Biology News Net - Microarray

Scientists identify genomic 'fingerprint' for alcohol-induced heart failure

Sun, 04 May 2008 21:48:25 -0500

A person with dilated cardiomyopathy has an enlarged and stretched heart cavity, usually too weak to pump normally; most people will go on to develop heart failure. While clinicians know that up to 36 percent of all cases of dilated cardiomyopathy may be due to excessive drinking, it has been difficult to differentiate between alcohol-induced heart failure and heart failure due to idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy. A first-of-its-kind study has found a way to both diagnose alcohol-induced heart failure and possibly reverse it through therapeutic interventions.

Gene-environment interaction in yeast gene expression

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 21:40:17 -0500

The nature vs. nurture debate is familiar to most people, and modern conclusions usually predict a balance between the two. A new paper published this week in the open-access journal PLoS Biology shows that there is a similar balance between the genes we inheritâ€”natureâ€”and the environmentâ€”nurtureâ€”in determining thousands of traits in yeast. As we approach the age of personal genomics, in which each of us knows something about the genetic variations we carry, it is important to understand how genes and the environment interact in order to draw medically sound conclusions from the information availableâ€”e.g. whether exercise can reduce risks that are increased because of a genetic predisposition towards a certain illness.

Largest ever study of genetics of common disease just got bigger

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 20:40:17 -0500

DNA samples from 120,000 people are to be analysed in a £30 million follow up to last year's Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium (WTCCC), the largest ever study of the genetics behind common diseases. The seven-fold increase in the number of samples to be analysed will allow researchers to look at a 25 diseases as well as studying the genetics of learning in children and individuals' responses to statins.

A new method to identify mutated genes in human diseases

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 15:24:17 -0500

Researchers from the University of Turin, Italy and the University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands, have devised a new method that may help the medical community to determine the genetic basis of many common diseases. Their findings are described in an article published March 21st in the open-access journal PLoS Computational Biology.

Gene expression differences between Europeans and Africans affect response to drugs, infections

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 23:54:54 -0500

Differences in gene expression levels between people of European versus African ancestry can affect how each group responds to certain drugs or fights off specific infections, report researchers from the University of Chicago Medical Center and the Expression Research Laboratory at Affymetrix Inc. of Santa Clara, CA.

New research tools are too complex for easy answers, researchers say

Thu, 27 Dec 2007 21:35:35 -0500

Scientists who study cancer may be prone to drawing simplistic conclusions from the powerful molecular tools now available because they don’t appreciate how complex the data is that is being generated, said a team of Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC) researchers in the January issue of Nature Reviews Cancer.

New plant study reveals a 'deeply hidden' layer of the transcriptome

Thu, 27 Dec 2007 21:35:35 -0500

The image shows a growth-arrested embryo from a mutant Arabidopsis plant that contains a genetic lesion in a gene encoding an essential part of the exosome. The embryo is overlaid on a genome browser image of tiling expression data from an intergenic region that exhibits strong upregulation of a cluster of novel tandem repeat-associated, exosome-regulated transcripts. Cells keep a close watch over the transcriptome – the totality of all parts of the genome that are expressed in any given cell at any given time. Researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and the University of Missouri-Kansas City teamed up to peel back another layer of transcriptional regulation and gain new insight into how genomes work.

Biochip mimics the body to reveal toxicity of industrial compounds

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 19:00:29 -0500

Human liver cells are dotted across the new DataChip to quickly determine if various chemicals, drugs, and drug candidates are toxic. When coupled with the MetaChip, the two biochips could provide a highly predictive alternative to animal testing. Credit: Moo-Yeal Lee/Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute A new biochip technology could eliminate animal testing in the chemicals and cosmetics industries, and drastically curtail its use in the development of new pharmaceuticals, according to new findings from a team of researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the University of California at Berkeley, and Solidus Biosciences Inc.

When she's turned on, some of her genes turn off

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 12:25:05 -0500

When a female is attracted to a male, entire suites of genes in her brain turn on and off, show biologists from The University of Texas at Austin studying swordtail fish.

Biomarkers for inflammatory disease

Thu, 06 Dec 2007 14:35:04 -0500

Gene-expression profiles might be used to identify prognostic biomarkers for Kawasaki disease, and help to unravel the underlying biology of the illness, research published this week in the online open access journal Genome Biology reveals. The new findings also support the idea that gene-expression profiles might be used to generate biomarkers for other systemic inflammatory illnesses.