Articles tagged Gene Expression
(27 results)

They rattle as warning, but during the hunt their strike is silent and sudden. Any rabbit or mouse targeted by a rattlesnake is doomed—the snake’s bite carries a paralyzing venom. The toxins in this venom are proteins encoded by a large gene family that arose by gene duplication. In the July issue of GENETICS, Margres…

Changing where the polyA tail is added to an mRNA transcript can fine-tune the tissue-specific expression of many genes, reports a Caenorhabditis elegans study published in the June issue of GENETICS. Blazie et al. show alternative polyadenylation (APA) allows transcripts to evade microRNA (miRNA) silencing in some tissues, allowing for tissue-specific expression of those genes.…

Deep within a tumor, sequestered from an adequate blood supply, a cancer cell grows and multiplies. Far beneath Earth’s surface, a microbe lives and thrives in similarly low-oxygen conditions. Generally, oxygen depletion causes serious distress to aerobic organisms—what allows these life forms to survive? The cellular response to hypoxia is massive. Hypoxia alters the expression…

To boost transcription of a target gene, enhancer sequences must make contact with the gene’s promoter. This crucial meeting is mediated by interacting proteins and the formation of chromatin loops that bring distant enhancers and promoters together. Although it’s clear that enhancers increase transcription this way, the primary mechanisms by which an enhancer’s target genes…

Symptoms of schizophrenia most commonly begin to creep up in young adulthood. Although genetics play a major role in this complex disorder, narrowing down the search for the genes involved has proven frustratingly difficult. Risk loci identified by genome-wide association studies (GWAS) may contain several genes, making it unclear which of these contribute to pathology.…

In the fast-paced life of a bacterium, the ability to manufacture proteins quickly and efficiently is crucial. In these organisms, mRNAs—the templates for building proteins—have a string of bases near the start called the Shine-Dalgarno (SD) sequence. This motif increases the rate at which translation is initiated. Some results suggest that the presence of SD…

GSA-Art features the creative works of scientists. Read more in GSA President Stan Fields’ call for submissions. If you would like to submit your own work or nominate someone else’s, please send an email to GenesToGenomes@genetics-gsa.org with “GSA-Art” in the subject line. Our first GSA-Art post is by Matthew S. Sachs, a Professor in the Department of Biology at Texas A&M University…

Guest post by Christian R. Landry. #TAGC16 Shorts are brief summaries of presentations at The Allied Genetics Conference, a combined meeting of seven genetics research communities held July 13-17, 2016 in Orlando, Florida. When building new phenotypes, evolution often draws on mutations of the intricate mechanisms that regulate gene expression. If such regulatory mutations are…

While the textbook enhancer is often depicted just upstream of a gene, many enhancers  influence transcription from afar—some can activate genes a million base pairs away. Enhancers can even activate genes on a completely separate chromosome (i.e., in trans), a process called transvection. It’s not known how common transvection is, but an article in the…

The sex of many reptile species is set by temperature. New research reported in the journal GENETICS identifies the first gene associated with temperature-dependent sex determination in any reptile. Variation at this gene in snapping turtles contributes to geographic differences in the way sex ratio is influenced by temperature. Understanding the genetics of sex determination…

Expectant mothers undergo vast physiological changes during pregnancy and in the months following the birth of their children. In humans, fat and total body water increase; plasma protein concentrations decrease; and blood volume, cardiac output, and blood flow to the kidneys increase. We know that these processes are controlled by the central nervous system. What…