'Dark genome' is involved in Rett Syndrome

Friday, May 3, 2013

Researchers at the Epigenetics and Cancer Biology Program at IDIBELL led by Manel Esteller, ICREA researcher and professor of genetics at the University of Barcelona, have described alterations in noncoding long chain RNA sequences (lncRNA) in Rett syndrome.

These molecules act as supervisor agents responsible of 'switch on' or 'switch off' other genes in our genome that regulate the activity of neurons. The work has been published in the last issue of the journal RNA Biology.

Dark genome

Only 5% of our genetic material are genes that encode proteins. The remaining 95% is known as dark genome or non-coding DNA and its function is still unknown. Part of this DNA produces RNA molecules called noncoding long chain RNA (lncRNAs).

Rett Syndrome

Rett syndrome is a neurodevelopmental disease and it is the second most common cause of mental retardation in females after Down syndrome. Clinical symptoms occur between 6 and 18 months after birth and consist of a loss of cognitive, social and motor capacities accompanied by autistic behaviors, eg, stereotypic hand movements.

Today there is no effective treatment of the disease but the control of their symptoms. The syndrome is usually due to the presence of a mutation in MeCP2 epigenetic gene that, as a magnet, regulates the expression of many other genes of the cell.

Esteller's team works with a mouse model that faithfully reproduces the characteristics of the human Rett syndrome. In this study, researchers compared the expression of long chains of RNA in healthy and diseased animals and found that the presence of mutations in the Mecp2 gene causes alterations in the activity of lncRNA.

One such altered lncARN regulates the function of a key neurotransmitter in the nervous system in all vertebrates brain (GABA receptor). "Its alteration", says Esteller, "could explain the defects of communication between neurons in girls affected by Rett Syndrome."

According to Manel Esteller "this finding, in addition to increasing knowledge about the causes of the disease, could open the door to new therapeutic strategies that target lncRNA molecules or GABA receptor."

###

IDIBELL-Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute: http://www.idibell.cat

Thanks to IDIBELL-Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

This press release has been viewed 30 time(s).

Source: http://www.labspaces.net/128117/_Dark_genome__is_involved_in_Rett_Syndrome

olympia snowe davey jones dead boston weather dr seuss birthday derrick williams romney michigan railgun

New Zealand's internet bad boy wants to see top U.S. lawman

By David Ingram and Naomi Tajitsu

WASHINGTON/WELLINGTON (Reuters) - A trip to New Zealand will put America's chief prosecutor on the same soil as a flashy internet mogul who is fighting extradition to the United States on charges he assisted massive piracy of copyrighted movies and music.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder visits New Zealand next week for an annual meeting of a "quintet" of attorneys general from mostly English-speaking countries - and not to meet up with the entrepreneur Kim Dotcom.

The founder of defunct file-sharing service Megaupload, Dotcom has oscillated between assailing Holder's trip and wanting to hear what he has to say in person.

It was unclear on Thursday whether Holder would appear in public. His speech at the University of Auckland is planned primarily for students and will be closed to the public and the media, although his U.S. speeches are usually open to the media.

In Twitter posts, Dotcom requested a ticket to the speech, offered to send T-shirts and an ethics manual to wherever Holder is staying and challenged his followers to film Holder while a Megaupload theme song plays for a $500 prize.

Dotcom tweeted that he would like to understand Holder's definition of cybercrime, one issue the quintet works on.

An extradition hearing for Dotcom is scheduled for August, although appeals could further delay it, said Ira Rothken, a lawyer for Megaupload. He told Reuters by phone he had no reason to expect a meeting between Holder and Dotcom.

Holder declined an interview through a spokeswoman on Thursday. Federal prosecutors in Virginia who are handling the case declined to comment on how it is proceeding.

Dotcom got rich from founding Megaupload, which allowed users to upload and download movies, music, television shows, e-books and software. The site once commanded 4 percent of global online traffic before U.S. prosecutors shut it down.

The United States began a criminal copyright case against Dotcom in January 2012. At Washington's request, New Zealand law enforcement officers conducted a dramatic raid on his mansion outside Auckland.

Attempts to have him sent to the United States for trial were delayed after a New Zealand court last year found that New Zealand used unlawful warrants in his arrest and illegally spied on him in the lead-up to the raid.

PRECEDENT SETTER?

Dotcom and six associates face U.S. charges that they conspired to infringe copyrights, launder money and commit racketeering and fraud.

The copyright case could set a precedent for internet liability laws and, depending on its outcome, may force entertainment companies to rethink their distribution methods.

Dotcom maintains that Megaupload, which housed everything from family photos to Hollywood blockbusters, was merely a storage facility for online files, and should not be held accountable if content stored on the site was obtained illegally.

The Justice Department counters that Megaupload encouraged piracy by paying money to users who uploaded popular content and by deleting content that was not regularly downloaded.

It said Megaupload cost copyright holders such as movie studios and record companies more than $500 million and generated more than $175 million in criminal proceeds. It called the case among the largest ever involving criminal copyright.

Dotcom launched a new file-sharing service, Mega, in January.

Many New Zealanders view Dotcom, born in Germany as Kim Schmitz, as a folk hero fighting for online freedom and willing to stand up to the U.S. and New Zealand governments.

Dotcom, who has been released on bail and is suing the New Zealand government for illegal surveillance, predicted Holder would keep a low profile during his visit.

"It's probably risk management and avoidance of bad PR because the story has not yet arrived in any big way in the U.S. media," he wrote in an email to Reuters. "Any bad coverage here might spill over to the U.S."

Holder's visit to Dotcom's country of residence is not his choice. The attorneys general of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States began meeting as a quintet in 2009 to discuss legal matters including cybercrime.

After a gathering in Ottawa last year, it was New Zealand's turn to host.

(Reporting by David Ingram in Washington and Naomi Tajitsu in Wellington; Editing by Howard Goller and Xavier Briand)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/zealands-internet-bad-boy-wants-see-top-lawman-003444980.html

olivier martinez ny lottery Ohio Lottery Colorado Lottery Pa Lottery Ebates lotto

'What Maisie Knew' gives Henry James a New York spin

'What Maisie Knew' focuses on the daughter of two parents getting divorced.

By Peter Rainer,?Film critic / May 3, 2013

'What Maisie Knew' stars Julianne Moore (r.) and Onata Aprile (l.).

Courtesy of Millennium Entertainment

Enlarge

Maisie (Onata Aprile), the central character of ?What Maisie Knew,? is a little girl with big problems. Her rock-singer mother, Susanna (Julianne Moore), and art-dealer father, Beale (Steve Coogan), are divorcing. Both parents are seeking custody of the child, less out of love than a desire to hurt the other. Maisie listens stoically to their loud fights while she?s playing in her room or attempting to sleep. She?s heard it all before, and yet one gets the impression each argument is a fresh wound.

Skip to next paragraph

Related stories

Recent movie reviews

' + google_ads[0].line2 + '
' + google_ads[0].line3 + '

'; } else if (google_ads.length > 1) { ad_unit += ''; } } document.getElementById("ad_unit").innerHTML += ad_unit; google_adnum += google_ads.length; return; } var google_adnum = 0; google_ad_client = "pub-6743622525202572"; google_ad_output = 'js'; google_max_num_ads = '1'; google_feedback = "on"; google_ad_type = "text"; // google_adtest = "on"; google_image_size = '230x105'; google_skip = '0'; // -->

Subscribe Today to the Monitor

Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS of
The Christian Science Monitor
Weekly Digital Edition

Henry James?s eponymous 1897 novel has been updated to modern Manhattan by the codirectors, Scott McGehee and David Siegel, and their screenwriters, Nancy Doyne and Carroll Cartwright. The story, by James?s standards at least, has also been brightened. I don?t see any point in downgrading the film for not being as good (or as dark) as James?s novel, especially since the adaptation is such a radical alteration anyway. The film stands quite well on its own.
The directors have made the right, essential decision to make the movie almost entirely from Maisie?s point of view. We experience her upsets without the leavening of outside interferences. And because Aprile is such an intuitive performer, we are always searching her face for the imprint of her suffering.

The surprise here is that Maisie is not much of a sufferer, at least not overtly. She has the uncanny resilience of children under siege. It may seem unrealistic that we never see her throw a tantrum or scream at her parents. Only once do we see her cry, with a single tear. And yet we always know what is going on inside her head.

When, for example, Beale, who has partial custody, throws into the garbage a bouquet of flowers delivered to Maisie by her mother, the confused little girl later explains to her nanny, Margo (Joanna Vanderham), that her daddy did it because he?s ?allergic.?

We are accustomed to movies about children, especially Hollywood movies, that spell everything out for us. The filmmakers here understand that childhood?s passage is too strange and ambiguous to be encapsulated so neatly. In ?What Maisie Knew,? we are privy to the machinations of an adult world that Maisie is too young to comprehend. But the adults in this film, particularly her parents, don?t really comprehend her, either. If they did, they would feel even worse about what they are doing to her. They don?t want to hurt her but, more than that, they want to hurt each other.

The balm in this mess comes from Margo, who is initially wed by Beale to ensure custody of Maisie, and from Lincoln (Alexander Skarsg?rd), a hanger-on of Susanna?s whom she weds for similar reasons. Lincoln, who works as a bartender, is soft-spoken, almost angelic, and his developing rapport with Maisie is wonderful to see. (Most of the time she smiles only around him.)

It?s inevitable that Lincoln and Margo, who both look as if they stepped out of a beautiful-people catalog, will eventually go for each other, especially since they genuinely care for Maisie (and she for them). Forgetting about James, this aspect of the film is still too cloudless. It turns the film into a species of fairy tale ? a wish-fulfillment fantasy. But it?s such a resonant fantasy that we want it to be true, for Maisie?s sake, for all our sakes.

I?m glad the filmmakers chose to inject some discordant notes into the lovefest by the end. Susanna barges into the seaside retreat where Maisie and Lincoln and Margo are staying and implores her child to drop everything on the spot and join her on her road tour. Moore is a touch too strident in this film. But here, in her final scene, she shows us what a great actress she can be. Her stridency is the flimsiest of camouflages for her own suffering.

Maisie backs away from her mother and, to her horror, Susanna sees that her child is afraid of her. ?I used to be like you,? she tells her, delicately, and it?s both a supplication and a warning. In ?What Maisie Knew,? we can feel in our bones the cost of what she knows. Grade: B+ (Rated R for some language.)

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/v5azZ1EFikI/What-Maisie-Knew-gives-Henry-James-a-New-York-spin

full moon aubrey o day johan santana viktor bout ncaa hockey role models ferdinand porsche

John Oliver takes over 'Daily Show With Jon Stewart' in June

May 1 (Reuters) - Post position for Saturday's 139th Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs after Wednesday's draw (listed as barrier, HORSE, jockey, trainer) 1. BLACK ONYX, Joe Bravo, Kelly Breen 2. OXBOW, Gary Stevens, D. Wayne Lukas 3. REVOLUTIONARY, Calvin Borel, Todd Pletcher 4. GOLDEN SOUL, Robby Albarado, Dallas Stewart 5. NORMANDY INVASION, Javier Castellano, Chad Brown 6. MYLUTE, Rosie Napravnik, Tom Amoss 7. GIANT FINISH, Jose Espinoza, Tony Dutrow 8. GOLDENCENTS, Kevin Krigger, Doug O'Neill 9. OVERANALYZE, Rafael Bejarano, Todd Pletcher 10. PALACE MALICE, Mike Smith, Todd Pletcher 11. ...

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/john-oliver-takes-over-daily-show-jon-stewart-215426451.html

ufc 144 results acura nsx all star weekend 2012 giada de laurentiis howard hughes nationwide race wanderlust

Starving Virginia settlers turned to cannibalism in 1609: study

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Settlers at Virginia's Jamestown Colony resorted to cannibalism to survive the harsh winter of 1609, dismembering and consuming a 14-year-old English girl, the U.S. Smithsonian Institution reported on Wednesday.

A recent excavation at the historic site revealed not just the remains of dogs, cats and horses eaten by settlers during the cold "Starving Time" of that year, but also the bones of a girl known to researchers simply as "Jane."

This is the first direct evidence of cannibalism at Jamestown, the oldest permanent English colony in the Americas, the Smithsonian said on its website.

The institution is the biggest museum and research complex in the world with 19 museums and galleries, most of them in Washington. It also includes the National Zoo.

"Historians have gone back and forth on whether this sort of thing really happened here," said Smithsonian forensic anthropologist Douglas Owsley, who analyzed the bones after they were found by Preservation Virginia, a private nonprofit group.

"Given these bones in a trash pit, all cut and chopped up, it's clear that this body was dismembered for consumption," Owsley said in the online announcement at http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/Starving-Settlers-in-Jamestown-Colony-Resorted-to-Eating-A-Child-205472161.html .

It is unknown whether "Jane" was murdered or died of natural causes, whether several people or just one person participated in what the announcement called "the butchering."

"The chops to the forehead are very tentative, very incomplete," Owsley said. "Then, the body was turned over, and there were four strikes to the back of the head, one of which was the strongest and split the skull in half. A penetrating wound was then made to the left temple, probably by a single-sided knife, which was used to pry open the head and remove the brain."

The brain, tongue, cheeks and leg muscles appear to have been eaten, with the brain probably consumed first because it decomposes soon after death, the announcement said.

Scholars have speculated that extreme drought, hostile relations with the local Powhatan Confederacy and a lost supply ship made the Jamestown colonists desperate enough to eat humans. Writings had suggested it, but no hard physical evidence existed until now.

William Kelso, lead archeologist on the project, and his team discovered the girl's remains last summer.

"We found a deposit of refuse that contained butchered horse and dog bones," Kelso said. "That was only done in times of extreme hunger. As we excavated, we found human teeth and then a partial human skull."

(This version of the story corrects the spellings of Owsley, Kelso and also adds a dropped word in the third paragraph.)

(Reporting by Deborah Zabarenko; Editing by Marilyn W. Thompson and Xavier Briand)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/starving-virginia-settlers-turned-cannibalism-1609-study-185523725.html

Sandy Hook Elementary School Colors Cassadee Pope Victoria Soto nbc sports morgan freeman Survivor Philippines Fashion Island shooting

Carlos Returns For 'The Hangover Part III'

After stealing the show as the misplaced baby in "The Hangover," Carlos the baby is back with a vengeance for the final installment in the series, and he gets his own character poster. Also, read all about the making of the first "Hangover" in today's Dailies! » Read an oral history of "The Hangover." [THR] [...]

Source: http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2013/05/01/carlos-hangover-3/

john scott barry sanders barry sanders jimmie johnson juan pablo montoya crash chardon high school shooting mark martin

JPMorgan Chase Donates $1.5 Million to Detroit Community Hub Project

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder was in attendance on Monday as the Detroit Public Schools (DPS) announced that three of its schools will be the beneficiaries of a $1.5 million grant by JPMorgan Chase. The grant will be given specifically to the nonprofit organization Southwest Solutions, to be used for different projects aimed at jump-starting the "community hubs" initiative that the DPS launched earlier this month, according to the Detroit Free Press.

The initiative looks to use existing Detroit public schools as the foundation to rebuild the city as a set of communities. As such, the new grants will be used in conjunction with the state Department of Human Services' Pathways to Potential programs to provide "success coaches" in the three schools, so as to give families better access to both state and federal resources.

Here is some of the key information that emerged from the grant announcement by DPS on Monday.

* The three schools that have been chosen to benefit from the grant money are: Western International High School, Harms Elementary, and Maybury Elementary.

* Under the DPS' five-year plan, schools will offer in-house social services. Some eventually will do so for as many as 12 hours a day.

* John Van Camp, who is the president of Southwest Solutions, spoke of his organization's enthusiasm for the community hub projects, telling the Detroit Free Press that the agency is "so pleased to be a part of that movement."

* According to a report by MLive, the grant money is slated for use in providing foreclosure protection, job training programs, and financial literacy programs, among other services.

* The DPS' five-year plan is expected to be funded largely through partnerships with community groups and private interests such as Southwest Solutions, rather than through the school district itself.

* The emergency financial manager in charge of the Detroit Public Schools, Roy Roberts, told MLive on Monday that he and other officials have identified up to 30 additional schools that could function as community hubs, providing educational opportunities for Detroit children as well as social services for their families.

* For his part, Snyder expressed his enthusiasm for the project as well, telling MLive that he was "excited to see the private sector diving into projects like this."

* State Department of Human Services Director Maura Corrigan was also on hand for Monday's announcement. During her remarks she referred to the community hub program as"the model we need to reinvent Michigan," as quoted by the Detroit News.

Vanessa Evans is a musician and freelance writer based in Michigan, with a lifelong interest in politics and public issues.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/jpmorgan-chase-donates-1-5-million-detroit-community-203700964.html

arizona debate enquirer national inquirer knicks vs heat kate walsh cnn debate equatorial guinea