Showing papers in "Trends in Genetics in 2009"

TL;DR: A thorough understanding of the co-evolution of these two cellular compartments will require carefully executed molecular studies combined with mathematical modeling.

TL;DR: Exciting progress made in the identification of the genetic determinants of plant chemical composition is described, focussing on the application of metabolomics strategies and their integration with other high-throughput technologies.

TL;DR: This body of research represents the first functional genetic forays into neural mechanisms contributing to human spoken language, and Converging data indicate that Foxp2 is important for modulating the plasticity of relevant neural circuits.

TL;DR: Evidence from Hydra is focused on suggesting that taxonomically-restricted genes play a role in the creation of phylum-specific novelties, in the generation of morphological diversity, and in the innate defence system, and it is proposed that taxon-specific genes drive morphological specification, enabling organisms to adapt to changing conditions.

TL;DR: How several factors that can influence nucleosome positioning, including DNA sequence preferences, DNA methylation, histone variants and post-translational modifications, higher order chromatin structure, and the actions of transcription factors, chromatin remodelers and other DNA-binding proteins are discussed.

TL;DR: This work focuses on recent functional studies of MCPH proteins that reveal the centrosome as a final integration point for many regulatory pathways affecting prenatal neurogenesis in mammals.

TL;DR: The findings indicate that the pan-genome of the bacterial domain is of infinite size and that approximately 250 genes per genome belong to the extended bacterial core genome.

TL;DR: The identification and characterization of phenotypic capacitors - which act as switches of the degree of robustness - are critical to understanding the mechanisms and consequences of robustity.

TL;DR: This review focuses on the regulation of sex-determining region Y genes and their interaction with other genes involved in promoting testis or ovary development and the common features between sex determination in mammals and in other vertebrates that lack Sry.

TL;DR: To avoid the genetics community contributing to healthcare disparities, it is important to adopt measures to ensure that populations of diverse ancestry are included in genomic studies, and that no major population groups are excluded.

TL;DR: The latest models for how changes in chromatin and DNA methylation are regulated during cellular differentiation are reviewed and it is proposed that targets of epigenetic repression share common features in the sequences of their regulatory regions, thereby suggesting a co-evolution of epigenetics pathways and classes of cis-acting elements.

TL;DR: It is shown that phosphosites are, on average, more conserved than non-phosphorylated equivalent residues when their enrichment in disordered regions of proteins is taken into account.

TL;DR: What is known from flowering plants about the pathways and function of enzymatic dem methylation is examined and possible mechanisms whereby DNA repair might also underlie global demethylation in mammals are discussed.

TL;DR: This large-scale information-theoretical analysis of > 950 TF-binding motifs demonstrates that prokaryotes and eukaryotes use strikingly different strategies to target TFs to specific genome locations.

TL;DR: This research suggests that the genetic architecture of neuropsychiatric disorders includes a constellation of rare mutations in many different genes, most of which have also been implicated in other neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism.

TL;DR: Data indicate that Polycomb Repressive Complex 2 (PRC2)-like complexes in animals and plants have to associate with Plant Homeo Domain (PHD)-finger proteins for efficient deposition of histone H3 trimethylated at lysine 27 (H3K27me3) and transcriptional repression.

TL;DR: Copy number variation (CNV) is a major source of genetic variation among humans and in addition to existing as benign polymorphisms, CNVs can also convey clinical phenotypes, including genomic disorders, sporadic diseases and complex human traits.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors extend the static concept of fitness landscapes to dynamic fitness seascapes and show that adaptation requires a surplus of beneficial substitutions over deleterious ones.

TL;DR: X-linked mental retardation or intellectual disability (ID) is a common, clinically complex and genetically heterogeneous disease arising from many mutations along the X chromosome.

TL;DR: It is demonstrated that gBGC has substantially (negatively) impacted the evolutionary trajectory of human proteins by promoting the fixation of deleterious AT-->GC mutations.

TL;DR: The genetic control of diapause in insects is examined and it is shown how the failure to recognize the difference between modular and gene pleiotropy has confounded understanding of the genetic basis of this important phenotype.

TL;DR: The fine tuning of proliferation and neurogenesis, neuronal migration and differentiation and connectivity underlies the proper development of the cerebral cortex and the recent discovery of patients with lissencephaly and bilateral asymmetrical polymicrogyria carrying mutations in the alpha- and beta-tubulin-encoding genes TUBA1A and TUBB2B supports this view.

TL;DR: Future analyses of chloroplast-nucleus communication should focus on providing an integrated view of plastid signalling under physiologically relevant conditions, and highlight alternative scenarios of Plastid-Nucleus signal transduction.

TL;DR: It is indicated that the study of large, phenotypically well-characterized samples will make an important contribution to delineating the etiology and pathogenesis of bipolar disorder and thereby pave the way for major improvements in clinical management.

TL;DR: Evidence is presented that functional change between orthologs might be as common as between paralogs, and future studies should be designed to test the impact of duplication against this alternative model of gene evolution.

TL;DR: Combining molecular genetics and surname analysis illuminates population structure and history, has potential applications in forensic studies and, in the form of 'genetic genealogy', is an area of rapidly growing interest for the public.

TL;DR: Ecological concepts on species diversity are borrowed to explore how interactions between TEs can contribute to structure TE communities within their genomic ecosystem.

TL;DR: The advent of large-scale functional screens of expressed ORs, combined with genetic association studies, has the potential to link variations in ORs to human chemosensory phenotypes, and promises to provide a genome-wide view of human olfaction.

TL;DR: The analytical power of these methods, namely sensitivity, specificity, accuracy and precision, should catalyse the eventual clinical use of non-invasive prenatal diagnosis of fetal chromosomal aneuploidies and monogenic diseases.

TL;DR: A complementary approach to discover genes and mechanisms that might contribute to human disorders is proposed: the analysis of evolutionary mutant models in which adaptive phenotypes mimic maladaptive human diseases.