Drafts

            Neanderthals are thought to have disappeared in Europe approximately 39,000–41,000 years ago but they have contributed 1–3% of the DNA of present-day people in Eurasia. In the study by Fu et al., DNA from a 37,000–42,000-year-old modern human from Peştera cu Oase, Romania was analyzed. Although the specimen contained small amounts of human DNA, an enrichment strategy was used to isolate sites that were distinct between Neanderthals and present-day humans. They found that on the order of 6–9% of the genome of the Oase individual is derived from Neanderthals, more than any other modern human sequenced to date. Three chromosomal segments of Neanderthal ancestry are over 50 centimorgans in size, indicating that this individual had a Neanderthal ancestor as recently as four to six generations back. However, the Oase individual did not share more alleles with later Europeans than with East Asians, suggesting that the Oase population did not contribute substantially to later humans in Europe.

Cichlids are a family of fish that include over 2000 species. They come in a variety of sizes with a range of habitats across continents from South America to Africa. Many of them are kept in aquariums as they are usually duable fish that come in a variety of colors. The species are known to take care of their eggs and incubate them and even take care of their fry. Depending on the species they have a variety of diets, some being herbavores while others are carnivorous. They are known to be able to adapt to environmental changes very quickly, making them good models for studying evolutionary development.

This was also from the talk I recently attended. The results showed that Lanthanides more specifically Lanthanum play a significant role in methanotrophs respiration. It was found that Lanthanum is critical for methanotrophs to help oxidize methane to methanol. It was found that when Lanthanum was available for cells the XoxF gene was upregulated and the MxaF gene was down regulated. Conversely when Lanthanum wasn’t available the XoxF gene was down regulated and the MxaF gene was upregulated. It was shown that bacteria could survive for a limited time in the formaldehyde by fixing the one carbon in the compound. When methanotrophs were grown in a co-culture with non-methanotrophs present methanol was produced. If the methanotrophs were grown in pure culture without non-methanotrophs present no methanol was produced, this shows that there is a connection between the two different organisms and both are needed for methanotrophs to go complete respiration. The conclusions that can be drawn from these results are that methanotrophs do heavily rely on the availability of Lanthanides in the environment. This also shows that Lanthanides may be commonly used when metabolizing one carbon molecules in other organisms that have yet to be studied. Based off of the results it can be concluded that XoxF is a regulatory gene within methanotrophs that help to with the uptake of Lanthanides. In the talk it was suggested that MxaF may have to do with calcium regulation. Additionally both XoxF and MxaF may be used for communication between methanotrophs and non-methanotrophs. Co-cultures are also essential for methanotrophs respiration. It is hypothesized that methanotrophs produce methanol which is then used by the non-methanotrophs. The non-methanotrophs produce a compound that binds to Lanthanum which the methanotrophs then used for respiration and to produce methanol making them co-dependent. The methanotrophs being able to live in formaldehyde suggests that it employs a TCA cycle during respiration. This study may have environmental applications because methanotrophs can be used to reduce methane sinks around the world. A suggested application was using methanotrophs to oxidize methane in sewage facilities and reduce atmospheric release.

This was a talk I recently attended. I enjoyed this talk and believe that it may have many environmental applications. The talk was about methanotrophs that live in lake Washington. These methanotrophs live in the sediment of the lake right at the bottom of the zone of oxygen diffusion. One thing that was focused on was the use of rare Earth metals in the energy production of methanotrophs. Little is known about these methanotrophs and how they methane to methanol. However from the findings of this study it seems like methanotrophs may be a viable solution to reducing methane sinks around the globe. The way that these methanotrophs were tested was by first obtaining samples from lake Washington. In this lake alone over 60 isolates have been identified in the area of sediment just where there is little oxygen that has diffused down. To map the respiration of the methanotrophs a full flux map was created. Bacterial cells were exposed to formaldehyde to see if they could continue respiration. Next components of the respiration pathway of methanotrophs were upregulated and downregulated by providing the methanotrophs with different compounds. This was used to test the effect that Lanthanides have on methanotroph respiration. Additionally the importance of a co-culture was tested by keeping methanotrophs and non-methanotrophs in the same and separate environments.

