Category: Uncategorized

SPONTANEOUS MUTANTS. "But mutants can arise out of the blue too. Even if a population consists entirely of the same strain (which you can set up through cloning), resistant or sensitive mutants develop spontaneously in a very short span of time. Prions, it seems, are very quick to adapt." https://lnkd.in/dVZWBhV View in LinkedIn

PIECES OF THE CLOCK. "The seasonality of bud dormancy with undefined repeated cycles of growth–dormancy along the life of an individual, the major role of hormones such as ABA, and the occurrence of dormancy-related processes on preformed flowers located within buds instead of vegetative tissues, among other particularities, suggest the existence of yet unknown exciting pieces in the “clock.”." https://lnkd.in/duD22Cw View in LinkedIn

ADAPTED STRAINS. "Li found that prions taken from brain tissue are different to those grown in cells cultured in a laboratory. The brain-adapted prions are capable of infected nerve tissue and they’re resistant to a drug called swainsonine (swa) that completely blocks the growth of other strains. The cell-adapted prions lack both these abilities but they’re better at growing in cell cultures." https://lnkd.in/dVZWBhV View in LinkedIn

EXPANSIVE FRONTIER. "The rich literature describing vernalization in model plants may radically accelerate the knowledge of the epigenetics of bud dormancy regulation over the next few years, but it will require the implementation of more informative biochemical and functional approaches in perennial species to complement previous genetic and genomic studies." https://lnkd.in/duD22Cw View in LinkedIn

QUASI-ALIVE. "The remarkable finding that prions can mutate and adapt to their environment imbues them with a further attribute of living things, without however elevating them to the status of being ‘alive’." https://lnkd.in/dVZWBhV View in LinkedIn

EPIGENETIC SIGNALS. "As new details of the epigenetic regulation of gene expression during bud dormancy processes emerge, its mechanistic similarities with the well-known regulation of Arabidopsis FLC gene are becoming increasingly evident." https://lnkd.in/duD22Cw View in LinkedIn

INHERITED CHANGE. "This process follows the principles of Darwinian evolution, the same principles that shape the genetic material of viruses, bacteria and other living things. In DNA, mutations manifest as changes in the bases that line the famous double helix. In prions, mutations are essentially different styles of molecular origami. In both cases, they are selectively inherited and they can lead to adaptations such as drug resistance. In prions, it happens in the absence of any genetic material." https://lnkd.in/dVZWBhV View in LinkedIn

TRANSCRIPTION FACTORS. "The similarities of bud dormancy in perennials with the vernalization treatment for flowering in Arabidopsis and cereals reside in their common requirement of a time period of quantitative and cumulative chilling, and the participation of certain MADS-box domain transcription factors with key regulatory tasks." https://lnkd.in/duD22Cw View in LinkedIn

PRION STRAINS. "Li has found that variation can creep into populations of initially identical prions. Their amino acid sequence stays the same but their already abnormal structures become increasingly twisted. These “mutant” forms have varying degrees of success in different environments. Some do well in brain tissue; others thrive in other types of cell. In each case, natural selection culls the least successful ones. The survivors pass on their structure to the “next generation”, by altering the folds of normal prion proteins." https://lnkd.in/dVZWBhV View in LinkedIn

EVOLUTION WITHOUT DNA. "Prions – the infectious proteins behind mad cow disease, CJD and kuru – are capable of Darwinian evolution, all without a single strand of DNA or its sister molecule RNA." https://lnkd.in/dVZWBhV View in LinkedIn