New Role for Critical DNA Repair Molecule in Immune System

piggy submitted, created time 1 month 4 weeks (www.sciencedaily.com)

The human immune system is a brilliantly adaptable weapon against foreign invaders. But it all depends on the work of specialized cells called lymphocytes that have made a risky evolutionary gambit to mutate their own DNA. New research published in Nature shows for the first time that a molecule devoted to DNA repair plays a broader role in this genetic reshuffling — called recombination — than scientists had thought

Submit comment | Blog It | Email It | Keywords: gene recombination recombination genetic recombination lymphcytes immune system DNA repair

Processes of de novo duplication of human {alpha}-globin genes

addict submitted, created time 1 year 6 months (www.pnas.org)

Nothing is known about the reciprocal products of ectopic recombination, namely gene duplications. We now show that molecules carrying three {alpha}-globin genes can be detected in human DNA by using physical enrichment plus an inverse PCR strategy

Submit comment | Blog It | Email It | Keywords: recombination human {alpha}-globin gene

Recent advances in plant recombination

athena submitted, created time 1 year 8 months (www.sciencedirect.com)

"Recombination is an essential cellular process and a source of genetic diversity. Recent studies have demonstrated the effects of various factors (e.g. DNA sequence similarity and activation of transposons) on rates of recombination and the distribution of recombination breakpoints in plants. These studies have also provided detailed characterizations of interchromatid and interhomolog recombination events. New approaches offer the promise of achieving the long-awaited goal of gene targeting in plants."

Submit comment | Blog It | Email It | Keywords: recombination cellular process distribution

Assessing the reliability of eBURST using simulated populations with known ancestry

Reviver submitted, created time 1 year 8 months (www.biomedcentral.com)

Conclusions:"Examination of eBURST groups within populations of a range of bacterial species showed that most were within the range in which eBURST is reliable, and only a small number appeared to have such high rates of recombination that eBURST is likely to be unreliable. The study also demonstrates how three simple tests in eBURST v3 can be used to detect unreliable eBURST performance and recognise populations in which there appears to be a high rate of recombination relative to mutation. "

Submit comment | Blog It | Email It | Keywords: Site-specific recombination high-density lipoprotein (HDL) recombination

Genetic Diversity and Selection at the Plasmodium vivax Apical Membrane Antigen-1 (PvAMA-1) Locus in a Sri Lankan Population

alpha submitted, created time 1 year 8 months (mbe.oxfordjournals.org)

"Plasmodium vivax apical membrane antigen 1 (PvAMA-1) is an important malaria vaccine candidate. We present the first comprehensive analysis of nucleotide diversity across the entire PvAMA-1 gene using a single population sample from Sri Lanka. In contrast to what has been observed at the AMA-1 locus of Plasmodium falciparum, the signature of diversifying selection is seen most strongly in Domain II of PvAMA-1, indicating that the different domains in each species may be subject to varying selective pressures and functional constraints."

Submit comment | Blog It | Email It | Keywords: selection Plasmodium vivax genetic diversity recombination

Break-Induced Replication and Recombinational Telomere Elongation in Yeast

biscuits submitted, created time 1 year 11 months (arjournals.annualreviews.org)

Break-induced replication (BIR), or recombination-dependent DNA replication, appears to play a key role in the repair of stalled and broken replication forks and in the maintenance of eroding telomeres in cells lacking telomerase.

Submit comment | Blog It | Email It | Keywords: Break-Induced replication(BIR) recombination telomeric circle