alcoholism connected to epigenetics

Epigenetics gets real!!!

A group from Chicago published a paper two weeks ago connecting chromatin remodeling (epigenetics) in brain to alcoholism. It is exciting because this is for the first clear evidence, as far as I know, humans' everyday activity could affect epigenetics.

Using laboratory rats as model, they found that acute anti-anxiety effects of alcohol are mediated by reduced histone (H3 and H4) acetylation in the amygdala region of the brain. What's more interesting is that increased anxiety accompanied with withdrawal from alcohol dependence is caused by a further increase in this process (acetylation). Neuropeptide Y, a known protein and mediator of anti-anxiety, is a potential target of the transcriptional regulation associated with this epigenetic mechanism. Inhibition of this process could indeed prevent anxiety. These data could potentially explain a lot of symptoms related to alcoholism and withdrawal anxiety. The clinical significance will have to be proved by further study.

When you drink next time, remind yourself that you are modifying your epigenome!

cancer clinical research and Sydney Brenner

Nobel laureate Sydney Brenner called for a “bedside to bench” approach to researchers at the AACR meeting this month. Biological and medical researches have been following a way from lab bench to hospital bed all the time. Input from clinical professionals to basic research is limited. This actually could be one of the most important reasons that translational research is extremely slow.

However, it is easier to say it than do it. This could be a slow process with both parts having to be patient enough. It is like talk to evolution people about molecular biology - macro world and micro world have different languages.

But this should benefit us and should be promoted. Go for it!

Watson and Alzheimer’s disease

You must have heard that the "complete" sequencing of the genome of James D. Watson - the pioneer of molecular biology. The sequencing actually was finished about one year ago in two months and cost about 1 million. Now the results are out in Nature.

Here are some numbers:
7.4 - fold redundancy -- current sequencing technique requires redundant sequencing for assembly purposes;
3.3 million - single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) --these are single nucleotide variations to the reference sequences;
0.61 million - of those SNPs were previously unknown;
10,654 -- 10654 of those SNPs could cause amino-acid substitution within the coding sequence, that means that the protein sequences could be changed which could affect the protein function;
222,718 - small insertion and/or deletion polymorphisms, which affects local chromosomal regions;
345 - of above overlap gene coding sequences and could alter protein function;
1.5 million -new sequences;
49 - potential genes from above 1.5 million new sequences

Will Dr. Watson develop Alzheimer's disease? That's secret. The sequence of Apoliprotein E gene and neighboring regions was not disclosed.

How about breast cancer? --come on, not him. But his genome does contain a related mutation. He is not too concerned because he doesn't have any daughter.

Are you interested in his genome? (I am not :) ) But here is the link:
http://jimwatsonsequence.cshl.edu/cgi-perl/gbrowse/jwsequence/

Is Dr. Watson the first one to have genome completely sequenced? -- No. The founder of J. Craig Vender Institute (Rockville, Maryland), Mr. Vender was the first one. However, the technology was different and it cost $100 million. 100 times more!

How useful the sequence is? --"it will be extremely difficult to extract medically, or even biologically, reliable inference from individual sequences" - Maynard Olson.

How useful will it be? -- Some day, it will be useful.

stem cell patent?

http://genefinding.blogspot.com/2008/04/warf-is-evil.html

Steven Salzberg, a Professor of bioinformaticsat at the University of Maryland, raised the question of patenting stem cells by WARF - Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation. Many aspects involved here, for example, is patent a good thing at all? Is patenting research a good thing? Is patenting research funded by public money a good thing? Look at people's comments. Interesting topic to discuss.

My point is simple: patent them but give them free (or almost free) to academic researches.

Stem Cell meeting

The 6th ISSCR (International Society for Stem Cell Research) Annual Meeting will be held from June 11 to 14, 2008 in Pennsylvania.

Looking at the speaker list, you will regret if you are in this field but you will miss this conference.

Conformed speakers include:

Sir John Gurdon FRS, Wellcome Trust/Cancer Research UK Gurdon Institute, UK, Keynote Address
Rudolf Jaenisch, MD, Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, USA, Closing Address
...
Douglas A. Melton, PhD, Harvard University, USA
...
Shinya Yamanaka, MD, PhD, Kyoto University, Japan

and more...

Parkinson's disease - new information

Parkinson's disease has been thought to be a good disease model where cell replacement could actually help. It's caused by the damage of a particular kind of neural cells by an abnormally formated protein. Therefore anything replacing these damaged cells are thought to be effective. Stem cell researchers around the world are trying to make this kind of cells from embryonic stem cells for replacement. However it should be noted that earlier trials in 1990s already started injecting normal cells from aborted fetuses into the affected patients' brains to replace those cells destroyed. Although not exactly same as stem cells, these researches did offer some useful information. First, the injected cells did actually survive and incorporated to the patients' brain system. Second, these cells could offer some benefit (although not dramatic in most cases).

Now, some of the patients have died and postmortem examinations told us something surprising -- in some cases, some of the injected cells acquired similar damage as the original disease cells. Parkinson's disease usually only hits old people. However those injected cells are still relatively "young" (slightly over one decade), how did these cells got the dangerous protein? No one could answer yet. Although only 6 cases were analyzed, these findings indicate the complex of this disease. Will the same thing happen to stem cell derived cells in the future? How to get away with this problem?

Further research is necessary. problems will be solved eventually.

What can be done will eventually be done

-- in time!

just put it up here.