Plegable biología molecular

MOLECULAR BIOLOGY´S FOLDING

Andrea Urrego VásquezMedicine student

3rd semester

FOLDING

FOLDING

INTRODUCTION

Mapping DNA is a technique useful to define how epigenetic effects changes in individual cells during early development, and could enhance clinical applications in cancer and fertility therapies.

Enhancers are the ones that controls gene´s output by finding their targets before they are activated during embryonic developments.

Powerful single-cell technique to study environmental effects on DNA

New technique maps life's effects on our DNA: Powerful single-cell technique to study environmental effects on DNABiotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council. (2014, July 20).

Researchers at the BBSRC-funded Babraham Institute, in collaboration with the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute Single Cell Genomics Centre, have developed a powerful new single-cell technique to help investigate how epigenetic affects our cells, capable of analyzing DNA methylation (one of the key epigenetic) marks, across the whole genome


• Current methods observe epigenetic marks in groups of cells. This can hide the modifications happening in individual cells during development when each cell has the potential to grow up in a unique way. The new method has already revealed that many of the methylation marks that differ between individual cells are precisely located in sites that control gene activity.

• The method treats the cellular DNA with a chemical called bisulphite. Treated DNA is then amplified and read on high-throughput sequencing machines to show up the location of methylation marks and the genes being affected.

• This exciting new method has already given some remarkable insights into how much variation there is in the epigenetic information in embryonic stem cells.



This single-cell technique will approach science to understand all of embryonic development, and finally could enhance clinical applications like cancer therapy and fertility treatments.


Student´s observation

I think investigators should pursue this technique to give us concrete results in clinical application , cancer and fertility treatments, so that way this technique will be allowed in several laboratories as well as a karyotype .

Unexpected stability and complexity in transcriptional enhancers' interactions

Embryology: Unexpected stability and complexity in transcriptional enhancers' interactionsEuropean Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL). (2014, July 3)

Scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, reveals that, the degree of complexity of enhancers' interactions in the 'simple' fruit fly Drosophila is comparable to what is seen in vertebrates.


To activate a gene, an enhancer has to come into contact with the portion of DNA at the start of the gene its promoter. For enhancers that are located far away from their targets, the cell achieves this by looping the DNA around to bring about that contact.


• In developing fruit fly embryos, these DNA loops are formed, contact is established, and the cell's gene-reading machinery is recruited, hours before the gene is expressed. The results indicate that the whole system is primed in advance, ready to spring to action when needed.

• When they looked at all the enhancers that are known in Drosophila and mapped what genes they establish contacts with, the EMBL scientists discovered that these genetic regulators act across long distances in the genome, and in complex ways.


For Furlong, Ghavi-Helm and colleagues, the study opens up a lot of questions:1. At what point in an embryo's life do

enhancer loops form? 2. How long after a gene has been switched

off do the loops remain? 3. If loop formation isn't the trigger for gene

activation, what is? 4. What's the exact role of the contacts they

have found? 5. Are all an enhancer's interactions are

happening at the same time in the same cell?


I think these project could be important because if we can get closer to know how enhancers act upon genes expression and how long they maintain a connection between the genes will be near to discovered how to work on those enhancers and regulates the outputs of damaged genes or the ones that causes diseases.

Student´s observation

MEDICAL UTILITY

These investigation will have a huge impact on the current medicine because, it will push the improvement of gene therapy.

MEDICAL UTILITY

Genetic is one of the biggest medical crossroads. With these advances in science, medicine will be closer to regulate the expression of damaged genes and the consequences of them.

MEDICAL UTILITY

The research about the function of enhancer during embryonic development will be very beneficial in the future, because if the investigators pursue and answer all the questions, especially the one about how long the enhancers keep a connection between the gene after it is off?, for science would be easier to work on those enhancers related to several genes that generates diseases before their expression.

MEDICAL UTILITY

On the other hand these studies give us a way of mapping cells during embryonic developments or in adults, and know which of those cells could be a potential risk for the body in the future as a consequence of epigenetic effects. These bring us into a new era where gene therapy will play and important roll on how to treat and avoid diseases.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL). (2014, July 3). Embryology: Unexpected stability and complexity in transcriptional enhancers' interactions. ScienceDaily. Web, July 22, 2014.

• Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council. (2014, July 20). New technique maps life's effects on our DNA: Powerful single-cell technique to study environmental effects on DNA. ScienceDaily. Web, July 22, 2014 .

Health & Medicine

Plegable biología molecular