          Ancient DNA has enabled us to answer long-standing questions about the relationship between archaic and modern humans. Admixture among archaic groups and between them and modern humans seems to have occurred whenever they came into geographic proximity. In that way, they were no different from groups of modern humans. Although most present-day human ancestry can be traced to African populations that dispersed into Eurasia ∼100,000 y ago, aDNA has allowed us to also determine which parts of our genomes are from archaic hominins that occupied Eurasia before modern humans. All non-African genomes carry small amounts of Neanderthal ancestry, and some carry an additional component of Denisovan ancestry. Because the paleoanthropological record of much of Asia is relatively poorly known, it is likely that more Neanderthal and Denisovan fossils will be found in this region. It is even possible that additional extinct groups of hominins will be identified using aDNA.

DISCUSSION

Across the various majors we surveyed, only 20% of the students had never heard of gene editing. Most of the 80% who had had a  major under the category of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). Those in STEM, for the majority had gone over it in their required classes. Of those that were not STEM majors, they had learned about it from the news, social media, and general education requirements here at the University of Massachusetts. Overall, the population at the University of Massachusetts Amherst has some familiarity on the topic of gene editing on genetic disorders or medical practices in general to form some opinions. Major choice may limit the amount of in depth knowledge someone may have on the topic, but  today’s media (news sources, facebook, instagram, etc.), personal interest and internet access does give the population a general understanding.

We created a ten question survey addressing age, major, knowledge of genetic editing, and opinions on different areas of the topic. We provided specific statements about the use of gene editing in the treatment of genetic disorders, and had survey participants indicate to what degree they agreed or disagreed with them. We sent out the survey to students from the University of Massachusetts Amherst through Survey Monkey, which allowed for easy sharing of the survey link as well as a clear format for analyzing the results. We posted a link to the survey in a Facebook group for the clarinet section of the UMass Marching Band which consists of students of various ages and majors in order to get a variety of different responses.  

Once we got enough responses we were able to view the resulting data in graphs. We analyzed these graphs to see if there were any observable trends between college major and attitude towards the topic of using gene editing to treat genetic diseases.

With the rise of scientific issues such as genetic engineering in public debates, “science is becoming more politicized and controversial with widespread societal implications” (Rose, Korzekwa, Brossard, Scheufele & Heisler, 2017). As such, the importance of public attitudes towards these issues is increasing, as is engaging the public with these topics in order to increase knowledge and awareness (Rose, Korzekwa, Brossard, Scheufele & Heisler, 2017). People’s attitudes are influenced by their knowledge, and so people with different backgrounds will often have varying attitudes towards complex topics depending on how familiar they are with them. The University of Massachusetts Amherst has over 100 different undergraduate majors [CITATION], and presumably people in different majors will have had different levels of exposure to the topic of genome editing. In this study we investigated whether or not there is any observable connection between college major and people’s attitudes towards the use of genome editing to treat genetic disorders.

Genome-editing has been met with both celebration and skepticism from the scientific community and the general public, with concerns about the viability, ethics, and long- and short-term consequences of modifying the human genome [CITATION]. As genetic disorders are caused by DNA abnormalities, they can only be “cured” by targeting the disorder at the genomic level, recently made possible by new advances in molecular technology. Both somatic cells and germline cells can be edited, and while any changes made to the DNA of an individual's somatic cells will only affect that individual, changes made to their germline DNA could be inherited by their future children. The technology at present cannot guarantee that “unintended modifications created through an editing procedure would not result in a devastating long-term outcome such as cancer or adverse developmental effects if one were to modify a zygote” (Kohn, Porteus & Scharenberg, 2016), which has lead to mixed scientific and public opinions about its use.

Genome editing (or gene editing) is a type of genetic engineering that involves modifying a living organism’s genome. Specific regions of the genome are deliberately targeted and DNA sequences are inserted, deleted, or otherwise modified to modify the sequence at that location and alter gene function, either by preventing or enabling expression, or by changing how the gene is expressed (“Genome editing in brief: what, why and how?”, n.d.). Genetic disorders can affect both somatic (body) cells and germline cells (cells involved in reproduction, such as sperm and eggs). While genetic mutations in the DNA of somatic cells only affect the individual and cannot be inherited, changes in the germline DNA are heritable and can affect future offspring (Ormond et al. 2017)