Month: September 2022

OPEN ISSUES. "For instance, what types of functional elements in DNA, RNA, or proteins are most often affected by regulatory variants? Which stages of gene regulation are typically altered? How can we predict which variants are most likely to impact regulation in a given cell type?" https://lnkd.in/dFv6Tsi View in LinkedIn

EARLY DAYS. "We still have a limited ability to interpret how genetic variants alter gene regulation. We do not know how to “read the genome” and predict gene regulatory outputs. Our understanding of regulatory mechanisms and biochemical interactions has not yet matured into an ability to “read the code” and fully model transcriptional regulation." https://lnkd.in/dFv6Tsi View in LinkedIn

NOVEL REGULATORY MECHANISMS. "Recent studies, in many cases using quantitative trait loci (QTL)-mapping approaches in cell lines or tissue samples, have provided us with considerable insight into the properties of genetic loci that have regulatory roles. Such studies have uncovered novel biochemical regulatory interactions and led to the identification of previously unrecognized regulatory mechanisms." https://lnkd.in/dFv6Tsi View in LinkedIn

DEAR READERS, your readership of my posts proves that you have an appetite for deeply technical subjects that are not dumbed-down, in a world of sound-bites and diluted science. This has been a test balloon to see how far you will go, and has surpassed my greatest expectations. This is a high-flying biological-themed journal club. Thank you all, as I love doing this!! View in LinkedIn

MASSIVE REGULATORS. "Micro-RNAs (miRNAs) represent a class of small non-coding RNAs (typically 19–23 nucleotides) which act by annealing to partially complementary binding sites present on the 3' untranslated regions (UTR) of messenger RNAs (mRNAs) leading to inhibition of protein translation or by inducing mRNA decay. In mammals, miRNA regulate tissue-specific protein expression and are involved in virtually all cellular processes. Up to one-third of mammalian mRNAs are susceptible to miRNA-mediated regulation." https://lnkd.in/dRP_E_K View in LinkedIn

NEW CLASS OF GENES. "Noncoding regulatory RNAs, such as miRNAs, are a recently discovered class of genes, and the number of miRNA genes that exist among eukaryotic genomes is very much an open question. Many miRNA genes are evolutionarily conserved and may have functional orthologs in multiple species." https://lnkd.in/dmzSnGT View in LinkedIn

ADAPTATIONS AND DISEASE. "Accumulating evidence indicates that gene regulatory changes often contribute to species-specific adaptations as well as to within-species variation in complex phenotypes, such as interindividual variation in susceptibility to disease." https://lnkd.in/dFv6Tsi View in LinkedIn

TRANSPOSABLE ELEMENT DRIVERS. "In terms of evolution, this means that the greatest differences between eukaryotic genomes will correspond to TE sequences. In this sense, TEs can be considered as drivers of genome diversification. This may be uninteresting if TEs serve only to replicate themselves and do not play any role for their host genomes as the selfish DNA theory of TEs holds." (TE = transposable elements). http://www.genetics.org/content/176/2/1323 View in LinkedIn

FUNCTIONALITY. "However, if some TEs are in fact functionally relevant to their hosts, as we have shown here for the case of TE-derived miRNAs, then their divergence may have important evolutionary implications." (TE = transposable elements). http://www.genetics.org/content/176/2/1323 View in LinkedIn

VIRAL JUMPING GENES to miRNAs. "Origin and Evolution of Human microRNAs From Transposable Elements. We found 55 experimentally characterized human miRNA genes that are derived from TEs, and these TE-derived miRNAs have the potential to regulate thousands of human genes. In addition to the known human miRNAs that we show to be derived from TE sequences, we predict an additional 85 novel TE-derived miRNA genes." (TE = transposable elements). http://www.genetics.org/content/176/2/1323 View in LinkedIn