“The team compiled the first catalogue of all the RNA transcripts expressed in N. viridescens, looking at both primary and regenerated tissue in the heart, limbs and eyes of both embryos and larvae.
The researchers found more than 120,000 RNA transcripts, of which they estimate 15,000 code for proteins. Of those, 826 were unique to the newt. What is more, several of those sequences were expressed at different levels in regenerated tissue than in primary tissue.” Click picture for more.
New research shows that the brains of humans undergo similar genetic changes when learning languages when compared to birds’ brains while learning songs. From Science News:
Jarvis’ team analyzed tissue from throughout the brains of three humans, measuring the amount of particular molecules made by a given gene to determine how active it is. They compared the results with brain tissue from bird species capable of vocal imitation and song learning — such as songbirds, hummingbirds and parrots — as well as birds that don’t, such as doves and quails.
The vocal-learning birds and humans share a distinct pattern of activity in roughly 40 genes in analogous regions called Area X in birds and the anterior striatum at the base of the forebrain in humans. These structures are involved in imitation.
The team also found similar patterns of activity in a different set of about 40 genes in regions involved in speech and song production. For birds that was in the robust nucleus of the acropallium, or RA nucleus, and for humans, the laryngeal motor cortex. Previous studies have found connections between the laryngeal motor cortex, which is located in a part of the brain that controls voluntary movement, and brainstem nerve cells that control muscles of the larynx, the organ that produces sound. Similar connections have been found in the analogous regions of bird brains.
Penicillium chrysogenum bacteria
Penicillium bacteria were thought to reproduce asexually. A new study shows that a certain strain of the bacteria still has the genes required to carry out sexual reproduction and that these genes are linked to the production of penicillin. From SciAm:
Paul Dyer, a fungal biologist at the University of Nottingham in England, suspected that P. chrysogenum would reproduce sexually if given the right encouragement. A complete sequencing of the fungi’s genome revealed that P. chyrosogenum still carried the genes needed for mating. “That told us that there was perhaps sexual compatibility there,” he says. So Dyer and researchers at several other European institutions tried to find the ideal conditions that would encourage P.chrysogenum to have sex.
First, Dyer and his colleagues paired strains with compatible mating genes (P. chyrosogenum has two different sexes) and grew them with different food and light conditions. The winning combination was an oatmeal-base supplemented with a vitamin called biotin. After five weeks in the dark, the fungi produced special structures called cleistothecia and ascospores, which only occur after sexualreproduction. Genetic analysis confirmed that genes had been sexually recombined. “We’ve now revealed its secret sexual side,” Dyer says.
Furthermore, the researchers discovered that the genes that regulate the fungi’s sexual ability also control the amount of penicillin it produces; the fungi that are having sex make more penicillin. The team published their findings online in January in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “I’ve believed for a long time that these guys were having sex but they were just doing it in secret,” says Joan W. Bennett, a professor of plant biology and pathology at Rutgers University, who was not involved in the work.
Researchers are hoping that this leads to more efficient penicillin production or maybe even the discovery of new antibiotics.