Using artificial intelligence, UT Southwestern researchers have discovered a new family of sensing genes in enteric bacteria that are linked by structure and probably function, but not genetic sequence. The findings, published in PNAS, offer a new way of identifying the role of genes in unrelated species and could lead to new ways to fight intestinal bacterial infections.

“We identified similarities in these proteins in reverse of how it’s usually done. Instead of using sequence, Lisa looked for matches in their structure,” said Kim Orth, Ph.D., Professor of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, who co-led the study with Lisa Kinch, Ph.D., a bioinformatics specialist in the Department of Molecular Biology.

Dr. Orth’s lab has long focused on studying how marine and estuary bacteria cause infections. In 2016, Dr. Orth and her colleagues used biophysics to characterize the structure of two proteins called VtrA and VtrC complex that work in concert in a bacterial species known as Vibrio parahaemolyticus. She and her team then discovered the VtrA/VtrC complex in V. parahaemolyticus – which is often the cause of food poisoning from contaminated shellfish – senses bile from the bacterial cell surface, sending a signal to launch a chemical cascade that prompts this microbe to invade the intestinal cells of its human host.

Although VtrA shares some structural features with a protein called ToxR found in a related bacteria called Vibrio cholerae that causes cholera, it was unclear whether a homolog for VtrC also existed in this or any other bacteria.

“We had never seen anything like VtrC,” said Dr. Kinch. “But, we thought, other proteins like it must exist.”

Without any known genes with sequence identities similar to VtrC, the researchers turned to software released just two years ago called AlphaFold. This artificial intelligence program can accurately predict the structure of some proteins based on the genetic sequence that codes for them – information that previously was only gleaned through laborious work in the laboratory.

AlphaFold showed that a protein called ToxS in V. cholerae is very similar in structure to VtrC, even though the two proteins did not share any recognizable portions of their genetic sequences. When the researchers searched for proteins with similar structural features in other organisms, they found homologs for VtrC in several other enteric bacteria species responsible for human disease, including Yersinia pestis (which causes the bubonic plague) and Burkholderia pseudomallei (which causes a tropical infection called melioidosis). Each of these VtrC homologs appears to work in concert with proteins structurally similar to VtrA, suggesting that their roles could be the same as those in V. parahaemolyticus.

Dr. Orth said these structural similarities could eventually lead to pharmaceuticals that treat conditions caused by different infectious organisms that rely on similar pathogenic strategies.

Dr. Orth is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator who holds the Earl A. Forsyth Chair in Biomedical Science and is a W.W. Caruth, Jr. Scholar in Biomedical Research. A member of the National Academy of Sciences since 2020, this is her inaugural article in PNAS.

Other UTSW researchers who contributed to this study include Qian Cong, Ph.D., a Southwestern Medical Foundation Scholar in Biomedical Research, and Jananee Jaishankar, Ph.D.

This study was funded by grants from The Welch Foundation (I-1561), Once Upon a Time Foundation, and the National Institutes of Health (R01 GM115188).

Story Source:

Materials provided by UT Southwestern Medical Center. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

View Original Source

Houston [US], July 3 (ANI): Robots cannot see past barriers, much like humans. To reach where they’re going, they occasionally require a little assistance. Rice University engineers have created a technique that enables people to assist robots in seeing their surroundings and performing jobs, according to a new study.

The strategy called Bayesian Learning IN the Dark — BLIND, for short — is a novel solution to the long-standing problem of motion planning for robots that work in environments where not everything is clearly visible all the time.

Also Read | India vs England, 5th Test 2022 Stat Highlights: Jasprit Bumrah Leads From the Front As Visitors Dominate Proceedings on Rain-Hit Day 2.

The peer-reviewed study led by computer scientists Lydia Kavraki and Vaibhav Unhelkar and co-lead authors Carlos Quintero-Pena and Constantinos Chamzas of Rice’s George R. Brown School of Engineering was presented at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ International Conference on Robotics and Automation in late May.

The algorithm developed primarily by Quintero-Pena and Chamzas, both graduate students working with Kavraki, keeps a human in the loop to “augment robot perception and, importantly, prevent the execution of unsafe motion,” according to the study.

Also Read | Cristiano Ronaldo Transfer News: Portugal Star Tells Manchester United He Wants To Leave.

To do so, they combined Bayesian inverse reinforcement learning (by which a system learns from continually updated information and experience) with established motion planning techniques to assist robots that have “high degrees of freedom” — that is, a lot of moving parts.

To test BLIND, the Rice lab directed a Fetch robot, an articulated arm with seven joints to grab a small cylinder from a table and move it to another, but in doing so it had to move past a barrier.

“If you have more joints, instructions to the robot are complicated,” Quintero-Pena said. “If you’re directing a human, you can just say, ‘Lift up your hand.'”

But a robot’s programmers have to be specific about the movement of each joint at each point in its trajectory, especially when obstacles block the machine’s “view” of its target.

Rather than programming a trajectory up front, BLIND inserts a human mid-process to refine the choreographed options — or best guesses — suggested by the robot’s algorithm. “BLIND allows us to take information in the human’s head and compute our trajectories in this high-degree-of-freedom space,” Quintero-Pena said.

“We use a specific way of feedback called a critique, basically a binary form of feedback where the human is given labels on pieces of the trajectory,” he said.

These labels appear as connected green dots that represent possible paths. As BLIND steps from dot to dot, the human approves or rejects each movement to refine the path, avoiding obstacles as efficiently as possible.

“It’s an easy interface for people to use, because we can say, ‘I like this’ or ‘I don’t like that,’ and the robot uses this information to plan,” Chamzas said. Once rewarded with an approved set of movements, the robot can carry out its task, he said.

“One of the most important things here is that human preferences are hard to describe with a mathematical formula,” Quintero-Pena said. “Our work simplifies human-robot relationships by incorporating human preferences. That’s how I think applications will get the most benefit from this work.”

“This work wonderfully exemplifies how a little, but targeted, human intervention can significantly enhance the capabilities of robots to execute complex tasks in environments where some parts are completely unknown to the robot but known to the human,” said Kavraki, a robotics pioneer whose resume includes advanced programming for NASA’s humanoid Robonaut aboard the International Space Station.

“It shows how methods for human-robot interaction, the topic of research of my colleague Professor Unhelkar, and automated planning pioneered for years at my laboratory can blend to deliver reliable solutions that also respect human preferences.” (ANI)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)

View Original Source

I spoke with Silvio Savarese, Chief Scientist at Salesforce, about a software tool that enables users to create executable code using simple English prompts. In otherwords, a step forward for conversational AI.

Among the topics we covered: 

• As you survey the growth of low code and conversational AI, what are a couple of key trends you see in 2022? What’s driving the sector?
• As companies look to deploy more low code and/or conversational AI, what advice would you give them?
• How does CodeGen help companies? What’s the advantage of CodeGen?
• The future of low code and/or conversational AI? What are some key milestones we can expect in the years ahead?

Listen to the podcast:

Also available on Apple Podcasts

Watch the video:

James Maguire is eWeek’s Editor-in-Chief and has been reporting on emerging technology for more than 15 years. He has won two ASBPE Awards of Excellence for in-depth feature articles about cloud computing and artificial intelligence. He has covered the gamut of enterprise and consumer technology, and regularly communicates with leading IT newsmakers, vendors and analysts.

View Original Source

In a recent article, Kessler Foundation scientists advocated for the incorporation of virtual reality (VR) technology in cognitive rehabilitation research in multiple sclerosis (MS). They presented a conceptual framework supporting VR as an adjuvant to traditional cognitive rehabilitation and exercise training for MS, theorizing that VR could strengthen the effects of traditional rehabilitative therapies by increasing sensory input and promoting multisensory integration and processing.

MS and exercise researchers Carly L.A. Wender, PhD, John DeLuca, PhD, and Brian M. Sandroff, PhD, authored the review, “Developing the rationale for including virtual reality in cognitive rehabilitation and exercise training approaches for managing cognitive dysfunction in MS,” which was published open access on April 3, 2022 by NeuroSci as part of the Special Issue Cognitive Impairment and Neuropsychiatric Dysfunctions in Multiple Sclerosis

Article link: https://doi.org/10.3390/neurosci3020015

Current pharmacological therapies for MS are not effective for cognitive dysfunction, a common consequence of MS that affects the daily lives of many individuals. This lack of efficacy underscores the need to consider other approaches to managing these disabling cognitive deficits.

The inclusion of VR technology in rehabilitation research and care for MS has the potential not only to improve cognition but to facilitate the transfer of those cognitive gains to improvements in everyday function, according to Brian Sandroff, PhD, senior research scientist in the Center for Neuropsychology and Neuroscience Research at Kessler Foundation. “With VR, we can substantially increase engagement and the volume of sensory input,” he foresees. “And by promoting multisensory integration and processing, VR can augment the effects of the two most promising nonpharmacological treatments – cognitive rehabilitation and exercise.”

Virtual environments are flexible and varied, enabling investigators to control the range and progression of cognitive challenges, with the potential for greater adaptations and stronger intervention effects. VR also allows for the incorporation of cognitive rehabilitation strategies into exercise training sessions, which may support a more direct approach to improving specific cognitive domains through exercise prescriptions. The application of VR to stroke research has shown more improvement in motor outcomes compared with traditional therapy, as well as greater neural activation in the affected area of the brain, suggesting that greater gains may persist over time.

Dr. Sandroff emphasized the largely conceptual advantages for the use of VR to treat cognitive dysfunction in individuals with MS. “More clinical research is needed to explore the efficacy of combining VR with cognitive rehabilitation and/or exercise training, and the impact on everyday functioning on individual with MS,” Dr. Sandroff concluded. “The conceptual framework we outline includes examples of ways immersive and interactive VR can be incorporated into MS clinical trials that will form the basis for larger randomized clinical trials.”

Source:

Journal reference:

Wender, C.L.A., et al. (2022) Developing the Rationale for Including Virtual Reality in Cognitive Rehabilitation and Exercise Training Approaches for Managing Cognitive Dysfunction in MS. NeuroSci. doi.org/10.3390/neurosci3020015.

View Original Source

Washington [US], June 25 (ANI): Researchers at the University of California describe how the microbiomes of people and the homes they live in interact and change each other.

Writing in the June 24, 2022 issue of Science Advances, scientists at University of California San Diego School of Medicine and elsewhere report on the molecular impact of life indoors, describing how the presence of humans interacts with their microbial roommates, changing the home’s biology and chemistry.

Also Read | Delhi: AAP MLA Sanjeev Jha and MLA Ajay Dutt Get Extortion Calls, Police Lodge FIR.

The findings, suggest the authors, should influence future building designs.

Modern Americans spend approximately 70 percent of their time inside, reshaping the indoor microbiome with inputs from their bodies. Limited research has investigated the interaction between humans and indoor exposures to specific pollutants, toxins and particles, but the new study more ambitiously documents how people influence the entire molecular and chemical composition of a home through routine activities.

Also Read | IND vs IRE 1st T20I 2022, Malahide Weather, Rain Forecast and Pitch Report: Here’s How Weather Will Behave for India vs Ireland Match At The Village Cricket Stadium.

An experimental test home was erected in Austin, Texas during the summer of 2018. The house was designed for ordinary use and included bathrooms, a kitchen, gathering and work areas. Overnight stays were prohibited, but 45 study participants, plus visitors, spent time in the house, occupying it for approximately six hours per day for 26 days, during which they performed scripted activities, such as cooking, cleaning and socializing.

Researchers sampled the distribution of detectable molecules and microbes throughout the occupied areas of the house at the beginning of the experiment, dubbed T1, and again 28 days later, dubbed T2, largely by swabbing surfaces and conducting different genomic, metabolic and chemical analyses.

Before T1, the house was deep cleaned with a bleach solution. Nonetheless, researchers said traces of molecules associated with humans were still present. At T2, after almost of month of human occupation, the house was alive with molecular and microbial abundance and diversity, albeit unevenly distributed.

Researchers found molecules associated with skin care products, skin cells, drugs (such as antidepressants and anabolic steroids), food-derived molecules (such as terpenes and flavonoids), human or animal metabolites (molecules generated during the process of metabolism, such as bile and fatty acids), amino acids, sugars and microbial metabolites.

Most of the indoor surface molecules were natural products (biologically produced molecules rather than synthetic compounds), food, molecules associated with the outdoors, personal care products and human-derived metabolites, often traced to fecal matter.

Food, human-associated microbes, feces, building materials and the microbes that grow upon them and building materials in humid conditions were deemed the likely primary sources.

Not surprisingly, the kitchen and toilet were hotspots of molecular and microbial diversity, though numbers fluctuated with surface cleaning and sanitation. “It appears that, even when a subset of chemistry is removed because of the cleaning, it is only temporary and/or partial, as the sum total of cleaning and human activities overall results in an increase in accumulation of richer chemistry,” the authors wrote.

Surfaces routinely touched by people, such as tables, light switches and knobs, were more abundant in molecular and microbial chemistry. Floors showed less molecular diversity, perhaps because they were cleaned more often. Windows, chairs and doors not routinely touched by human occupants displayed the least change in chemical diversity between T1 and T2.

Other residents

Of course, people weren’t the only occupants of the test home. Researchers found indoor surfaces covered with bacteria, fungi and other microbes, plus their metabolites. Regular cleaning altered these microbial populations and diversity over time, allowing different species to recolonize cleaned spaces.

At the end of the test period, less than half of the house’s original microbiome remained, but it accounted from more than 96 percent of all microbial life counted. Most of the detected microbiome at T2 was derived from human occupants, mainly commensal species that reside on human skin or in the gut. Free-living, environment-associated microbes had been depleted by human activities. In other words, cleaned or pushed out.

“We don’t know exactly how the human-related microbes squeezed out the environmental microbes because there are many ways this could happen, but it’s clear that they do,” said Rob Knight, PhD, one of the study’s principal investigators and director of the Center for Microbiome Innovation at UC San Diego. “Understanding this phenomenon will be a key goal of future research on the microbiology of the built environment.”

The authors noted that at least 1 percent of the detected indoor molecules may pose an outsized health effect. For example, the bacterial species Paenibacillus was associated with molecules from coffee, one of the dominant sources of food-derived indoor molecules detected. In the home, especially at T2, Paenibacillus was observed in and around the area where coffee was prepared and the genus has been found to grow in coffee machines. Paenibacillus species have been used as probiotics in chickens and bees, and may also contribute to human health, consistent with recent reports that coffee drinking is associated with improved cardiovascular health and longevity.

“Understanding specifically how our observations that both human and microbial occupants change the chemical make-up of a home should influence building material design to improve human health will require additional studies,” said co-principle investigator Pieter Dorrestein, PhD, director of the Collaborative Mass Spectrometry Innovation Center at Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at UC San Diego. (ANI)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)

View Original Source

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — The fate of hard-nosed technology executive Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani is now in the hands of a jury that will weigh criminal charges alleging he joined disgraced Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes, his former partner, in an elaborate fraud that jarred Silicon Valley.

U.S. District Judge Edward Davila handed the case to the jury Friday afternoon after federal prosecutors in San Jose, California, finished a rebuttal to more than 11 hours of closing arguments methodically laid out by one of Balwani’s lawyers, Jeffrey Coopersmith.

The jury will pore over testimony, emails, salacious texts, and other evidence submitted during a three-month trial as they sort through the 12 counts of fraud and conspiracy filed against Balwani for his role at Theranos, a blood-testing company founded by Holmes when she was just 19.

Balwani, 57, began dating Holmes, now 38, around the same time she dropped out of Stanford University in 2003 to found her startup. He helped Holmes behind the scenes until 2010 when he became Theranos’ chief operating officer while he was living with Holmes. The couple broke up in 2016 as Theranos began to collapse amid revelations about serious problems with Theranos’ technology that they had concealed from investors and patients.

A separate jury spent seven days deliberating over the evidence in Holmes’ trial before convicting her on four counts of investor fraud and conspiracy and acquitting her on four counts of patient fraud and conspiracy earlier this year. She could be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison by Davila in a hearing scheduled for late September. The jury in Balwani’s trial is aware of Holmes’ conviction but has been ordered not to consider that in their deliberations.

The case revolves around allegations that Holmes and Balwani duped investors and patients about a Theranos blood-testing technology that they bragged would revolutionize health care and generate huge profits.

But the blood tests never consistently worked as Holmes and Balwani had promised, even as prominent investors such as Silicon Valley billionaire Larry Ellison and media mogul Rupert Murdoch poured nearly $1 billion into Theranos. Meanwhile, Theranos was running tests of its technology as part of a partnership with Walgreens that were delivering inaccurate results to patients that threatened to jeopardize their health.

By 2014, the Theranos stakes of Holmes and Balwani were worth a combined $5 billion. Holmes, who served as Theranos’ star attraction and chief visionary, owned $4.5 billion of that amount, with the rest belonging to Balwani, who oversaw the company’s day-to-day operations with a sometimes-abrasive management style.

All that wealth evaporated once it became known Theranos’ technology wasn’t living up to Holmes’ brash promises. The downfall transformed Theranos — and the couple that once ran it — from a Silicon Valley sensation into a cautionary tale about how horribly things can spiral out of control when ambitious entrepreneurs exaggerate the capabilities of a nascent technology.

Federal prosecutors provided evidence showing Balwani grossly exaggerated Theranos revenue projections that helped Holmes woo investors while also overseeing the company lab and covering up flawed tests of patients’ blood.

“The plan here was not to get caught,” federal prosecutor John Bostic told the jury Friday. “The plan was not for the company to fail. The plan was to get away with it.”

To underscore Balwani’s influential role, prosecutors used their closing arguments to highlight a July 2015 text that he sent to Holmes. “I am responsible for everything at Theranos,” Balwani reminded Holmes. “All have been my decisions too.”

Balwani’s lawyers countered by depicting him as a loyal soldier who not only pledged about $15 million of his own money to help prop up Theranos from 2009 to 2011, but also a tireless worker focused on doing everything to help Holmes achieve her goals. They also insisted Balwani fell under the same spell that Holmes cast while wooing investors and convincing powerful men such as former U.S. Secretary of State George Schultz and former U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis to join the Theranos board of directors.

Holmes “certainly has to be as charismatic a person as you can possibly be,” Coopersmith, Balwani’s lawyer, told the jury at one point during a closing argument that unfolded over the course of three days this week.

In his rebuttal, Bostic argued Holmes leaned heavily on Balwani’s advice because he was older and more experienced than her, having previously sold a startup that made him rich.

“They were partners in every sense of the word,” Bostic said of Holmes and Balwani.

Close Modal

Suggest a Correction

Suggest a Correction

View Original Source

As the need to address climate change becomes increasingly urgent so too does the concurrent need for proactive stewardship of the Earth’s rapidly changing biosphere, according to research published today in the journal Science.

“There is actually a lot we can do to help systems cope with oncoming climate change,” says Simon Fraser University biology professor and author Jonathan Moore, who with University of Washington professor Daniel Schindler, reviewed and assessed the potential benefits of forward-looking approaches. “From restoring connectivity to reducing local stressors to conserving future habitats — all of these proactive approaches can help the ecosystems that we rely upon to adapt to climate change.”

With that in mind, in order for species and ecosystems to adapt and be resilient it is critical to move beyond preservation-oriented approaches and include those that enable ecological change, Schindler notes. “Local efforts to conserve biodiversity and regenerate habitat complexity will also help maintain a diversity of future options for species and ecosystems in an unpredictable future.”

While species movement into new habitats has been key to the biosphere’s adaptive response to a changing world, climate change is also transforming those ecosystems, leading to the loss of some species and the addition of others.

The authors note that conservation should not just focus on “climate change losers” but also on proactive management of emerging opportunities and pressures. In the Arctic, warming oceans and shrinking sea ice may create more fish production but threaten some species like polar bears that rely on the ice for hunting seals. Ice loss in the Arctic Ocean also increases pressures from industrial activities such as shipping traffic and oil and gas exploration that pose environmental risks. These pressures need to be managed in a forward-looking approach to steward the Arctic ecosystem into the future.

The Earth’s biodiversity has a history of change, with genes, species, populations, and ecosystems all shifting fluidly with a changing world. “Earth’s systems have incredible capacity to adapt and be resilient to changes,” says Moore. “That is what has allowed some species to persist for millions of years. But our actions are seriously undermining that adaptive capacity.”

The authors caution that even with the most aggressive emission reduction strategies further warming will “persist for decades” before potentially recovering, and strategies to enable adaptation and resilience will be key for maintaining functioning ecosystems and for conserving biodiversity.

“Natural resource management and conservation efforts will need to embrace the dynamic aspects of the biosphere to help maintain functioning ecosystems and protect biodiversity amid ongoing climate change,” says Moore.

Schindler says it is important and urgent for humanity to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and “the reality is that the world is warming and that systems are changing. We often expect that ecosystems will always look the same, or that certain species will always be found in the same locations. The biosphere has never been static — and we need to embrace management approaches that maintain a dynamic and fluid biosphere. Thus, conservation and management need to be prospective — looking to the future, and proactive — taking action for the future.”

Story Source:

Materials provided by Simon Fraser University. Original written by Melissa Shaw. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

View Original Source

June 22, 2022 — Blackford, a medical imaging AI platform leader that helps healthcare professionals add clinical value, today announced a strategic partnership with Rad AI, the nation’s fastest-growing radiologist-led AI company. This partnership will enable Blackford to present Rad AI and its advanced technology in generating customized radiology report impressions to its sales portfolio. 

“Blackford and Rad AI both exist to help make the life of the radiologist better and to enable more efficient and effective patient care. Radiology has never been under more pressure, and we believe that harnessing AI makes a real difference,” said Blackford Founder and CEO Ben Panter. “We’re therefore excited to be partnering with a like-minded company like Rad AI to streamline adoption of their AI product across healthcare providers.” 

Rad AI automatically generates a customized impression from the findings and clinical indication dictated by the radiologist, using the most advanced neural networks. It learns each radiologist’s language preferences from their prior reports, to create an impression that the radiologist can simply review and finalize. In addition, Rad AI improves report accuracy and consistency by making sure to include significant incidental findings, answering the main clinical question, and providing the latest consensus guideline recommendations for follow-up. The impression appears in the practice’s voice recognition software as soon as the radiologist finishes dictating the findings, without any clicks, hotkeys, or new windows. 

“Blackford and Rad AI both have similar goals: to improve efficiency and reduce burnout for radiology practices to help reduce the cost of care and add clinical value,” said Dr. Jeff Chang, ER radiologist and co-founder of Rad AI. “We’re excited to see how two innovative companies with aligned goals can work together to improve patient care.” 

For more information: www.blackfordanalysis.com 

View Original Source

For any number of reasons, you’ve likely clicked on your spam email folder from time to time. In doing so, you may have noticed that spam messages have grown more and more sophisticated over time. These days, spam emails often invoke real-life events such as pharmaceutical class action lawsuits or clergy abuse scandals as a way to lure more clicks.

These same scams have now taken to impersonating company bosses: Business email compromise scams are a huge problem with $43 billion lost and more than 240,000 incidents from 2016 to 2021 globally.

As phishing attempts that target business emails become increasingly difficult to identify, Twingate researched helpful ways to verify whether communications you’re receiving are really from coworkers, professional contacts, or your boss. These include some simple checks, such as making sure the email address is one you trust, or that a linked page really goes where it claims. The forthcoming tips also include more subtle forms of awareness, like asking yourself if your boss really uses language the way you see in the message or whether they would actually misspell your name—or theirs.

The best way to prevent these phishing scams in the long run is to continuously hone your gut instinct and be cautious when it tells you something smells fishy. When in doubt, hop on the phone, the company Slack channel, or your email and politely check with colleagues to be sure the message you received is real. Maybe your boss is on the go and typing too fast without paying close attention to typos, and they’ll appreciate your attention to detail.

View Original Source

Washington [US], June 18 (ANI): Scientists are starting to understand the precise workings of a type of gene that, unlike other genes, does not code for proteins – the building blocks of life.

New research led by the University of Bath shows the mechanism by which genes coding for a subset of long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) interact with neighbouring genes to regulate the development and function of essential nerve cells. It was published in the journal PLoS Genetics.

Also Read | F1 Canadian GP 2022 Live Streaming Online: Get Telecast Details of Qualifying & Main Race at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.

Despite their prevalence in genes coding for lncRNA in the genome (estimates range from 18,000 to 60,000 lncRNA genes in the human genome compared to 20,000 protein-coding genes), these segments of DNA were once written off as junk precisely because the information contained within them does not result in the production of a protein.

However, it is now clear that some lncRNAs are anything but scrap, and these may come to play a key role in restoring physical function in people who have suffered serious nerve damage.

Also Read | IND vs SA Dream11 Team Prediction: Tips To Pick Best Fantasy Playing XI for India vs South Africa 5th T20I 2022 in Bengaluru.

Although the function of most lncRNA genes remains a mystery, a subset is co-expressed in the brain along with neighbouring genes that code for proteins involved in gene expression control. In other words, genes for these lncRNAs and their protein-coding neighbours work as a pair. Together, they regulate the development and function of essential nerve cells, particularly in the brain during embryonic development and in early life.

The new study describes the regulatory pathway involved in controlling the levels of one of these gene pairs. Their location and quantity in the genome need to be carefully coordinated, as does the timing of their activity.

“We previously defined one of the most profound functions for lncRNA in the brain and our new study identifies an important signalling pathway that acts to coordinate the expression of this lncRNA and the key protein-coding gene that it is paired with,” explains Dr Keith Vance, lead author of the study from the Department of Biology & Biochemistry at Bath.

“This new research takes us closer to understanding the basic biology of nerve cells and how they are produced. Regenerative medicine is the end-game and with further research, we hope to develop a deeper understanding of how lncRNA genes operate in the brain.”

He adds: “This knowledge could be important for scientists looking for ways to replace defective neurons and restore nerve function – for instance in people who have had strokes.” (ANI)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)

View Original Source