53 is stimulated when DNA is damaged, and the gene triggers a series of responses that attempt to repair the affected DNA. The greater the damage to the DNA, the more p53 becomes activated, and researchers have come to view p53 levels as a marker for DNA in distress.

To measure the p53 activity, the researchers tagged the gene in a bunch of human cells to a fluorescent marker that would glow when the gene was activated, and then added diluted amounts of the foods and flavorings.

They let the cultures sit for 18 hours. Cultures with the black and green teas, coffee and liquid smoke all began to glow, indicating that p53 was hard at work doing damage control. Tests with other flavorings, including fish and oyster sauces, smoked paprika, wasabi powder and kim chee, didn't activate p53 to the same levels.

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Could our favorite flavorings be damaging our DNA ?

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Plants are all-natural sources of all things good for us, right? It turns out some of our favorite plant-based flavorings may do more harm than good.

Scientists from Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center report in the journalFood and Chemical Toxicology that teas, coffees and smoky flavoring could be damaging our DNA at levels comparable to that caused by chemotherapy drugs.

The food chemistry and biology researchers tested the effects of some popular foods and food flavorings on cell cultures in the lab and discovered that a well-known repair gene called p53 that protects cells from becoming cancerous, was highly activated by compounds in black and green teas, coffee and liquid smoke flavoring, which is used to add smokey flavor to sausages and meat substitutes. The foods caused a 30 fold increase in p53 activity when they were added to the cells, which is comparable to the effect that the chemotherapy drug etoposide can have on the cancer-suppressing gene.

p53 is stimulated when DNA is damaged, and the gene triggers a series of responses that attempt to repairthe affected DNA. The greater the damage to the DNA, the more p53 becomes activated, and researchers have come to view p53 levels as a marker for DNA in distress. To measure the p53 activity, the researchers tagged the gene in a bunch of human cells to a fluorescent marker that would glow when the gene was activated, and then added diluted amounts of the foods and flavorings. They let the cultures sit for 18 hours. Cultures with the black and green teas, coffee and liquid smoke all began to glow, indicating that p53 was hard at work doing damage control. Tests with other flavorings, including fish and oyster sauces, smoked paprika, wasabi powder and kim chee, didnt activate p53 to the same levels.

(MORE: How Exercise Can Change Your DNA)

It turns out that these foods and flavorings share in common some chemicals pyrogallol and gallic acid that the researchers believe are responsible for damaging the DNA and setting off p53. Pyrogallol is found in smoked foods as well as hair dye, tea, cigarette smoke, and coffee. Gallic acid is a type of pyrogallol and is primarily found in coffees and teas. Its not clear how these agents act on DNA, but the harm is concerning enough to raise the alarm for p53 to swoop in and attempt to right the genetic wrongs.

Previous studies have documented similar DNA damage from liquid smoke on the stomach lining in rats, but whether it has the same effect on humans isnt known. On human cells, at least, the effect was striking. We found that liquid smoke, when diluted a thousand fold, was still as strong as the concentration of etoposide in a cancer patient being treated with etoposide. In fact, it works much the same way. Etoposide in cancer patients damages DNA, thats how you get rid of the cancers, but it also has side effects, says study author Dr. Scott Kern, the Kovler Professor of Oncology and Pathology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Why would plants harbor such potentially damaging agents? Its possible they help to protect them, primarily from herbivores looking for their next meal. Plants have been trying to keep animals from eating them for a long time. The plants make poisons, and animals develop defense mechanisms to take on the poisons. They have done this to such a great extent that some of these initial poisons can be considered nutrients and just food, says Kern.

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From Green Tea to Liquid Smoke, Food Flavoring Could Be Damaging Our DNA

The transistor revolutionized electronics and computing. Now, researchers have made a biological transistor from DNA that could be used to create living computers.

A transistor is a device that controls the flow of electrons in an electrical circuit, which acts as an on-off switch. Similarly, the biological transistor termed a transcriptor controls the flow of an enzyme as it moves along a strand of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid). These cellular building blocks could be used to do anything from monitoring their environment to turning processes on and off in the cells. The findings were reported today (March 28) in the journal Science.

