By Amy Norton HealthDay Reporter TUESDAY, June 27, 2017 (HealthDay News) -- When people work the night shift, their bodies might have less capacity to repair everyday damage to cells' DNA, a small study hints. The research found that people excreted lower levels of a chemical called 8-OH-dG when they worked at night. That might be a sign that the body's ability to repair DNA damage is diminished. While this is all theoretical, a number of studies have tied shift work to higher risks of obesity, diabetes, heart disease and certain cancers. The new findings might point to one reason for those risks, said lead researcher Parveen Bhatti, of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, in Seattle. He explained that 8-OH-dG is excreted in the urine when the body repairs DNA damage that occurs during normal body processes. "So we think lower clearance [of 8-OH-dG] likely reflects a reduced ability to repair DNA damage," Bhatti said. "Over time, such DNA damage might contribute to cancer or other diseases," Bhatti added. And, he said, the whole process might be due to insufficient levels of melatonin -- a hormone that helps regulate the body's internal "clock." The brain churns out melatonin in … Continue reading →

1. My suspicion was correct. Genetically, I do have a slower metabolism. Dr. Dan described this in scientific terms as an "efficient metabolism," meaning that I store energy more than someone with a fast or "inefficient metabolism." 2. I also have a gene variation for the FTO gene that is linked to a hormone called ghrelin, which controls hunger. My gene variation implies that I am someone who becomes hungry very easily, therefore creating a higher risk of overeating. Dan said that eating small frequent meals throughout the day to control hunger would be important. 3. I also have a gene variation in the APOA2 gene, indicating that I am sensitive to saturated fats, meaning that it sticks to me more easily! I asked Dr. Dan what foods have saturated fats and he said things like animal products, butter, dairy products, palm oil and coconut oil. Coconut oil?! I ate so much coconut oil because of how often it's promoted as a healthy oil. No wonder I was having trouble. 4. I am someone who would benefit from working out later in the day because my CLOCK gene variations imply that I am a night owl. This made perfect sense … Continue reading →

Anew technology can clone thousands of genes at once and compile libraries of proteins from DNA samples, potentially speeding up the search for new drugs. Discovering the function of a gene requires cloning a DNA sequence and expressing it. Until now, this was performed on a one-gene-at-a-time basis, causing a bottleneck. We think that the rapid, affordable, and high-throughput cloning of proteins and other genetic elements will greatly accelerate biological research to discover functions of molecules encoded by genomes and match the pace at which new genome sequencing data is coming out, says Biju Parekkadan, an associate professor in the biomedical engineering Department at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. In a study published in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering, the researchers show that their technologyLASSO (long-adapter single-strand oligonucleotide) probescan capture and clone thousands of long DNA fragments at once. As a proof-of-concept, the researchers cloned more than 3,000 DNA fragments from E. coli bacteria, commonly used as a model organism with a catalogued genome sequence available. We captured about 95 percent of the gene targets we set out to capture, many of which were very large in DNA length, which has been challenging in the past, Parekkadan says. I think there will … Continue reading →

If youve heard about octopuses cleverly escaping their tanks, stealing cameras, and opening jars from the inside then youve also probably had nightmares about a cephalopod takeover. And as if the tentacled creatures werent unnerving enough, now it appears they can manipulate their own genetic information. A study published inCell this past April showed octopuses and their cephalopod cousins have the unique ability to alter their RNA, a key element of DNA, to better adapt to their environments. To briefly catch you up on Biology 101, DNA is the nucleic acid carrying all the information needed to build every aspect of your body. Though also a type of nucleic acid, RNA is more of a paperboy, carrying all the information in the DNA to the rest of the cytoplasm, allowing the genetic instructions to become reality. However, according to Popular Science, certain bases (which bind and form certain proteins) can be swapped out with different bases to create different proteins. Eli Eisenberg, a co-author of the study and biophysicist at Tel Aviv University in Israel, told the outlet, About 25 years ago, people identified the first example of RNA editing in mammals. There were a few cases where you'd see … Continue reading →