How to live 400 years

Genome of the longest-lived vertebrate decoded: It is huge and has special repair capabilities

12-Sep-2024 - The Greenland Shark (Somniosus microcephalus), an elusive dweller of the depths of the northern Atlantic and the Arctic Ocean, is the world’s longest-living vertebrate, with an estimated lifespan of about 400 years. An international team of scientists has mapped the Greenland Shark’s genome for ...

Tracking Molecules at Turbo Speed

Researchers devise method to speed up observations of high-throughput microbiological process

17-Jan-2024 - Being able to observe micro-organisms and their cellular components is key to understanding fundamental processes that go on inside cells—and thus potentially developing new medical treatments. Microbiologists and biophysicists from the University of Bonn have now developed a method that makes ...

Real-time observation of enzymatic processes on DNA

Insights into the molecular processes involved in the detection of DNA strand breaks

05-May-2020 - DNA strand breaks can contribute to the development of cancer and the ageing process. Researchers from the Departments of Biology and Chemistry of the University of Konstanz have now been able to observe in real time the molecular processes that take place at DNA strand breaks by means of ...

Precise, Highly Efficient Gene Repair

Researchers develop new CRISPR/Cas process using Japanese ricefish

31-Aug-2018 - The molecular tool CRISPR/Cas allows introducing DNA double strand breaks into any gene of interest consequently resulting in stochastic mutations at the site of the target gene. However, precise gene repair through the application of a rescue construct suffers from limited efficiency. ...

A DNA 'shield' with crucial roles in normal cell division

20-Jul-2018 - In immune cells, this is crucial to make antibodies In cancer, mutations in complex could lead to resistance to BRCA-targeting PARP inhibitor drugs or platinum chemotherapies Scientists have made a major discovery about how cells repair broken strands of DNA that could have huge implications for ...

How the most common DNA mutation happens

05-Feb-2018 - Researchers describe how two normally mismatched bases in human DNA, guanine and thymine, are able to change shape in order to form an inconspicuous rung on the helical DNA "ladder." This allows them to survive by avoiding the body's natural defenses against genetic mutations. "When these two ...

Why do BRCA1 mutations cause predominantly breast and ovarian cancer?

20-Jul-2017 - The human body holds many mysteries, and function of the BRCA1 gene is among them. Women who inherit a faulty copy of BRCA1 have up to a 65 percent chance to develop breast cancer by age 70. They also have up to a 39 percent chance to develop ovarian cancer. Rong Li, Ph.D., and colleagues at The ...

Scientists identify how repair protein finds DNA damage

10-Oct-2016 - Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI) have demonstrated how Rad4, a protein involved in DNA repair, scans the DNA in a unique pattern of movement called "constrained motion" to efficiently find structural faults in DNA. ...

More detailed analysis of how cells react to stress

09-Feb-2016 - Stress in the body’s cells is both the cause and consequence of inflammatory diseases or cancer. The cells react to stress to protect themselves. Researchers at the University of Zurich have now developed a new technique that allows studying a fundamental response to stress in much more detail ...

Researchers develop nanoscale probes for ssDNA sustainability under UV radiation

10-Dec-2015 - DNA, which stores genetic information in the majority of organisms on Earth, is not easily destroyed. It readily absorbs ultraviolet (UV) radiation, but finds ways to recover. To combat radiation's damage, cells have developed DNA repair mechanisms, as well as mechanisms to remove the energy ...