Laygo, Demi Jamie Q.

BIO1
2014-48931
WFW

Latest news on the topic Reproduction (2014)

Canola genome sequence reveals evolutionary 'love triangle'
Scientists recently published the genome of Brassica napus -- commonly known as
canola. Their discovery paves the way for improved versions of the plant, which is used
widely in farming and industry. August 22, 2014
An international team of scientists including researchers from the University of Georgia
recently published the genome of Brassica napus-commonly known as canola -- in the
journal Science. Their discovery paves the way for improved versions of the plant, which
is used widely in farming and industry.
Canola is grown across much of Canada and its native Europe, but the winter crop is
increasingly cultivated in Georgia. Canola oil used for cooking is prized for its naturally
low levels of saturated fat and rich supply of omega-3 fatty acids, but the plant is also
used to produce feed for farm animals and as an efficient source for biodiesel.
"This genome sequence opens new doors to accelerating the improvement of canola,"
said Andrew Paterson, Regents Professor, director of UGA's Plant Genome Mapping
Laboratory and co-corresponding author for the study. "We can use this knowledge to
tailor the plant's flowering time, make it more resistant to disease and improve a myriad
of other traits that will make it more profitable for production in Georgia and across the
country."
Canola has one of the most complex genomes among flowering plants, forming
thousands of years ago during the Neolithic Era when two plant species-Brassica
rapaand Brassica oleracea-combined in the wild. Plants in the B. rapa family include
turnips and cabbages, while B. oleracea encompasses cauliflower, cabbage, collards,
broccoli, kale and other common vegetables.
The Plant Genome Mapping Laboratory played prominent roles in the sequencing bothB.
rapa and B. oleracea in 2011 and 2014, respectively.
"Understanding the genomes of B. rapa and B. oleracea was key to piecing together the
canola genome," Paterson said. "It's like a genetic love triangle between the three
species, with canola sometimes favoring genes from B. rapa or B. oleracea or sometimes
both."
While much the world's canola is used to make cooking oil and protein-rich animal feed,
it is also used in the production of lipstick, lip gloss, soap, lotion, printing ink and de-icing
agents.
The growing interest in carbon reduction and more environmentally friendly fuel
alternatives is also good news for canola growers, as this genome sequence may
ultimately help researchers develop feedstocks that are suited to more sustainable
biofuel production.
Global canola production has grown rapidly over the past 40 years, rising from the sixth
largest oil crop to the second largest, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Much of the production in America is concentrated along the northern plains, but the
recent construction of a canola processing plant near the South Carolina-Georgia border
has spurred interest for growers in the Southeast.
Additional UGA researchers for the project include Xiyin Wang, assistant research
scientist and co-first author for the paper; Tae-ho Lee and Yupeng Wang, former
postdoctoral researchers; and current and former graduate students Hui Guo, Huizhe Jin,
Jingping Li, Xu Tan, Haibao Tang, and Yupeng Wang.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/08/140822084252.htm

Safety concerns remain over three-person IVF

Using mitochondrial replacement therapy to create embryos with DNA from three people
could have serious consequences. July 22, 2014.
Later this year, parliament is expected to debate a change to the law that would allow a
reproductive therapy called mitochondrial replacement (MR) into fertility clinics. A
recent review of evidence by the UK fertility regulator, the Human Fertilisation and
Embryology Authority, stated that this experimental technique is "not unsafe". But while
the aim of the procedure is noble to eliminate human mitochondrial diseases, which
affect around 1 in 4,000 people a number of important safety concerns remain
unresolved.
Evolutionary theory predicts a mismatch between the DNA in the donor's mitochondria
and the mother's nuclear DNA, with potentially serious and unpredictable consequences
for any embryo created using MR, an issue my colleagues and I wrote about last year.
When MR is carried out experimentally, it has been shown to alter
the metabolism and cognitive ability of mice. In other species it results in male
sterility, reduced survival, accelerated ageing and changes the expression of many
hundreds of genes. But there is a lack of data from species more closely related to
humans a gap in our knowledge that we felt would be wise to fill before proceeding to
clinical trials.
