Category: developmental biology

Correlating developmental trajectories with transcriptome readout

May 14, 2019

Article in Nature, Vol. 531, 31 March 2016, pp. 637-641, “The mid-development transition and the evolution of animal body plans”   Summary of article: Transcriptomes of developing animals were correlated with the mid-developmental transitions; thereby, providing a molecular depiction of developmental transitions.   Link to original article: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature16994   Category: Interesting scientific articles, developmental biology, … More Correlating developmental trajectories with transcriptome readout

Understanding phytobiome effect on plant growth and productivity

May 9, 2019

Article in Scientific American, August 2017, pp. 61-67, “Building a better harvest”.   Summary of article: Effect of phytobiome, the collection of microorganisms, soil, climate, and plant pathogens that interact with plant growth, on the productivity of crops was delineated. The data obtained points to the possibilities of how understanding the different facets of plant … More Understanding phytobiome effect on plant growth and productivity

Phylogenetic trees track the evolutionary relatedness of genes and proteins

December 22, 2017

The tree of life is currently defined by a phylogenetic analysis of the 16S rRNA gene, which harbours deep evolutionary information on the development of various species on Earth. Specifically, it is highly conserved across species, and yet possesses sufficient variability for individual species to be identified by differential sequence at the gene level. Thus, … More Phylogenetic trees track the evolutionary relatedness of genes and proteins

Role of activating mutation in potentiating cancer

August 31, 2017

Article in Nature, Vol. 539, 10 November 2016, pp. 304, “Leukaemogenic effects of Ptpn11 activating mutations in the stem cell microenvironment”   Summary of article: Effect of the postulated activating mutation, Ptpn11, on leukaemia was investigated in genetically altered mice harbouring the mutation.   Link to the original article: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27783593   Category: cancer, biochemistry, developmental … More Role of activating mutation in potentiating cancer

Single cell RNA sequencing for understanding the lineage of cancer cells

August 12, 2017

Article in Nature, Vol. 539, 10 November 2016, pp. 309, “Single-cell RNA-seq supports a developmental hierarchy in human oligodendroglioma”   Summary of article: Single cell RNA sequencing of cancer cells from human oligodendroglioma reveals hierarchical development pathway in the cancer; thereby, opening up the technique for use in profiling the developmental pathway and lineage traversed … More Single cell RNA sequencing for understanding the lineage of cancer cells

Standardization of nomenclature in cell biology and biological sciences

August 6, 2017

The fields of cell biology and biological sciences is awashed with difficult to remember names and abbreviations that do not identify the function of the proteins or their subunits. For example, the FEAR network in the field of cell biology. Thus, I was wondering if some form of standardization could be instituted by the leading … More Standardization of nomenclature in cell biology and biological sciences

Macrophages as delineators of stripe patterns in zebrafish

July 28, 2017

Perspective article in Science, Vol. 355, Issue 6331, pp. 1258-1259, “Macrophage, a long-distance middlemen”   Summary of article: Macrophages are immune cells that profile for foreign viruses and cells that invade a multicellular organism, but its myriad characteristics and roles in cellular genesis and developmental biology is only beginning to be understood at both a … More Macrophages as delineators of stripe patterns in zebrafish