Molecular Biology but spooky

The color blue is familiar to most people and is, in fact, most peoples favorite color (2). But it may be surprising to some that blue is actually almost never found organically in nature.  The blue found in animals is mostly caused by reflection of blue light by tiny structures called schemochromes, which are structural differences that cause light to interact with the structures in a certain way, causing them to appear a certain color (3).  This is most apparent with blue birds such as blue jays or hyacinthine macaws.  These feathers of these birds have air pockets within the bard that act as tiny particles which scatter light refracted by the oxygen in the air (3). Some plants can produce a blue pigment in this way as well but most of the blue found in plants is due to a class of chemical compounds called anthocyanins.  These compounds are responsible for many pigments in nature including reds and purples, the anthocya...

Cryogenic freezing is a concept some of us may be familiar with mostly thanks to the infamous tale of Walt Disney freezing his head.  While his case is not necessarily true, many people after him have decided this is what they wish to do with their bodies after death, in the hopes to be revived and cured of illness in the future.  Cryogenic freezing or cryopreservation is defined as "a process that preserves organelles, cells, tissues, or any other biological constructs by cooling the samples to very low temperatures" (3).  The first person to do this was Dr. James Bedford in January 1967 (5), and as of 2013, 269 people have been cryogenically frozen worldwide (8) although the numbers on this are hard to determine.    The process of cryogenic freezing sounds like something out of a sci fi novel.  The process is actually rather intuitive.  The patient must first be legally dead, once proclaimed dead the patient is placed in an ice bath while blood cir...

Many of us are at least somewhat familiar with film or book "Jurassic Park", the story deals with ideas of resurrecting dinosaurs and the moral delimas that come with it.  While this seemed like fantasy in the 90's when the book and movie were released we are coming closer to a point this may be a reality.  With the advent of new and advanced techniques in molecular biology there are a few pathways that de-extinction is actually taking place. There are three main paths of de-extinction currently; Back breeding, Cloning and Genetic engineering.  Back breeding and is actually quite simple in practice, basically two species that are thought to be related to the extinct species are bred together to try to "resurrect resurrect traits that have been lost or diluted over evolutionary time" (Shapiro).  The hard part is determining which species may be genetically linked and what genes have been dispersed where in modern cattle. However, even this has become easier wit...

Research into life extension and "curing" aging has become increasingly popular in recent years, with a better understanding of the biology of aging we are approaching the advent of treating aging like a disease rather than a part of life. Google has even began to dip its toes into the market with a sub corporation called "Calico".   There are many molecular processes that are thought to be connected with life extension, some of the big ones being telomere function, autophagy, epigenetic modulation and the subject of this post, caloric restriction (CR) (3).  Now it may sound slightly absurd at first however in recent years it seems that this absurd notion may actually prove to be true.  The first studies on the effects of food restriction (calorie restriction) were preformed by Clive McCay in 1935 on rats (4).  These studies have been replicated in various degrees and with increasing regulations regarding animal health on mice, fruit flies,...

As a follow up to last weeks post about alcoholism link to genetics I did a little more digging and pulling up a more recent meta-analysis of studies regarding genetic links to alcoholism.  There is a "fourfold enhanced alcohol dependence risk in relatives of alcoholics"  other studies including twin studies and adopted sibling studies support the conclusion that the role genetics and habitability play in alcoholism is between 40% and 60%.  This is quite a significant amount, and the genes specifically evolved in this condition both seem to be specific to the drug alcohol but also more generic factors that are involved in behavior and other mental disorders. The relevant genes that influence a range of intermediate characteristics that are specific to alcohol dependence risk include low sensitivity response to alcohol.  This characteristic predicts later heavy drinking and alcohol dependence but not other drugs.   Other genetic variations that are specifi...

