News: 'Telepathic' genes recognise similarities in each other.
- From: Ye Old One <usenet@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2008 21:07:23 GMT
Imperial College London news release
http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/imperialcollege/newssummary/news_24-1-2008-14-30-52?newsid=25614
For immediate use
Thursday 24 January 2008
Genes have the ability to recognise similarities in each other from a
distance, without any proteins or other biological molecules aiding
the process, according to new research published this week in the
Journal of Physical Chemistry B. This discovery could explain how
similar genes find each other and group together in order to perform
key processes involved in the evolution of species.
This new study shows that genes ? which are parts of double-stranded
DNA with a double-helix structure containing a pattern of chemical
bases - can recognise other genes with a similar pattern of chemical
bases.
This ability to seek each other out could be the key to how genes
identify one another and align with each other in order to begin the
process of 'homologous recombination' ? whereby two double-helix DNA
molecules come together, break open, swap a section of genetic
information, and then close themselves up again.
Recombination is an important process which plays a key role in
evolution and natural selection, and is also central to the body?s
ability to repair damaged DNA. Before now, scientists have not known
exactly how suitable pairs of genes find each other in order for this
process to begin.
The authors of the new study carried out a series of experiments in
order to test the theory, first developed in 2001 by two members of
this team, that long pieces of identical double-stranded DNA could
identify each other merely as a result of complementary patterns of
electrical charges which they both carry. They wanted to verify that
this could indeed occur without physical contact between the two
molecules, or the facilitating presence of proteins.
Previous studies have suggested that proteins are involved in the
recognition process when it occurs between short strands of DNA which
only have about 10 pairs of chemical bases. This new research shows
that much longer strands of DNA with hundreds of pairs of chemical
bases seem able to recognise each other as a whole without protein
involvement. According to the theory, this recognition mechanism is
stronger the longer the genes are.
The researchers observed the behaviour of fluorescently tagged DNA
molecules in a pure solution. They found that DNA molecules with
identical patterns of chemical bases were approximately twice as
likely to gather together than DNA molecules with different sequences.
Professor Alexei Kornyshev from Imperial College London, one of the
study's authors, explains the significance of the team's results:
"Seeing these identical DNA molecules seeking each other out in a
crowd, without any external help, is very exciting indeed. This could
provide a driving force for similar genes to begin the complex process
of recombination without the help of proteins or other biological
factors. Our team's experimental results seem to support these
expectations."
Understanding the precise mechanism of the primary recognition stage
of genetic recombination may shed light on how to avoid or minimise
recombination errors in evolution, natural selection and DNA repair.
This is important because such errors are believed to cause a number
of genetically determined diseases including cancers and some forms of
Alzheimer's, as well as contributing to ageing. Understanding this
mechanism is also essential for refining precise artificial
recombination techniques for biotechnologies and gene therapies of the
future.
The team is now working on a set of further experiments to determine
exactly how these interactions work, including the predicted length
dependence. In addition, further studies are needed to ascertain
whether this interaction, discovered in a test tube, occurs in the
highly complex environment of a living cell.
The study was carried out by researchers at Imperial College London
and the National Institute of Health (NIH) in the USA. The work was
funded in the UK by the EPSRC and supported by the NIH Institute of
Child Health and Human Development.
--
Bob.
.
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