Tag Archives: miRNA

Detecting Gene Doping in Sports: MicroRNA biomarker sought

Posted on August 3, 2012 by Nicole Kelesoglu

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has committed $50 million US dollars to research since 2001 (see their grant applications & projects here).  Since 2007, some of those research funds have gone to the emerging problem of gene doping. Read about the first public evidence of gene doping, from the trial of the German track coach Thomas Springstein., in the NYT article Outlaw DNA. So what is gene doping? WADA defines it as “the transfer of nucleic acids or nucleic acid sequences’ and/or ‘the use of normal or genetically modified cells with the intention to enhance sports performance.” Gene doping is based on a vector containing a therapeutic gene coupled with a regulatory element, delivered to somatic cells either in, or … Continue reading →

Posted in Animal Models, Bioinformatics, Biomarkers, Transcriptome, microRNA | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Viral MicroRNA Mimicing Cellular MicroRNA? and a New Dual-Fluuorescent Reporter System

Posted on May 17, 2012 by Nicole Kelesoglu

A team out of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has reported both a new dual-fluorescent reporter system, and an insight on a suspected general phenomenon of functionally matched viral and cellular microRNA in viral-host interactions. You X, Zhang Z, Fan J, Cui Z, Zhang X-E (2012) Functionally Orthologous Viral and Cellular MicroRNAs Studied by a Novel Dual-Fluorescent Reporter System. PLoS ONE 7(4): e36157. Now for context, the gist of what’s known about microRNAs (miRNA) is that they can be thought of as epigenetic post-transcriptional volume control. Modulating…fine tuning…dialling gene expression up or down.   MicroRNAs are ~18-24 nucleotide molecules that are processed from long, highly evolutionarily conserved sequences in organisms and viruses. Such pre-miRNA sequences are located at protein gene introns, … Continue reading →

Posted in Biomarkers, Cellular Biology, Imaging, Immunology, Leukemia, Microbial Epigenetics, New Lab Methods, Non-coding RNA, Oncogenes, Virology, microRNA | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Critical Window, Epigenetics, and Stress — and Maybe Mental Health too

Posted on September 23, 2011 by Chris Womack

The past few weeks have been good for stress. Two labs published studies supporting the idea that stress during sensitive periods in early development can cause epigenetic changes affecting how an organism turns out. These studies look at mice and humans, respectively. I’m diving into the mouse study today — it’s got two kinds of epigenetics: an inherited, probably chromatin-mark imprinting angle; and an miRNA angle. I’ll get to the human study from the Kobor lab next time. As an aside, I find “stress and epigenetics”  especially interesting because I’m always looking for clues about how this new-ish field is perceived and represented by the lay public, and “stress” is a lay-public magnet. As I’ve talked about before, aside from … Continue reading →

Posted in Behavioral Epigenetics, DNA Methylation | Tagged , , , , , , | 6 Comments