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Pop karnchanapimonkul

Dieting During Pregnancy Increases Risk Of Obesity And Diabetes For Offspring - 0 views

www.medicalnewstoday.com/...243627.php

dieting obesity diabetes epigenics offspring

shared by Pop karnchanapimonkul on 14 Apr 12 - No Cached
  • babies of mothers who diet around the time of conception and in early pregnancy, may have an increased risk of obesity and type 2 diabetes throughout their lives. This study provides exciting insights into how behavior can lead to epigenetic changes in offspring related to obesity and disease.
  • dieting around the time a baby is conceived may increase the chance of the child becoming obese later in life
  • changes in the genes that control food intake and glucose levels that may lead to obesity and diabetes.
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  • epigenetic changes with alterations in the structure of the DNA and its associated proteins, histones, which affects the way that genes can behave in later life.
  • Pop karnchanapimonkul on 14 Apr 12
     
    Article about how dieting during pregnancy cause offsprings to have a change in genes.
nidthamsirisup

Mysterious Noncoding DNA: 'Junk' or Genetic Power Player? | PBS NewsHour - 0 views

www.pbs.org/...junk-dna.html

noncoding DNA gene

shared by nidthamsirisup on 15 Apr 12 - No Cached
  • Genes represent only a tiny fraction -- 1 percent -- of our overall genetic material. Then there's the other 99 percent of our DNA -- the stuff that doesn't make protein
  • Researchers have found that some of this noncoding DNA is in fact essential to how our genes function and plays a role in how we look, how we act and the diseases that afflict us.
  • Embedded in this 99 percent is DNA responsible for the mechanics of gene behavior: regulatory DNA. Greg Wray of Duke University's Institute for Genome Sciences and Policy describes the regulatory DNA as the software for our genes, a set of instructions that tells the genome how to use the traditional coding genes.
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  • "It's like a recipe book," Wray said. "It tells you how to make the meal. You need to know the amounts. You need to know the order. The noncoding DNA tells you how much to make, when to make it and under what circumstances."
  • common diseases are probably more influenced by regulatory differences, Harismendy said. These include Type 2 diabetes, Crohn's disease, Alzheimer's Disease and a variety of cancers, including breast, colon, ovarian, prostate and lung.
  • According to Wray, research has shown that diseases like bipolar syndrome and clinical depression may be associated with noncoding mutations that determine whether the brain is producing too much or not enough of a particular neurotransmitter. One noncoding mutation gives a person almost complete protection against the nasty malaria parasite, plasmodium vivax.
  • Another piece of noncoding DNA regulates the enzyme responsible for lactose tolerance, the ability to digest milk. Research by Wray and other scientists has shown that in four populations where dairy consumption is a vital part of the diet, new mutations have appeared that essentially keep the gene that produces the lactase enzyme from switching off.
  • And recent research done by evolutionary biologists suggests that differences in regulatory DNA may represent a major part of what separates us from chimpanzees.
nidthamsirisup

Epigenetics: DNA Isn't Everything - 0 views

www.sciencedaily.com/...090412081315.htm

epigenetics genetics gene

shared by nidthamsirisup on 15 Apr 12 - Cached
  • Research into epigenetics has shown that environmental factors affect characteristics of organisms. These changes are sometimes passed on to the offspring.
  • A certain laboratory strain of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster has white eyes. If the surrounding temperature of the embryos, which are normally nurtured at 25 degrees Celsius, is briefly raised to 37 degrees Celsius, the flies later hatch with red eyes.
  • crossed the flies for six generations. In this experiment, they were able to prove that the temperature treatment changes the eye colour of this specific strain of fly, and that the treated individual flies pass on the change to their offspring over several generations. However, the DNA sequence for the gene responsible for eye colour was proven to remain the same for white-eyed parents and red-eyed offspring.
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  • Epigenetics examines the inheritance of characteristics that are not set out in the DNA sequence.
  • important factors are the histones, a kind of packaging material for the DNA, in order to store DNA in an ordered and space-saving way. It is now clear that these proteins have additional roles to play. Depending on the chemical group they carry, if they are acetylated or methylated, they permanently activate or deactivate genes.
  • New methods now allow researchers to sometimes directly show which genes have been activated or deactivated by the histones
  • The genetic information of the DNA is passed on along with the relevant epigenetic information for the respective cell type.
  • A similar question remains for the inheritance of the epigenetic characteristics from parents to offspring. They now know that when the gametes are formed, certain epigenetic markers remain and are passed on to the offspring. The questions, which are currently being researched, are how much and which part of the epigenetic information is preserved and subsequently inherited.
  • Diet and epigenetics appear to be closely linked. The most well known example is that of the Agouti mice: they are yellow, fat and are prone to diabetes and cancer. If Agouti females are fed with a cocktail of vitamin B12, folic acid and cholin, directly prior to and during pregnancy, they give birth to mainly brown, slim and healthy offspring. They in turn mainly have offspring similar to themselves.
  • Environmental factors, which change the characteristics of an individual and are then passed on to its offspring, do not really fit into Darwin’s theory of evolution. According to his theory, evolution is the result of the population and not the single individual. “Passing on the gained characteristics fits more to Lamarck’s theory of evolution”, says Paro.
Sasicha Manupipatpong

New genes linked to brain size, intelligence - 2 views

www.sciencedaily.com/...120415150123.htm

genes linked brain size intelligence

shared by Sasicha Manupipatpong on 16 Apr 12 - No Cached
  • genes that increase your risk for a single disease that your children can inherit
  • factors that cause tissue atrophy and reduce brain size, which is a biological marker for hereditary disorders
  • schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, Alzheimer’s disease and dementia
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  • sample large enough to reveal clear patterns in genetic variation and show how these changes physically alter the brain
  • screened the genomes of people suffering from a specific brain disease and combed their DNA to uncover a common variant.
  • gene variants that deplete brain tissue beyond normal in a healthy person
  • unearth new genetic variants in people who have bigger brains as well as differences in regions critical to learning and memory
  • smaller brains
  • variations in their DNA that help boost or lower their brains’ susceptibility to a vast range of diseases
  • consistent relationship between subtle shifts in the genetic code and diminished memory centers
  • People also can take preventive steps through exercise, diet and mental stimulation to erase the effects of a bad gene
  • Once we identify the gene, we can target it with a drug to reduce the risk of disease
  • genes that explain individual differences in intelligence
  • People whose HMGA2 gene held a letter “C” instead of “T” on that location of the gene possessed larger brains and scored more highly on standardized IQ tests
  • gene called HMGA2 affected brain size as well as a person’s intelligence
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  • Sasicha Manupipatpong on 16 Apr 12
     
    Specific genes have been identified which affect brain size and intelligence--a difference of one nucleotide in the DNA sequence could determine how well you score on a standardized IQ test.
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