Blogs

Why studying the similarities and differences between hox genes is important. And why their expression is important. In the development of animals, there is a special period of embryonic similarity, during which not only the appearance of the embryos but also the expression of their genes is very conservative. The existence of this period is associated with the appearance in the evolution of stable building plans. In hox genes, the genes themselves are located on the chromosomes in order, therefore, strict, consistent activation of them is necessary in order for the body to form correctly. However, the mechanism and regulation of the Hox genes themselves remain unclear. It is clear that this process is very complex and multi-staged; non-coding RNAs are involved in it. To a complete understanding of all these processes in different animals, science is still very far away. When the basic mechanisms of gene regulation during early ontogenesis are deciphered, biologists will be able to closely address the following fundamental question, namely: why is all this necessary?

The endoplasmic reticulum is an important organelle that makes up 10% of the cell's volume. The endoplasmic reticulum, or ER, surounds the nucleus and spreads through out the cell. There are two types of ER: smooth and rough. The smooth ER contains no ribosomes on its membrane, hence the name "smooth". This smooth structure is because the main purpose of the smooth ER is to synthesize lipids and decrease toxicity of the cell. In contrast the rough ER has ribosomes scattered along the membrane because the main purpose of the rough ER is to synthesize, process, and export protiens. In terms of the relationship of the ER to ribosomes, a ribosome will recgonize a translation initation sequence of an mRNA and begin synthesizing the protein. This complex will then bind a translocon located on the membrane of the ER. This channel protein will direct the newly synthesized protein into the lumen of the ER. The protein is then processed and can possibly be retained in the lumen, secreted into the cytoplasm, or released in a vesicle. 

Though modern methods for introducing transgenes into an organism are diverse, there are two historically important procedures that were the progenitors of transgenic organisms. Palmiter and Brinster were the first to introduce foreign genetic material to an organism. They added the gene for human growth hormone (HGH) to a mouse zygote at the point where the haploid genomes are fusing to cause random incorporation of the transgene into the host genome. In addition to the transgene payload, Palmiter and Brinster added a promoter in front of the transgene in order to get expression in the transformed mice. Following this historical achievement came the knock-in engineering in embryonic stem (ES) cells developed by Capecchi, Martin, and Smithies. This method involved in vitro transformation of ES cells as opposed to direct zygotic injection. They removed the promoter from the transgene, added arms of homology and a neomycin resistance gene. The promoter is unnecessary as the arms of homology will target the transgene to an already active promoter in a pre-existing gene. The transgenes are then added to electroporated ES cells in order to allow the transgene payload to enter the ES cells. The cells that take up the transgene and undergo a double-stranded (DS) break that matches the transgene’s arms of homology get transformed. Then, the antibiotic neomycin is added to the cultured cells to select for the cells that were transformed. These transformed cells are injected into a mouse blastocyst in order to express the transgene in the adult organism.

Bees are a haplodiploid species. Thus, males come from unfertilised eggs and are haploid while females come from fertilised eggs and are diploid. All of the bees in a colony are sisters and males are only produced in order for the queen bee to mate or to found a new colony. Additionally, the queen tends to be monogamous such that all of her daughters always share 50% of their genetic material with one another. Since the daughters are diploids, half of their genetic material comes from their mother, which on average yields 25% relatedness between sisters. This means that, on average, daughters of a monogamous queen will be 75% related to one another. This relates to indirect fitness, which is a measure of an individual’s fitness based on the number of offspring a relative gains through that individual’s help. It is hypothesized that eusociality has evolved in bees because of this increased relatedness between sisters, as it would generate an increased gain in indirect fitness as compared to sisters that are only 50% related as would be the case if the queen were not monogamous. However, due to the fact that there is a greater fitness gain if daughter biased colonies start producing more males than females, a benefit that outweighs any indirect fitness gain that females acquire by helping make more females, this hypothesis is insufficient to explain eusociality in bees.

