Welcome to Mendel’s Garden #2! Can you feel the excitement? The anticipation?
Learning about genetics is no longer a pastime limited to the lab bench. As we continue to gather knowledge about the genetics of all the organisms living on Earth, we’re realizing how much more we have yet to learn. And even though we have gone beyond the Central Dogma of Biology, it’s still a solid foundation on which to build.
Today’s Mendel’s Garden will be divided into the the three main parts of the Central Dogma – DNA for basic genetics research, RNA for beyond the genetics lab, and protein for practical genetics applications in everyday life.
DNA – Basic Genetics Research
Bora aka Coturnix at A Blog Around The Clock tells us about genes involved in regulating the circadian clock of Drosophila. The newest one is called JETLAG following a previous one named TIMELESS. Who says scientists aren’t clever with words? Regardless, scientists are definitely adept at finding ways to occupy their time (har har) with some measuring the expression of clock genes in trees. Yawn. (Just kidding!)
Ricardo Azevedo at Redundantia ad absurdum isn’t sleeping, though. He’s too busy “discussing” C. elegans dev bio with Salvador Cordova, a believer in intelligent design (ID) creationism, in particular redundant vulval development mechanisms. What’s the big brouhaha? Salvador believes redundancy provides evidence for ID creationism. Ricardo, obviously, isn’t buying any of it until someone shows that redundancy is an impossibility under natural selection.
Another Salvador Ricardo should get along with is at Viva La Evolucion. Salvador Almagro shows us how some eukaryotes evolved by engulfing others via endosymbiotic processes. Talk about big
fish cells eating little fish cells.
Continuing with our study of cells, Alex Palazzo at The Daily Transcript tells us about a recent Nature manuscript that used yeast to examine gene expression. Check out which genes and resulting proteins were “noisier” than the others and why this is important..
RNA – Beyond the Genetics Lab
Out in the wild where butterflies flit to-and-fro, members of the butterfly species, Heliconius heurippa are amazing researchers who found that they’re actually a hybrid between H. cydno and H. melpomene. The hybridization of plants is a commonly observed phenomenon but hybridization in animals is very rare. GrrlScientist at Living the Scientific Life writes up the story of scientists as nature detectives as they discover the hybrid daughter species of butterflies and continue along the trail by crossbreeding wild specimens and analyzing their DNA in the lab.
If Florida panthers could hybridize as easily as the butterflies, they probably would have done so in order to increase the population’s genetic diversity. Sandra Porter of Discovering biology in a Digital World tells us how despite disagreement among population biologists on whether the Florida panthers needed “new blood” or new genes, the Florida panthers did finally met some Texas cats and we hope they’ll live happily ever after.
Tara Smith at Aetiology has also been spending some time thinking about animals in the wild. She wrote about the chimpanzee origin of HIV-1 and reminds us that the transmission of the simian immunodeficiency virus into the human population is probably an ongoing process.
And also out in the wild where humans flit to-and-fro, Razib of Gene Expression uses the example of human height to demonstrate how changes in the mean height of a normally distributed population with the same standard deviation can actually result in substantial differences, probably much more than you’d expect, between the two populations. He relates it to microevolutionary processes and says the discussion a “quick primer on the abstract background to quantitative genetics.” I suspect it will make you want to learn more.
In the wilderness and human civilization, bacteria coexist with us and other animals. Jason Bobe at The Personal Genome teaches us about our friendly neighborhood micro-organisms roaming our bodies both inside and out.
Protein – Practical Genetics Applications
Joe Kissell at Interesting Thing of the Day loves his kitty so much that he’s willing to endure allergies to the cat protein Fel d 1. Luckily for him, transgenic pets will soon be available: hypoallergenic cats and glow-in-the-dark zebra fish too (cleverly named GloFish). Learn more about some concerns surrounding designer pets.
Another pet lover, Paul Decelles, at The force that through…, talks about the study of Batten disease in both humans and Tibetan Terriers. If anything, you have to go see this post just for the darling puppy picture. Awwww.
Pets are a great stress reliever but so is alcohol. RPM at evolgen explains how–using the example of genes in grapes used for producing wine–traditional methods of crossing plants are not quite so different than current genetic engineering except for the time involved. (There’s that clock ticking again, maybe I should have made the theme for this Mendel’s Garden something to do with time.)
Beyond pets and wine, however, there’s the very real world of genetics as it applies to human health. Marie Godfrey of Genetizen talks about the benefits and risks of agreeing to allow Kaiser Permanente, a health maintenance organization, to use individual genetic information for research.
Research on human diseases is very much alive in the Philippines and Grace of Filipina Soul, who also writes b5media’s Flu Patrol blog, contributes two very readable pieces on Filipinos in genetics research: familial hypercholesterolemia and maple syrup urine disease.
Translating research into tangible benefits for the average consumer, Elissa Levin of DNA Direct Talk shares her presentation to the Secretary’s Advisory Counsel on Genetics, Health, and Society. For anyone who has questions on the wisdom of making genetic tests widely available to the general public, this post is a must-read.
In fact, genetic testing for breast and ovarian cancer is available at DNA Direct (disclosure: they are a sponsor of Genetics and Health). Trisha at Ideas for Women talks about the recent preliminary study that showed women with mutations in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes may be at greater risk of developing cancer if they’ve received chest X-rays. Trisha asks, “Preliminary research results and the media – more harm than good?”
I’d like to think that learning more about genetics can only be good although being able to understand the information is extremely important. Check out my top 10 reasons why you should care about genetics if you’re in any doubt. After reading this issue of Mendel’s Garden, I’m sure you’d agree that genetics couldn’t be any more interesting and diverse.
Thanks to all the participants and readers!
Photo credit: NCBI Molecular Biology Review.