The problem of mismatching arises because of the peculiar way mitochondrial DNA
(mtDNA) is inherited through mothers only, giving an opportunity every generation for
the mtDNA and some of her nuclear DNA to be passed on together. This allows natural
selection, nature's quality control mechanism, to weed out combinations of interacting
mitochondrial and nuclear DNA that are not compatible with one another. Over long
evolutionary timescales within populations, the two genomes will become matched or
"coadapted" to one another. MR breaks these coadapted genomes apart, giving rise to a
range of damaging effects. The particular design of the experiments needed to detect
mismatching is especially important. They usually involve manipulating several distinct
mitochondrial types and making observations in many individuals. Without these
features the ability to detect mismatching is poor. So while demonstrations that MR is
technically feasible (with the production of four macaques in 2009), it is not sufficient to
rule out the possibility that the kinds of effects seen in other species will not be found in
primates or humans.
The HFEA appear unconvinced that the coevolutionary process for which there is
evidence is real, considering "such hypothetical problems to be very unlikely".
The report, passed to the Department of Health on the 2 June 2014, discusses several
other technical issues related to the safety of the technique, and even outlines a number
of areas for which more data is required. But for the issue of mismatching, they do not
recommend any further research. This is concerning, as it appears a reasonable safety
concern is being ignored.
From my perspective as an evolutionary biologist, a common thread in the debate so far
is that humans are somehow special cases, despite the fact that the same set of
mitochondrial genes are found from yeast to humans, and that the evolutionary theory is
a general one, applying even to plants. This suggests to me that greater exposure to and
integration of current evolutionary ideas in the training of biomedical scientists would be
beneficial. This is not a new suggestion; a whole discipline called Darwinian medicine is
slowly gaining traction, with the aim of giving medical professionals the ability to better
predict disease risk.
It also seems that if evolutionary biologists were included earlier in the consultation
process, there may have been more cautious conclusions about the safety of MR. The
inertia behind the regulatory process, together with the resistance from biomedical
researchers to consider evolutionary arguments, is substantial. I suggest that in the
future policy makers would do well to cast a broader net when looking for expertise and
evolutionary biologists themselves should engage more with policy makers.
Scientists are frequently urged to become more involved in developing evidence-based
policy, and so it is somewhat perplexing to see that when theory and evidence are
presented they are roundly dismissed as irrelevant or trivial. Evolutionary biology can
offer a great deal of understanding about the world around us, including ourselves. We
should make use of that knowledge.
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/jul/22/three-person-ivf-mitochondria-dna
Procedure to create babies with three people's DNA could be legalised in April
Government to press ahead with regulations on mitochondrial transfer after public
consultation, but several hurdles remain
Britain's fertility regulator could allow doctors to create the first babies to have three
people's DNA from next April after the government pressed ahead with plans to legalise
the procedure.
The technique, known as mitochondrial transfer, offers hope to families affected by a
wide range of diseases, such as muscular dystrophy, caused by faulty DNA being passed
down from mother to child.
The experimental procedure replaces faulty genetic material found in mitochondria, the
small cellular batteries that power human cells, with healthy DNA taken from a donor
woman.
One in 6,500 children in Britain each year are born with a serious mitochondrial DNA
disorder. Many of the conditions affect power-hungry organs such as the brain, muscles
and heart, and often worsen with age. Many children are disabled and die young from
their illnesses.
The Department of Health announced plans on Tuesday to press ahead with regulations
following a three-month public consultation which drew 1,850 responses. The draft
regulations are due to go to parliament for debate in the autumn, and could be law by
April next year.
But there are several hurdles that could delay the decision in parliament. Britain's
fertility watchdog, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), must work
out an approval process for families who wish to have the procedure. Meanwhile, an
expert panel convened by the regulator is awaiting the results of more scientific
experiments on the safety of the technique.
Once the HFEA is satisfied that it can proceed, the regulations will be looked over by the
government's joint committee of statutory instruments and the secondary legislation
scrutiny committee before parliament will have its say.
"I'm happy that this is moving forward," said Doug Turnbull, who developed the
procedure at the Wellcome Trust centre for mitochondrial research at Newcastle
University. "The important thing now is that it gets into parliament this session.
"My fear is that if this is delayed, we are into a new government, and we cannot know
the shape or support of that government, and it could be delayed for a long time.
Patients in the UK would miss out."
Mitochondrial transfer is controversial because the healthy donor DNA is inserted
into IVF embryos. That means the genetic material is not only carried by the child that
grows from the embryo, but is passed down the female line to all future generations. So
far there is no evidence that the procedure is dangerous, but unknown side-effects could
emerge and affect all of the generations that carry the donor DNA.
The amount of mitochondrial DNA that comes from the donor is minuscule just 37
genes, or about 0.2% of a human's total genetic makeup. These genes are only involved
in making energy for cells, and are held separately from the 23,000 genes found in cell
nuclei that affect appearance, behaviour and other traits.