Slime molds are unicellular protist organisms that were previously classified as fungi until they were discovered to be unrelated. Slime molds are lacking the general characteristics of fungi such as having chitin in their walls and not being able to move in any form of their life cycle. The specific slime mold species that will be experimented, Physarum Polycephalum, is able to live in the haploid and diploid form. In starvation, the diploid will sporulate and the haploid spores then sexually reproduce to increase genetic variation in the species as if favored by natural selection. The diploid form is able to grow plasmodium which is the characteristic appearance of slime molds, forming large branching structures that expand across a surface. 

    Research has been performed on this species and scientists have made conclusions about its intelligence, organization and memory. It has been shown to exhibit a collective behavior where several single celled organisms cluster and form temporary tissues that move together in times of resource deprivation. Also slime molds have been found to grow in any direction to find food, then upon discovery of a food source, reduces the non beneficial branches that did not land on a food source and thickens the successful branch. 

The purpose of the experiment is to study the interactions between leaf miners and three different species of elm trees (Ulmus americana, Ulmus parvifolia, and Ulmus minor).  Using the random sampling of fallen leaves from the different species, the number of leaf mines tunnels can be averaged.  In addition, the survival rate would be determined by factoring the number of aborted leaf mines as well. From this information, it is the goal of the study to determine if there is a preference for the species of Ulmus that the leaf miners lay their eggs. In addition, the data would be used to determine if there is any correlation with the survival rate of the leaf miners with the species they were hosted in.

Understanding the fact that all animals, from scolopendra to elephants, are formed at the direction of very similar blocks of Hox genes, greatly changes the picture of the world. Instead of the fantastic diversity of nature, we suddenly see a room where children's crafts from Lego bricks are scattered. There are houses, and trains, and dogs - you can’t refuse our fantasies to fantasies - but at the heart of all the crafts is the uniform principle of connecting cubes with pimples. If you are used to admiring the diversity of the world in which you live, such a discovery cannot but disappoint you. Despite the fact that you yourself, as it turns out, are such a craft from the same standard set of parts.

Incidentally, this problem has not only theoretical but also practical significance. The difficulties encountered in animal cloning are largely determined by the fact that we still know too little about the work of genes during early development. Cloning of animals is carried out by transplanting a nucleus from a somatic (non-sexual) cell of one animal into the egg of another. However, for normal development, it is necessary that the genes of the embryo are initially silent, and they are quite active in the donor nucleus. The egg cytoplasm must somehow reprogram the nucleus, turn off the genome, and then turn it on again at the right time. Until we know how to help her with this, it’s hard to expect great success in cloning.

 Among all bioindicators, lichens have been identified as the most useful to monitor the level of pollution in the environment (Ferry et al 1973). Lichens can be found in different areas starting from warm, tropical regions to cold, polar regions and even extreme conditions, which might be deemed as too harsh for other living organisms (Weerakoon 2015). The symbiotic relationship between an algae and fungus gives rise to a lichen. The association involves the alga producing the nutrients since it has the chlorophyll to photosynthesize and the fungus provides water to the alga (Hale 1969, 1993). There are three bodies for lichens: crustose, foliose and fruticose (Brodo et al 2001). They can be used in two ways to monitor air pollution: 1) grouping the species of lichens present in a specific area 2) measuring the morphological changes or the accumulation of pollutants in the lichens (Richardson, 1991; Seaward, 1993; Gries, 1996).

Genomic analysis is the identification, comparison of genetic features and their expression through the use of techniques such as DNA sequencing and bioinformatics. Genomic analysis is generally considered to be divided into two categories; structural genomics which identifies certain genomic structures in the genome and functional genomic analysis which analyses the expression of genes and their interactions often also called transcriptomes. Genomic analysis was made available through the prevalence and availability of gene sequencing. While the Human Genome Project sequenced the entire human genome most of the genomic analysis would not be possible without the further accessibility of sequencing using other techniques such as next-gen sequencing and whole-genome sequencing that does not depend on the isolation of cells in order to sequence the genes. Because these data that are generated from sequencing are generally put in online databases, these data are both available and able to be used for purposes that were not intended by the researchers who have originally read the sequence. The data set contains so many different information that a single sequencing can be the basis of several papers. Because of this, there is a data analysis bottleneck where there is so much data that needs to be analyzed but there is not enough time or computing power to analyze the entire genome has been a problem in the field.