March 7, 2012

Bad news for those who use their genetic makeup as an excuse not to hit the gym: Researchers have found that our DNA can be altered with just a few minutes of strenuous exercise.

Writing in the March issue of Cell Press publication Cell Metabolism, researchers have posted results of a study which prove that strenuous exercise, even as brief as a minute, can immediately change our DNA.

By studying healthy yet inactive men and women, these researchers found that we are more in control of our bodies than we have previously thought.

The changes made to the DNA molecules isnt a complete overhaul, however. The basic genetic code that makes up the DNA remains the same. What modifications are made appear to be the early stages of genetic reprogramming. This reprogramming is the foundation for building muscle strength and ultimately the metabolic benefits of exercise.

In other words, exercise jump starts your DNA to begin to burn fat and build muscle. According to the Cell Metabolism report, even a brief yet brisk 20 minute bicycle ride can make all the difference.

Researcher Juleen Zierath of the Karolinska Institute of Sweden had this to say about their findings: Our muscles are really plastic. We often say that you are what you eat. Well, muscle adapts to what you do. If you dont use it, you lose it and this is one of the mechanisms that allows this to happen.

Along with colleagues from Dublin and Denmark, Professor Zierath conducted 2 experiments with men who did not exercise regularly, yet were relatively healthy. The researchers had the men exercise vigorously on an exercise bike before they took slivers of muscle from the mens thighs. The DNA found in these muscle tissue samples were then analyzed for chemical changes.

A simple walk in the park may not be enough to spark this genetic change, however. According to the research, a person must be out of breath and, while able to speak, must have some difficulty carrying on a conversation.

The results of these tests showed similar results from contracted muscle tissues created in a test-tube from previous research. The muscle tissue also reacted similarly when subjected to the caffeine.

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DNA Altered By Strenuous Exercise And A Strong Cup Of Coffee

LOS ANGELES - Take a trip to the zoo and you can see gorillas are a lot like us. But a new DNA study says we're even more similar than scientists thought.

From the evolutionary family tree, you'd expect our DNA to be the most similar to chimps, our closest relatives. The new work found that's true for the most part, but it also found that a sizable portion of our genome is closer to a gorilla's than to a chimp's.

"The chimpanzee is often cited as 'our closest living relative,' and this is certainly true based on total genome sequence, but the gorilla is nearly as close a relative," Owen Lovejoy of Kent State University, who was not part of the project, said in an email.

That agrees with hints from with some smaller previous

This undated image provided by San Diego Zoo Global shows a female western lowland gorilla named Kamilah at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park in San Diego, Calif. Scientists recently published a draft of her DNA and compared it to the genetic blueprints of humans and chimpanzees to better understand how humans evolved. (AP Photo/San Diego Zoo Global)

It reveals "a closer connection between our genome and that of the gorilla than was previously appreciated," Richard Gibbs and Jeffrey Rogers of the Baylor College of Medicine wrote in an editorial accompanying the work published in today's issue of the journal Nature.

With the new research, scientists now have complete genetic blueprints of the living great apes - humans, chimps, gorillas and orangutans - to compare and gain fresh understanding of how humans evolved and developed such key traits as higher brain function and the ability to walk upright.

Humans and chimps evolved separately since splitting

The latest study was led by scientists at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, a nonprofit British genome research center. Researchers mapped the DNA of a female gorilla and compared it with the genomes of humans and chimps.

As expected, most of the human genome was closer to the chimp's than to the gorilla's. But in about 15 percent of the genome, human and gorilla resemble each other the most. In another 15 percent, chimp and gorilla DNA are closer to each other than chimp is to human.

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DNA study: Gorillas even more similar to us than we thought

Published: March. 7, 2012 at 8:37 AM

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., March 7 (UPI) -- A rapid DNA analysis system for forensic, homeland security and intelligence community use is being launched by U.S. firms Lockheed Martin and ZyGem Corp.

The system uses advanced microfluidics and ZyGem's proprietary nucleic acid isolation technology to accelerate DNA identification, all integrated into compact laboratory on a single chip that the companies say reduces DNA processing steps.

"With the successful development of our fully integrated cartridge device, this platform now has the potential to transform today's DNA identification process from one that takes a great deal of training, sophisticated equipment and time into a far simpler, more affordable process that can be performed in the lab or field in under 90 minutes," said Joan Bienvenue, Lockheed Martin program manager and chief scientist.

The technology was unveiled during the recent Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences and pre-production units will be made available to key customers this summer.

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Rapid DNA analysis system introduced

LOS ANGELES (AP) Take a trip to the zoo and you can see gorillas are a lot like us. But a new DNA study says we're even more similar than scientists thought.

From the evolutionary family tree, you'd expect our DNA to be the most similar to chimps, our closest relatives. The new work found that's true for the most part, but it also found that a sizable portion of our genome is closer to a gorilla's than to a chimp's.

"The chimpanzee is often cited as 'our closest living relative' and this is certainly true based on total genome sequence, but the gorilla is nearly as close a relative," Owen Lovejoy of Kent State University, who was not part of the project, said in an email.

