By Traci Pedersen Associate News Editor Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on August 2, 2013

A new discovery has changed the way scientists think about non-inherited schizophrenia.

Rather than individual gene mutations being responsible for schizophrenia on their own, its more likely that a gene mutation can damage an entire neural pathway, which creates a ripple effect across networks as the brain develops, according to researchers at the University of Washington.

In fact, what is now known as one disease (schizophrenia) may actually be many different diseases.

Processes critical for the brains development can be revealed by the mutations that disrupt them, saidMary-Claire King, Ph.D., a UW grantee working on the project. Mutations can lead to loss of integrity of a whole pathway, not just of a single gene.

The new research supports the current and relatively new model of schizophrenia as a neurodevelopmental disorder in which psychosis is a late, potentially preventable stage of the illness.

In the study, researchers were able to trace back spontaneous gene mutations to where and when they likely caused brain damage.

They found that some individuals might develop the precursors for schizophrenia even before birth, because their brains produced damaged neurons as a developing fetus.

Previous research had already found a connection between gene mutations and non-inherited schizophrenia that could be traced to genes involved in brain development. Until now, however, scientists knew little about how those gene mutations interact and affect pathways in the brain.

For the study, researchers chose to focus on these pathways using an online tool called the transcriptome an atlas of human brain development that shows where in the brain and when in development genes turn on.

See the rest here:
In Schizophrenia, Single Mutation May Damage Entire Brain Pathway

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

The Kansas Corn Commission hopes a website run by the agriscience industry will put fears about genetically modified crops to rest.

GMOAnswers.com, sponsored by bioscience companies BASF, Bayer CropScience, Dow AgroSciences LLC, DuPont, Monsanto Co. and Syngenta, includes information on genetic engineering in crops and allows members of the public to ask questions about the process and the safety of genetically engineered foods.

Kansas corn commissioner Ken McCauley said organic farmers and some environmentalists have put out arguments against genetically modified foods that arent supported by science, and corn farmers who use modified seeds want to give their side. About 88 percent of the corn grown in the United States is grown from genetically modified seeds, according to the corn commission.

So many times individuals or groups can say anything without any data or backup, he said.

The Kansas Organic Producers Association didnt return a call seeking comment. Organic farmers, by definition, cant grow genetically modified crops.

Genetic modification involves creating desirable traits in plants, such as resistance to drought or insects, by combining DNA from other organisms with the crop. Farmers have crossed similar plants to produce desired crops for centuries, but the advent of genetic engineering makes it possible to use genes from very different plants or even bacteria or other types of organisms.

The Food and Drug Administration has to approve the safety of new genetically modified plants, and other government agencies evaluate their environmental impact. The FDA doesnt conduct the tests itself, but it evaluates studies performed by the company that developed the seed the same process it uses to decide whether to allow new drugs on the market. If genetically modified seeds are determined to be substantially equivalent to existing foods, they are evaluated in the same way as traditional foods, according to an overview of issues related to genetically modified foods published in 2008 in the scientific journal Annual Review of Plant Biology.

Testing safety by having animals consume the genetically modified food and a test group consume its traditional equivalent can be done, the article said, but it is relatively rare because of the large amounts animals would have to eat to conduct a test. Analysis to determine whether the engineered plant produces any substances known to be toxic or cause allergies is more common. A plan to alter the protein content of soybeans was halted after the possibility it would cause reactions in people allergic to Brazil nuts, the Review of Plant Biology article said.

View post:
Kansas Corn Commission hails GMO website

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Genetics, Epigenetics, Biology and the Emotions. Chris Astill-Smith - Chapter 2 of 9

By: Clive Bingham

Excerpt from:
Genetics, Epigenetics, Biology and the Emotions. Chris Astill-Smith - Chapter 2 of 9 - Video

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Genetics, Epigenetics, Biology and the Emotions. Chris Astill-Smith - Chapter 3 of 9

By: Clive Bingham

View original post here:
Genetics, Epigenetics, Biology and the Emotions. Chris Astill-Smith - Chapter 3 of 9 - Video

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

ageLOC TR90 Opportunity - Weight Loss at Genetics

By: agelocmillet

See more here:
ageLOC TR90 Opportunity - Weight Loss at Genetics - Video

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Genetics, Epigenetics, Biology and the Emotions. Chris Astill-Smith - Chapter 7 of 9

By: Clive Bingham

Original post:
Genetics, Epigenetics, Biology and the Emotions. Chris Astill-Smith - Chapter 7 of 9 - Video

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Genetics, Epigenetics, Biology and the Emotions. Chris Astill-Smith - Chapter 9 of 9

By: Clive Bingham

See the rest here:
Genetics, Epigenetics, Biology and the Emotions. Chris Astill-Smith - Chapter 9 of 9 - Video

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Genetics and Plant Breeding in Interwar Britain: A Double Forgetting of History
This is a paper I presented at the 24th International Congress of History of Science, Technology and Medicine, held in Manchester. A huge thank you to all th...