Alcohol consumption is fairly common, most adults and young adults have drank at least once in their life and some as often as once a day.  While alcohol can be fun drinking can go from a fun thing to do at parties to a full addiction.  Alcoholism or alcohol use disorder affects a huge number of people, 15.1 million people 18 years or older as of 2015.  As something that affects a large number of the population the desire to understand it is logical.    However, could alcoholism be inherited from your parents, as early as 300 B.C. people were saying yes. The idea that alcoholism runs in the family is actually rather old, "Aristotle, declared that drunken women ' bring forth children like themselves'".  This is not very scientific and clearly antiquated terminology however the idea is still there.  It wasn't until the 19th century that the first studies of alcoholism among relatives began to be conducted.   The results of these studies sugge...

Group A Streptococcus pyrogenes is the culprit behind a large slew of infections, a very mild but common infection caused by this bacterium is strep throat.  I contracted this many times as a child and it is almost common to know someone who has had it at some point if not once a year.  While most people would agree strep throat is not desirable this bacterium can cause much more severe and potentially deadly illnesses such as scarlet fever and other severe skin rashes(2). Often strep can be treated relatively easily, but for the more severe illnesses caused by S. pyrogenes there is still a long way to go.   The article this week is from the Indian Journal of Medical Microbiology and the researchers are trying to determine a vaccine for the many infections caused by S. pyrogenes.   They are particularly focused on treating rheumatic fever/ rheumatic heart disease (RF/RHD).  What is tricky about treating RF/RHD is that this is not even directly caused by ...

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD is a condition associated with high stress situations, whether that be military service, abusive relationships or childhood trauma.   The disorder was originally defined as a "disorder that resulted from exposure to a traumatic environmental event" and this was meant to be universal and persistent diagnosis. Up until approximately the 1990's it would have been absurd to claim that genes could be a contributing factor to PTSD but two studies changed the overall relationship between genes and PTSD.  The first study showed that cortisol levels in people with PTSD were actually lower than people without it.  If that seems strange it should, and was for the researchers at the time.  Cortisol is associated with stress and it was theorized that people with PTSD would have high levels of cortisol overall since it was thought to be a condition caused solely by extreme stress or trauma.  The second experiment was actually unre...

Parasites are sneaky organisms that have developed interesting ways of invading their host as well as staying alive once they have infiltrated.  One of these mechanisms is a coating called glycocalyx that is essentially a protective coat that parasites where to trip your bodies bouncer and get into the club.   The parasites that have this outer coating such as, Trypanosoma brucei brucei, have a membrane surrounding them that mimics glycan (sugar) structures that interact with the host cell membranes to infect the host. The main idea behind this post is just that there are many mechanisms by which parasites can integrate into a host and this path of infection is relatively new.  Much like with other posts on my blog and other things in biology ( specifically microbiology and molecular biology) there are people working on ways to target glyosylation production as well as glycan antigen structures.   Rodrigues, Joao A, et al. "Parasite Glycobiology: A Bitte...

The field of molecular biology is versatile and ever evolving, it has to be since life is ever evolving. One of the things I have picked up in just reading a few articles pertaining to molecular biology is that as soon as people understand HOW something occurs in a living system the next question is immediately "how do we use that system to our advantage" and it leads to incredible discoveries in areas that would likely have not been considered prior to the birth of this field.  One such example that I am going to delve into is the wild world of the ricin toxin.  Ricin is one of the most poisonous naturally occurring substances known (as of April 2016) but as soon as its' biological processes were understood the next step was turning the harmful parts of it into beneficial ones. Ricin is a highly potent toxin has quite an interesting history going from umbrella guns to cures for cancer.  The toxin is found in the seeds of castor beans which typically grow in tropical re...

The Central Dogma of Molecular Biology a very original topic I know but, I think it is good to start anything at the beginning so this is where I decided to start this blog.  The principle was proposed by Francis Crick in 1958 but, the paper I will be discussing will be his defense of the term in 1970 called;  Central Dogma of Molecular Biology.    As a bit of background, although it has probably been drilled into most biology majors, the Central Dogma shows the flow of  genetic information between DNA, RNA and proteins. An important feature of the principle is that is does not mean linear transfer of information but the three families of polymers could interact in a more triangular configuration.  The concept about the Central Dogma that is most intriguing to modern scientists however is that there were some interactions that were theorized to never occur and some could only occur under " special circumstances".  This term proposed by Crick sets t...