That agrees with hints from with some smaller previous genetic studies. The latest work deciphered the entire genome of the gorilla, which Lovejoy called "a substantial achievement."

It reveals "a closer connection between our genome and that of the gorilla than was previously appreciated," Richard Gibbs and Jeffrey Rogers of the Baylor College of Medicine wrote in an editorial accompanying the work published in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.

With the new research, scientists now have complete genetic blueprints of the living great apes humans, chimps, gorillas and orangutans to compare and gain fresh understanding of how humans evolved and developed key traits such as higher brain function and the ability to walk upright.

Humans and chimps evolved separately since splitting from a common ancestor about 6 million years ago.

The latest study was led by scientists at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, a nonprofit British genome research center. Researchers mapped the DNA of a female gorilla and compared it to the genomes of humans and chimps.

As expected, most of the human genome was closer to the chimp's than to the gorilla's. But in about 15 percent of the genome, human and gorilla resemble each other the most. In another 15 percent, chimp and gorilla DNA are closer to each other than chimp is to human. Both those situations clash with what you'd expect from the evolutionary tree, which says humans and chimps should always be the most similar, the researchers said.

The analysis also found gene variants in gorillas that are harmless to them but are linked to dementia and heart failure in people.

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Genome study finds some gorilla DNA aping our own

ScienceDaily (Mar. 7, 2012) In recent years, scientists have begun to harness DNA's powerful molecular machinery to build artificial structures at the nanoscale using the natural ability of pairs of DNA molecules to assemble into complex structures. Such "DNA origami," first developed at the California Institute of Technology, could provide a means of assembling complex nanostructures such as semiconductor devices, sensors and drug delivery systems, from the bottom up.

While most researchers in the field are working to demonstrate what's possible, scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) are seeking to determine what's practical.

According to NIST researcher Alex Liddle, it's a lot like building with LEGOs -- some patterns enable the blocks to fit together snugly and stick together strongly and some don't.

"If the technology is actually going to be useful, you have to figure out how well it works," says Liddle. "We have determined what a number of the critical factors are for the specific case of assembling nanostructures using a DNA-origami template and have shown how proper design of the desired nanostructures is essential to achieving good yield, moving, we hope, the technology a step forward."

In DNA origami, researchers lay down a long thread of DNA and attach "staples" composed of complementary strands that bind to make the DNA fold up into various shapes, including rectangles, squares and triangles. The shapes serve as a template onto which nanoscale objects such as nanoparticles and quantum dots can be attached using strings of linker molecules.

The NIST researchers measured how quickly nanoscale structures can be assembled using this technique, how precise the assembly process is, how closely they can be spaced, and the strength of the bonds between the nanoparticles and the DNA origami template.

What they found is that a simple structure, four quantum dots at the corners of a 70-nanometer by 100-nanometer origami rectangle, takes up to 24 hours to self-assemble with an error rate of about 5 percent.

Other patterns that placed three and four dots in a line through the middle of the origami template were increasingly error prone. Sheathing the dots in biomaterials, a necessity for attaching them to the template, increases their effective diameter. A wider effective diameter (about 20 nanometers) limits how closely the dots can be positioned and also increases their tendency to interfere with one another during self-assembly, leading to higher error rates and lower bonding strength. This trend was especially pronounced for the four-dot patterns.

"Overall, we think that this process is good for building structures for biological applications like sensors and drug delivery, but it might be a bit of a stretch when applied to semiconductor device manufacturing -- the distances can't be made small enough and the error rate is just too high," says Liddle.

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Nanomanufacturing using DNA origami

DENVER (Reuters) - Cold-case detectives have positively matched a deceased serial killer's DNA to the decades-old murders of four women in Denver, and they suspect that he may be responsible for as many as 26 unsolved homicides, authorities said on Wednesday.

Vincent Groves, who was convicted of three slayings and died in prison of natural causes in 1996, has now been tied conclusively to the slayings of three other women in 1979 and one more in 1988, Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey said in an interview.

"I fully expect we will tie him to at least one, and possibly three or four other unsolved cases" through DNA, Morrissey said.

Morrissey said investigators were examining possible connections between Groves and 26 unsolved murders but may not be able to positively link him to the entire batch of homicides for which he is a suspect.

Groves was sentenced to life in prison in 1990 for two murders he committed while on parole for a 1982 second-degree murder conviction.

The women Groves killed or is suspected of killing ranged from prostitutes and drug addicts to women he knew from church or in business, Morrissey said.

The victims were typically strangled and sexually assaulted before their bodies were dumped in alleys, rural areas or in the mountains west of Denver, the prosecutor said.

The latest cases positively tied to Groves were closed with the help of a U.S. Justice Department grant that paid for Denver police to use DNA analysis in examining some 250 unsolved murders between 1970 and 1984.

Once detectives learned Groves had a terminal illness, they went to interview him in person seeking confessions to any additional murders he had been suspected of committing.

"He would toy with the detectives and admit he knew the victims or that he was the last person to be seen with them but never confessed to the killings," Morrissey said.

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DNA may link dead killer to as many as 26 murders