By: Dominic Berry

Excerpt from:
Genetics and Plant Breeding in Interwar Britain: A Double Forgetting of History - Video

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Don #39;t Fight Your Genetics
Video reveals the best diet to lose weight http://www.thephysiqueformula.com Want to build muscle? Hire jimmy http://www.jimmysmithtraining.com What suppleme...

By: jimmysmithtraining

View post:
Don't Fight Your Genetics - Video

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

How genetics and environment work together to shape our destiny: Milena Georgieva at TEDxAUBG
A young scientist in Bulgaria with lots of prestigious awards for best scientific excellence practices I put my all energy in revealing the secrets of the wa...

By: TEDxTalks

See the original post:
How genetics and environment work together to shape our destiny: Milena Georgieva at TEDxAUBG - Video

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Add productivity and profitability with Balancer genetics
Scott Hamilton, a cow-calf producer in South Dakota, uses Balancer bulls to add productivity and profitability in his calves as well as his cow herd. For more information, visit http://www.gelbvieh.org.

By: AmericanGelbvieh

See the rest here:
Add productivity and profitability with Balancer genetics - Video

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Macular Degeneration And Acupuncture: Gene Therapy and Stem Cell for AMD Safe?
http://www.MacularDegenerationSupport.com or (908) 264-5484 Download the FULL webinar for free by clicking the link. Dr. Andy Rosenfarb conducted an hour lon...

By: Dr. Andy Rosenfarb

More here:
Macular Degeneration And Acupuncture: Gene Therapy and Stem Cell for AMD Safe? - Video

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

OMICS Group Gene Therapy 2012 Opening Ceremony

By: Srinu Babu Gedela

Read the original post:
OMICS Group Gene Therapy 2012 Opening Ceremony - Video

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Gene Therapy for the Eyes is Coming of Age
Dr. Joe talks more about gene therapy. http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/hum.2013.050.

By: Joe Prendergast

See the article here:
Gene Therapy for the Eyes is Coming of Age - Video

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

The Personalized Medicine project and the Trial Outline Builder tool
Prof. Yuzuru Tanaka, a professor of the Department of Computer Science in Hokkaido University talks about his role in the Personalized Medicine project helpi...

By: ecancer medicalscience

Go here to see the original:
The Personalized Medicine project and the Trial Outline Builder tool - Video

Recommendation and review posted by sam

The personalized medicine project and improving user interfaces for clinicians and patients
Dr. Dieter Wallach, the managing director of Ergosign discusses the collaboration between Ergosign and p-medicine in creating user interfaces for clinicians and patients. He also talks about...

By: ecancer medicalscience

The rest is here:
The personalized medicine project and improving user interfaces for clinicians and patients - Video

Recommendation and review posted by sam

The Personalized Medicine project: How semantic interoperability will improve treating patients
David Perez-Rey discusses his involvement with semantic interoperability and data model issues in the Personalized Medicine project, the main differences tha...

By: ecancer medicalscience

Read more:
The Personalized Medicine project: How semantic interoperability will improve treating patients - Video

Recommendation and review posted by sam

The Personalized Medicine project and the Clinical Decision Support tool
Dr. Anca Bucur of Royal Philips Electronics of the Netherlands discusses Philips involvement in the Personalized Medicine project in helping create the Clini...

By: ecancer medicalscience

See the rest here:
The Personalized Medicine project and the Clinical Decision Support tool - Video

Recommendation and review posted by sam

Everybody #39;s Doing It! Aging with a Spinal Cord Injury
People with SCI are living longer after injury than ever before. Consequently, they can now expect to live long enough to develop the same kinds of age-relat...

By: UWSpinalCordInjury

More here:
Everybody's Doing It! Aging with a Spinal Cord Injury - Video

Recommendation and review posted by sam

Training Day mit Querschnittslhmung - Spinal Cord Injury
via YouTube Capture.

By: Soufian21

Read the original:
Training Day mit Querschnittslähmung - Spinal Cord Injury - Video

Recommendation and review posted by sam

John Barker - Regenerative medicine and body cures
Regeneration to most of us conjures up a scene from a long forgotten science fiction movie, but John Barker, Director, Frankfurt Initiative for Regenerative ...

By: IFTV

View original post here:
John Barker - Regenerative medicine and body cures - Video

Recommendation and review posted by sam

Mac Stem Cell Therapy 2012
Before and After Mac #39;s Stem Cell Therapy. Surgery done by Dr. Mark McCloskey, DVM, Columbus, OH.

By: Mary Hammond

See original here:
Mac Stem Cell Therapy 2012 - Video

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Cardiac Reconstruction: The Latest in Cell Therapy - kchrs2011
Cardiac Reconstruction: The Latest in Cell Therapy - kchrs2011.

