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Medicine

Submission + - Prehistoric Gene Reawakens to Battle HIV (dailygalaxy.com) 3

Submitted by Linuss
Linuss writes: About 95% of the human genome has once been designated as "junk" DNA. While much of this sequence may be an evolutionary artifact that serves no present-day purpose, some junk DNA may function in ways that are not currently understood. The conservation of some junk DNA over many millions of years of evolution may imply an essential function that has been "turned off." Now scientists say there's a junk gene that fights HIV. And they've discovered how to turn it back on.

What these scientists have done could give us the first bulletproof HIV vaccine. They have re-awakened the human genome's latent potential to make us all into HIV-resistant creatures; they published their ground-breaking research in PLoS Biology.
A group of scientists led by Nitya Venkataraman and Alexander Colewhether wanted to try a new approach to fighting HIV — one that worked with the body's own immune system. They knew Old World monkeys had a built-in immunity to HIV: a protein called retrocyclin, which can prevent HIV from entering cell walls and starting an infection. So they began poring over the human genome, looking to see if humans had a latent gene that could manufacture retrocyclin too. It turned out that we did, but a "nonsense mutation" in the gene had turned it off at some point in our evolutionary history.
Nonsense mutations are caused when random DNA code shows up in the middle of a gene, preventing it from beginning the process of manufacturing proteins in the cell. Venkataraman and her team decided to investigate this gene further, doing a series of tests to see if the retrocyclin it produced would keep HIV out of human cells. It did.
At last, they knew that if they could just figure out a way to reawaken the "junk" gene that creates retrocyclin in humans, they might be able to stop HIV infections. The researchers just needed to figure out a way to remove that nonsense mutation and get the target gene to start manufacturing retrocyclin again.
Here's where things really get interesting. The team found a way to use a compound called aminoglycosides, which itself can cause errors when RNA transcribes information from DNA to make proteins. But this time, the aminoglycoside error would work in their favor: It would cause that RNA to ignore the nonsense mutation in the junk gene, and therefore start making retrocyclin again. In preliminary tests, their scheme worked. The human cells made retrocyclin, fended off HIV, and effectively became AIDS-resistant. And it was done entirely using the latent potential in the so-called junk DNA of the human genome.
After more research is done, the researchers believe this might become a viable way to make humans immune to HIV infection.
What's especially intriguing, beyond the amazing idea of an AIDS vaccine, is that aminoglycosides have the potential to unlock the uses for other pieces of junk DNA. In Darwin's Radio, certain portions of these "non-sense" sequences, remnants of prehistoric retroviruses, have been activated by aminoglycosides.
In the novel, humans start rapidly evolving after their junk DNA re-awakens in response to stress. Could we induce instant mutations, or gain other new immunities by using aminoglycosides on our junk DNA?

Comment Amazing... (Score 0) 132

by Linuss (#28863377) Attached to: Noctilucent Clouds Likely Caused By Shuttle Launches

I've seen this, they are one of the most beautiful things ever to reach my eye. Was around 1998 in california after a space shuttle launch, it looked like we had Northern Lights all of a sudden, huge swathes of purple and green whisks of clouds all across the night sky, visible right during a typical beautiful california sunset. Man... good times.

Comment Re:Oh they'll crash all right (Score 0) 1316

by Linuss (#27222421) Attached to: Narcissistic College Graduates In the Workplace?

This is not a fail of the students, but a fail of the schools.

This is a fail of our society. Schools shouldn't have to teach their students common knowledge. I'm not even in college yet and many of the things I'm reading about in this thread come as completely obvious and natural to me (i do have quite a bit of experience in corporate environments for my age, however), and i find it ridiculous that people need to be TAUGHT this. If you sit in front of tv all day and believe the shit that is stuffed down your throat, you deserve to be let the fuck down when you graduate.

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