Families affected by mitochondrial diseases are often oblivious until one of their children
is diagnosed with a condition. To avoid having other children who are at risk, they must
either adopt or have IVF with donor eggs.
Turnbull said: "My patients are making choices all the time. Some don't want to have
more children because of the risk. Others have egg donation. There is going to be a risk
with any sort of new technique, but everything that's been done so far suggests the risks
will be less than with passing these diseases on."
Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust, said: "As the government's latest
consultation has again shown, there is broad public support for making mitochondrial
replacement therapy available to patients. There is now no excuse for the government
not to table regulations for debate as soon as parliament returns this autumn, so that the
HFEA can licence clinics to treat affected families without delay once it is satisfied that
any risks are acceptable."
Robert Meadowcroft, of the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign, said: "It is now up to the
government to ensure that these regulations are considered and approved by parliament
before the next general election in May 2015, or risk losing the progress that has been
made towards taking this pioneering technique forward. We need to see a firm
commitment to debating this issue in parliament before the end of the year."
Sarah Norcross, director of the Progress Educational Trust, a charity that promotes public
engagement in genetics, assisted conception and embryo research, welcomed the
government's announcement, but said the process was taking too long. "The people who
oppose this will be saying it's too quick, why the rush, but inevitably the delay is passed
on to people who want to avoid passing on these devastating conditions to their
children."
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/jul/22/mitochondrial-transfer-procedure-
babies-three-dna
Fertility mystery solved: protein discovered that joins sperm with eggs
British scientists' identification of Juno molecule opens door to new developments in
fertility treatment and contraception
A fundamental key to fertility has been uncovered by British scientists with the discovery
of an elusive protein that allows eggs and sperm to join together.
The molecule named Juno after the Roman goddess of fertility sits on the egg surface
and binds with a male partner on a fertilising sperm cell.
Japanese researchers identified the sperm protein in 2005, sparking a decade-long hunt
for its "mate".
Understanding the process by which the molecules interact opens the door to new
developments in fertility treatment and contraception.
"We have solved a long-standing mystery in biology by identifying the molecules
displayed on all sperm and egg that must bind each other at the moment we were
conceived," said lead researcher Dr Gavin Wright, from the Wellcome Trust Sanger
Institute in Hinxton, Cambridgeshire.
"Without this essential interaction, fertilisation just cannot happen. We may be able to
use this discovery to improve fertility treatments and develop new contraceptives."
The Sanger Institute team first created an artificial version of the sperm protein, called
Izumo1 after a Japanese marriage shrine.
This was then used to search for binding partners on the surface of the egg. A single
protein, Juno, was identified as Izumo1's "other half".
Juno's importance to fertility was revealed by female laboratory mice engineered to
produce eggs lacking the molecule.
All the animals were infertile, their eggs incapable of fusing with normal sperm. Male
mice missing Izumo1 were also unable to conceive, highlighting this protein's role in
male fertility.
The research, reported in the journal Nature, also suggests that Juno plays a role in
preventing additional sperm fusing with an already fertilised egg.
"The Izumo-Juno pairing is the first known essential interaction for sperm-egg recognition
in any organism," said co-author Dr Enrica Bianchi, also from the Sanger Institute. "The
binding of the two proteins is very weak, which probably explains why this has remained
a mystery until now."
After the initial binding of sperm and egg, Juno bows out, becoming virtually
undetectable after 40 minutes, the scientists found.
This may help explain why as soon as an egg is fertilised by one sperm cell it puts up a
barrier against others.
Fertilisation involving more than one sperm would lead to the formation of abnormal
doomed embryos with too many chromosomes.
Juno belongs to a family of "folate receptor" proteins, but unlike its brethren is unable to
bind to folic acid. The researchers looked at three folate receptors, and found that only
Juno interacted with Izumo1.
The scientists are now screening infertile women to see whether Juno defects underlie
their condition.
If they do, a simple genetic screening test could help doctors provide them with the most
appropriate treatment while avoiding wasteful expense and stress.
Regular In-Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) treatment, with sperm randomly fertilising eggs in a
laboratory dish, could not work without Juno.
However, it may be possible to bypass the natural mating of Izumo1 and Juno using
intra-cytoplasmic sperm injection (Icsi). This is an increasingly popular method of IVF
which involves injecting a sperm directly into an egg.
Leading fertility expert Dr Allan Pacey, senior lecturer in reproduction and developmental
medicine at the University of Sheffield, said: "I think this is a very exciting paper. We are
still remarkably sketchy about some of the key molecules involved in the early stages of
fertilisation when the sperm and egg first interact.
"Yet the information could be immensely useful to help in the diagnosis of infertility but
also in the design of new novel contraceptives for both humans and other animal
species.
"The identification of the Juno protein opens up many exciting prospects. Perhaps the
most obvious biomedical application of this finding is whether screening for this protein
(or its gene in a blood sample) could be used as a test of fertility.
"We know that fertilisation failure in IVF is quite rare, and so I suspect the lack or
dysfunction of this protein is probably not a major cause of infertility in couples.
However, it would be useful to know how many women have eggs that lack this protein
so we can properly assess this.
"The second, and perhaps most likely application, is whether scientists could devise
drugs or vaccines that could block the way this protein works or how the sperm protein
Izumo1 interacts with it. This could lead to a new and novel non-hormonal contraceptive
for both humans and other species of mammals."
Autistic boys exposed to higher levels of hormones in womb, study finds
Study of amniotic fluid shows boys with autism had raised levels of testosterone, cortisol
and other hormones in the womb. June 03, 2014
Research on children in Denmark has found that boys with autism were more likely to
have been exposed to higher levels of hormones in their mother's wombs than those
who developed normally.
Boys diagnosed with autism and related disorders had, on average, raised levels of
testosterone, cortisol and other hormones in the womb, according to analyses of
amniotic fluid that was stored after their mothers had medical tests during pregnancy.
The findings add to a growing body of evidence that the biological foundations of autism
are laid down well before birth and involve factors that go beyond the child's genetic
make-up.
The results may help scientists to unravel some of the underlying causes of autism and
explain why boys are four to five times more likely to be diagnosed with the condition,
which affects around one percent of the population.
Amniotic fluid surrounds babies in the womb and contains hormones and other
substances that they have passed through their urine. The liquid is collected for testing
when some women have an amniocentesis around four months into their pregnancy.
Scientists in Cambridge and Copenhagen drew on Danish medical records and biobank
material to find amniotic fluid samples from 128 boys who were later diagnosed with
autism. Compared to a control group, the boys with autism and related conditions had
higher levels of four "sex steroid" hormones that form a biological production line in the
body that starts with progesterone and ends with testosterone.
"In the womb, boys produce about twice as much testosterone as girls, but compared
with typical boys, the autism group has even higher levels. It's a significant difference
and may have a large effect on brain development," said Simon Baron-Cohen, director of
the Autism Research Centre at Cambridge University.
Because boys are naturally exposed to more testosterone in the womb, even a small rise
in the hormone might put them in the risk range for autism. Levels of the stress
hormone, cortisol, were also higher in the autism group. "From this study we can't say
this is causal, but it is telling us that part of the biology of autism begins prenatally,"
Baron-Cohen added.
Previous work in animals has shown that testosterone plays a major role in shaping the
male brain in the womb. The latest study, published in Molecular Psychiatry, will now be
followed up, to answer whether high levels of hormones lead to more autism in girls, and
why levels might rise in the womb in the first place.
The work does not aim to produce a prenatal test for autism, Asperger's syndrome, or
milder, related conditions. In the study, some boys exposed to high levels of testosterone
in the womb developed perfectly normally, while others exposed to low levels were
diagnosed with autism. The results cannot indicate whether an individual will go on to
develop autism or not.
Even if a test could predict autism, it would raise serious ethical issues. "A prenatal test
that is used to make a decision to terminate a pregnancy could effectively be a form of
eugenics. A prenatal test that is used for early detection, with a view to starting
intervention in early postnatal life may be less ethically contentious, and would need to
be evaluated for its benefits. But we are a long way from that at present," said Baron-
Cohen.
He went on to warn that the study does not justify the use of drugs that block sex
hormones as a treatment for autism. Drugs that do this have already been offered,
inappropriately, to people with autism, but they could have damaging side effects and
may do nothing to alter the brain once it has been shaped in the womb.
Richard Sharpe at the MRC Centre for Reproductive Health at Edinburgh University
described the work as "pioneering".
"We now know that subtle variations in foetal development are an important determinant
of later disease, which may be lifelong. Researching this in humans is incredibly difficult
because of the obvious limitations in accessing what is happening in the foetus inside
the womb," he said.
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jun/03/boys-with-autism-likely-exposed-to-
more-hormones-in-the-womb