By: Dhanunjaya Lakkireddy

View original post here:
Cardiac Reconstruction: The Latest in Cell Therapy - kchrs2011 - Video

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Aug. 2, 2013 Specific mutations (N676K) in the FLT3 receptor can contribute to the development of acute myeloid leukemia. The FLT3 receptor regulates cell growth, while activating gene mutations promote the uncontrolled proliferation of white blood cells. These findings were reported in the specialist journal Blood by a group of scientists from the Helmholtz Zentrum Mnchen and the Hospital of the Ludwig Maximilians University (LMU) in Munich as part of a clinical research collaboration with the German Cancer Consortium (DKTK). The results provide the basis for the development of new leukemia treatments using specific inhibitors, which block growth signals.

Gene mutations often trigger cancer. These changes in the DNA mostly affect the regulators of cellular metabolism or cell growth, which cause cells to degenerate and proliferate rapidly. Many such gene mutations that cause leukemia have been identified.

In about one third of patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) the malignant cells have a mutation in the growth-regulating FLT3 receptor. As the team of scientists headed by Dr. Philipp Greif and Professor Karsten Spiekermann have now discovered, blood cancer cells from a substantial number of patients in a subgroup of AML (so-called core-binding factor leukemias) also carry mutations in this receptor. Mutations affecting amino-acid position N676 have not been previously detected and may allow a new classification of this form of leukemia, which is characterized by extremely high white blood cell counts. "The FLT3 receptor mutations we have found in these leukemia patients provide a new basis for treating the disease," says Dr. Philipp Greif. "We already have FLT3 receptor inhibitors at hand, which we can now use to treat the affected patients."

The study was conducted by the clinical cooperative group "Pathogenesis of acute myeloid leukemia," a collaboration between the Helmholtz Zentrum Mnchen (HMGU) and the Department of Internal Medicine 3 at the Hospital of the Ludwig Maximilians University (LMU). The project leader and last author, Dr. Philipp Greif, heads a team of young scientists funded by the German Cancer Consortium (DKTK) within the clinical cooperative group. Professor Wolfgang Hiddemann, who heads the group, stresses the importance of this interdisciplinary collaboration: "Our results show in an exemplary way how innovative research methods, such as high-throughput DNA sequencing, allow discoveries, even in structures that have already been thoroughly examined. These insights into the molecular basis of the disease open up new treatment options for patients."

Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:

Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:

Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by Helmholtz Zentrum Muenchen - German Research Centre for Environmental Health.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

Journal Reference:

See more here:
Discovery of novel gene mutations in leukemia patients opens up personalized therapy options

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Aug. 2, 2013 A study of gene expression led by scientists at the EMBL-European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) and the University of Cambridge has revealed the first steps of evolution in gene regulation in mice. Published in the journal Cell, the research has implications for the study of differences in gene regulation between people.

"We found an impressive amount of variation between these apparently very similar mice in terms of transcription-factor binding, which is an important indicator of gene-regulation activity," says Paul Flicek of EMBL-EBI. "Often you'll see a specific combination of these transcription factors acting in concert -- and it was fascinating for us to see just how important these combinations are. They're much more likely to be conserved over the course of evolution than whatever DNA sequence they might be binding to."

The team studied gene expression in five very closely related mouse species in order to pinpoint changes at the very earliest stages of evolution. To do this, they compared the way that three transcription factors (TFs) bind to genes to control if they're turned on or off in liver cells in the different mouse species.

"By looking at mice that are very closely related to each other, we were able to capture a snapshot of what regulatory evolution is happening," explains Duncan Odom of the University of Cambridge. "That's important because it's much harder to see how something has evolved when you don't have a clear picture of the starting point."

Say you wanted to know how an orange tree evolved, but you could only compare it to an elm or oak. You'd have greater insight into how an orange tree evolved if you could compare it to much more closely related plants like grapefruit and lemons, which could give insight into how each came from an ancestral citrus plant. In this study, instead of comparing leaf and fruit shapes, the team looked at gene regulation in mice that had only recently diverged from one another. They demonstrated that TFs work in clusters that are conserved in order to ensure genetic and evolutionary stability.

The researchers contrasted their findings with gene-regulation data from another model organism, Drosophila, to see where the similarities lay. They found that there were a lot more differences between closely related mouse strains than there are between distantly related fruit-fly strains.

"Mammals have lots of DNA kicking around that doesn't code for proteins, while fruit flies have relatively little. So a mouse's regulatory wiring will just have a lot more wiggle room than a fruit fly's," says Paul. "That gives us a clearer picture of what we can expect to learn about mammalian genetic regulation from fruit flies."

The study could help scientists understand how gene regulation differs from one person to the next, explaining why genes that cause disease in some people don't have that effect in others.

Follow this link:
Study of gene expression has revealed first steps of evolution in gene regulation in mice

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith