Quick Notes on Genetics

Final Post

2007-07-21T11:28:00.000-04:00

I no longer post here. For posts, see "On Genetics". For brief comments, see Connotea.

News on Genetics

2006-09-04T17:16:00.000-04:00

I posted in July that I was looking into sites for sharing bookmarks (link). After trying things out a bit this summer, I've settled on Connotea for bookmarks related to genetics, and I've created a specialized blog (News on Genetics) for brief comments on genetics news.

Follow up on selection vs. differential gene flow

2006-08-01T01:10:00.000-04:00

An extensive comment by "Galtonesque" on my posting, selection vs. differential gene flow, that addressed a paper by Cochran et al. ("Natural History of Ashkenasi Intelligence" PubMed, J. Biosocial Sci.) deserves a pointer. This is it!

NMD mutations in Arabidopsis

2006-07-19T23:11:00.000-04:00

Last year, Hori and Watanabe published in Plant Journal that an Arabidopsis upf3 mutation is viable but leads to the accumulation of aberrantly spliced RNAs. Now, Yoine et al. have shown that UPF1 is essential for growth and that low-beta-amylase1, (lba1 ), a missense mutation in UPF1, causes pleiotropic effects related to sugar metabolism. There are lots of tools now to study nonsense-mediated decay in Arabidopsis.

Science Blogs

2006-07-06T18:32:00.000-04:00

Nature on science blogs: "weblogs written by scientists are relatively rare," but they find five exceptions.

ESRs are complex -- comparative and experimental analysis from the Ast lab

2006-07-03T20:13:00.000-04:00

A new paper from the Ast lab (Goren et al. 2006. "Comparative Analysis Identifies Exonic Splicing Regulatory Sequences -- The Complex Definition of Enhancers and Silencers" PubMed Molecular Cell) introduces the term ESR for exonic regulatory sequences and studies some of their properties. There are no surprises here, but the paper provides a key confirmation of the importance of position within the exon to ESR function.

Transmission of epigenetic traits in animals

2006-05-24T21:41:00.000-04:00

Rassoulzadegan et al. now describe "RNA-mediated non-mendelian inheritance of an epigenetic change in the mouse." Nature. Of course, Renato Paro showed non-mendelian inheritance in animals (in an artifical system) some time ago (Cavalli and Paro, 1999 PubMed ID 10542150, Science) in a paper that I used in my graduate genetics class.

Yijun Ruan

2006-05-05T17:23:00.000-04:00

Today's CBMG speaker, Yijun Ruan, gave a nice talk. I was impressed with his paired-end di-TAG technology applied to transcripts (transcripts) and ChIP.

HapMap in action -- common haplotype near INSIG2 and obesity

2006-04-19T13:58:00.000-04:00

Herbet et al. "A Common Genetic Variant is Associated with Adult and Childhood Obesity" 2006 Science 312:279 (PubMed Science)

non-conserved functional regulatory sequences

2006-04-19T13:56:00.000-04:00

I'm sure that I already heard this story in Drosophila, but Fisher et al. ("Conservation of RET Regulatory Function from Human to Zebrafish without Sequence Similarity." 2006 Science 312:276) now makes the point that regulatory modules can conserve function with sequence similarity at levels that lie below the usual limits of detection. (PubMed Science)

LabCorp vs. Metabolite Laboratories

2006-03-20T10:58:00.000-05:00

"Justices Reach Out to Consider Patent Case", an article in today's New York Times, discusses LabCorp v. Metabolite Laboratories, a case which might finally limit patents on natural phenomenon (technically one cannot patent a natural phenomenon, but this line has been increasingly crossed in recent years, much to the detriment of research and innovation).

Quick notes on genetics

2006-03-16T14:51:00.000-05:00

Like it's companion, "Steve's Quick Notes," this blog will be used to record without polishing. I was inspired by Mark Gerstein's textstream.