After injury, plants make a trade-off between repairing damaged tissue and ramping up their defenses, according to a new study. Understanding how plants regulate these responses enabled the researchers to nudge wounded plants toward repair instead of defense, a strategy that could be useful in improving regeneration in important staple crops like corn. Understanding how…

Researchers designed experiments using gene-editing tools to discover how molecules called gangliosides serve as de facto gatekeepers to allow the virus entry into liver cells and trigger disease. The research, published in Nature Microbiology, has revealed gangliosides as a key player in HAV and has led to several other questions, such as how exactly viral…

Researchers have demonstrated the success of a vaccine against Zika virus. The vaccine was generated using a novel platform technology. Verardi, a Brazilian native, was in Brazil visiting family in the summer of 2015 when the Zika outbreak first began to make waves and soon reached epidemic status. Back in the United States, Verardi kept…

For many livestock species, artificial insemination (AI) is standard. But it can be tricky to achieve success the first time, thanks to variability in ovulation timing across the herd. A new study identifies a naturally occurring sugar that slows the maturation of sperm in pigs, opening up the possibility of extending sperm storage time within…

Researchers have established an accurate genome assembly of ‘Fielder’ wheat, which — unlike other wheat cultivars — is very amenable to genetic editing through bacterial transformation. This genome sequence was generated using a technique that is easier than previous sequencing methods. The development has important implications for wheat genome-editing research and agriculture. The wheat cultivar…

Proteins need to interact in a complex manner for a so-called ‘messenger RNA’ (mRNA) to be created in human cells from a precursor molecule. mRNA provides a blueprint for proteins; the first vaccines against the coronavirus are also based on mRNAs. Scientists have now discovered how an essential final step in the production of mRNA…

Turning off gene-editing until it reaches cell cycle phases where more accurate repairs are likely to happen offers a promising fix to CRISPR-Cas9’s problem with unwanted genetic changes. Researchers from Hiroshima University and Tokyo Medical and Dental University published on Communications Biology the results of their study which successfully demonstrated a more precise gene-editing and…

In all eukaryotic organisms, genetic material is stored in the cell nucleus in the form of DNA. In order to be used, this DNA is first transcribed into messenger RNA in the cell cytoplasm, then translated into protein with the help of ribosomes, small machines capable of decoding messenger RNA to synthesize the appropriate proteins.…

In order to counter the increasing threat posed by multi-drug resistant germs, we need to understand how their resistance mechanisms work. Transport proteins have an important role to play in this process. Scientists have now described the three-dimensional structure of transport protein Pdr5, found also in a similar form in pathogenic fungi. The results could…

The bacterial gut microbiome is strongly associated with Parkinson’s disease (PD), but no studies had previously investigated he role of fungi in the gut. In this novel study a team of investigators examined whether the fungal constituents of the gut microbiome are associated with PD. «Several studies conducted since 2014 have characterized changes in the…