Posts tagged: genetics

A new perspective on ancient human genomic diversity

samrose on May 20, 2013 at 12:56 pm - 0 Comments

It’s commonly discussed how each of our genomes contains a story documenting the migration by our ancient ancestors. This is most certainly true in that it is apparent we all originated from Africa and migrated to other continents from there. A study published today in Investigative Genetics proposes that some of the genetic diversity we commonly assume to be ancient may in fact be due to recent demographic events within the last 2000 years.

This study analyzed single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in 999 individuals at 54 sites across the Netherlands. The authors studied this population in the expectation that the ancient genetic signatures from Paleolithic and Neolithic times, such as the Southeast to Northwest cline observed across Europe, …

Epigenetics & Chromatin: Interactions and processes – a BioMed Central conference

samrose on January 25, 2013 at 5:19 pm - 0 Comments

BioMed Central will be hosting this inaugural conference in association with its journal Epigenetics & Chromatin at Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA, on the 11-13 March 2013.

The conference will have a strong focus on how epigenetic components come together to regulate cellular processes. “Epigenetics research is progressing from a listing of component parts to a fuller understanding of dynamic processes,” states Steven Henikoff (Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center), conference organizer and co-Editor-in-Chief of Epigenetics & Chromatin. Henikoff continues that “Many disease states are increasingly recognized as having both a genetic and an epigenetic basis, and chromatin regulators are often found to be cancer driver genes,”. This conference will highlight how the discovery of these epigenetic changes …

Finding new information from old bones

samrose on January 14, 2013 at 12:08 pm - 0 Comments

Predicting externally visible characteristics of the deceased using just genetic information is an extremely difficult task, and one that has only become possible in recent years. New investigative technologies and techniques that improve the accuracy and efficiency of identifying phenotypes from DNA samples are likely to have a huge impact on the fields of forensics and archaeology.

New research published in Investigative Genetics by Jolanta Draus-Barini et al. reports a novel technique to predict hair and eye colour from just skeletal remains. The technology involved, the HIrisPlex system, has previously been demonstrated to do this using DNA samples from live individuals. Using information from these previous studies the study authors characterised 24 polymorphisms that they could identify from …

Coriander – you either love it or you hate it

Laura Winton on November 29, 2012 at 1:34 pm - 0 Comments

Coriander leaves (Coriandrum sativum), also known as Cilantro, arouse strong emotions. Eaters are divided into those who find the flavour citrusy, fresh and pleasant against those who insist it is soapy, dirty and foul.

A genetic role has long been suspected, from previous studies published in Flavour and other journals. Mauer and El-Sohemy showed that between 3 and 21% of Canadians disliked cilantro, depending on their ethnic group. Now researchers have found a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) which appears to control this dislike and which is published today in Flavour.

This genome-wide association study was carried out by genomics company 23andme, which has pioneered personal genome sequencing. They tested 14,604 participants of European descent who disliked cilantro, together …