"Transcriptors are the key component behind amplifying genetic logic," lead author Jerome Bonnet, a bioengineer at Stanford University, said in a statement. On their own, these devices do not represent a computer, but they allow for logical operations, such as "if this-then that" commands, one of three basic functions of computers (the other two being storing and transmitting information).

To make the transcriptors, the researchers took a group of natural proteins, the workhorses of cells, and used them to control how the enzyme known as RNA polymerase zipped along a DNA molecule. The team used these transcriptors to create the mathematical operators that perform computations using Boolean logic.

1s and 0s

Boolean logic, named for the 19th-century mathematician George Boole, refers to a branch of math in which variables can have a true or false value (a 1 or a 0). In a Boolean circuit, the logic gates are like traffic conductors, deciding which of these values gets transmitted. [Album: The World's Most Beautiful Equations]

For example, the "AND" gate takes in two values as input, and only outputs 1 (a true value) if both inputs are 1. An "OR" gate, by contrast, outputs a 1 if either of its inputs is 1. Combining these simple gates in different ways gives rise to even the most complex forms of computing.

The scientists created biological versions of these logic gates, by carefully calibrating the flow of enzymes along the DNA (just like electrons inside a wire). They chose enzymes that would be able to function in bacteria, fungi, plants and animals, so that biological computers might be made with a wide variety of organisms, Bonnet said.

Living Computers

Like the transistor, one main function of the transcriptor is to amplify signals. Just as transistor radios amplify weak radio waves into audible sound, transcriptors can amplify a very small change in the production of an enzyme to produce large changes in the production of other proteins. Amplification allows signals to be carried over large distances, such as between a group of cells.

Read this article:
Digital Evolution: DNA May Bring Computers to Life

The transistor revolutionized electronics and computing. Now, researchers have made a biological transistor from DNA that could be used to create living computers.

A transistor is a device that controls the flow of electrons in an electrical circuit, which acts as an on-off switch. Similarly, the biological transistor termed a transcriptor controls the flow of an enzyme as it moves along a strand of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid). These cellular building blocks could be used to do anything from monitoring their environment to turning processes on and off in the cells. The findings were reported Thursday, March 28, in the journal Science.

"Transcriptors are the key component behind amplifying genetic logic," lead author Jerome Bonnet, a bioengineer at Stanford University, said in a statement. On their own, these devices do not represent a computer, but they allow for logical operations, such as "if this-then that" commands, one of three basic functions of computers (the other two being storing and transmitting information).

To make the transcriptors, the researchers took a group of natural proteins, the workhorses of cells, and used them to control how the enzyme known as RNA polymerase zipped along a DNA molecule. The team used these transcriptors to create the mathematical operators that perform computations using Boolean logic.

1s and 0sBoolean logic, named for the 19th-century mathematician George Boole, refers to a branch of math in which variables can have a true or false value (a 1 or a 0). In a Boolean circuit, the logic gates are like traffic conductors, deciding which of these values gets transmitted. [Album: The World's Most Beautiful Equations]

For example, the "AND" gate takes in two values as input, and only outputs 1 (a true value) if both inputs are 1. An "OR" gate, by contrast, outputs a 1 if either of its inputs is 1. Combining these simple gates in different ways gives rise to even the most complex forms of computing.

The scientists created biological versions of these logic gates, by carefully calibrating the flow of enzymes along the DNA (just like electrons inside a wire). They chose enzymes that would be able to function in bacteria, fungi, plants and animals, so that biological computers might be made with a wide variety of organisms, Bonnet said.

Living ComputersLike the transistor, one main function of the transcriptor is to amplify signals. Just as transistor radios amplify weak radio waves into audible sound, transcriptors can amplify a very small change in the production of an enzyme to produce large changes in the production of other proteins. Amplification allows signals to be carried over large distances, such as between a group of cells.

The new technology offers some electric possibilities: sensing when a cell has been exposed to sugar or caffeine, for example, and storing that information like a value in computer memory. Or telling cells to start or stop dividing depending on stimuli in their environment.

The researchers have made their biological logic gates available to the public to encourage people to use and improve them.

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Biological computer created with human DNA