Showing papers in "Trends in Genetics in 2011"

TL;DR: Understanding the functional relationships between the 3D organization of the genome and nuclear bodies is essential to fully uncover the regulation of gene expression and its implications for human disease.

TL;DR: It is suggested that the 35-year-old DNA accessibility paradigm provides a mechanistically sound basis for understanding the role of nucleosomes in gene regulation and epigenetic inheritance and contributes to diversification of a chromatin landscape shaped by dynamic processes that are driven primarily by transcription and nucleosome remodeling.

TL;DR: The importance of field studies for understanding the evolutionary dynamics of model and nonmodel systems are emphasized, a key life history trait (flowering time) is highlighted and emerging conservation issues are discussed.

TL;DR: There is very little overlap between the genes affected in the different diseases, suggesting that there are tissue-specific requirements for these microtubule-derived structures, focusing on cancer, diseases of brain development and ciliopathies.

TL;DR: How large-scale epigenetic studies of twins can improve the understanding of how genetic, environmental and stochastic factors impact upon epigenetics is described, and how such studies can provide a comprehensiveUnderstanding of how epigenetic variation affects complex traits is described.

TL;DR: This work elucidate how the differences among these systems can be exploited to gain insights about general evolutionary processes, genome structure, and gene expression and suggest directions for research that will greatly increase general understanding of the forces driving sex-chromosome evolution in diverse organisms.

TL;DR: An overview of the current understanding of the molecular mechanisms that can cause epistasis, and areas where more research is needed are provided.

TL;DR: Although it is tempting to suggest that these particular lifestyles promote horizontal gene transfer, it is difficult to ascertain given the nonrandom sampling of animal genome sequencing projects and the lack of a systematic analysis of animal genomes for such transfers.

TL;DR: Evidence suggests that Forkhead factors have retained some functional redundancy, which means that combinations of slightly defective alleles might induce disease phenotypes in humans, acting as quantitative trait loci.

TL;DR: How insights from RNA splicing maps of different RBPs inform the mechanistic models of splicing regulation is discussed.

TL;DR: This work interprets evolutionary genome alterations in a parsimonious way and demonstrates that results of comparative genomics and comparative chromosome painting can be explained on the basis of known primary and secondary chromosome rearrangements.

TL;DR: The major advances introduced by RNA-seq are discussed and current progress towards understanding the role of eQTLs in determining human phenotypic diversity is summarized.

TL;DR: Differences in population genetic histories have produced trait architectures and patterns of linkage disequilibrium that frequently differ dramatically between domesticated plants and humans, making detection of quantitative trait loci effects in crops more rewarding and less costly than in humans.

TL;DR: The biological significance of genome-wide binding of transcription factors is discussed, and models that can account for this phenomenon are presented.

TL;DR: Increasing evidence indicates that non-coding transcription at promoters influences the expression of protein-c coding genes, revealing a new layer of transcriptional regulation.

TL;DR: Current views on the structural organization of nucleolar DNA and on the targeting and anchoring of chromatin domains to this subnuclear compartment are summarized.

TL;DR: The debate should no longer address whether genetic research results should be returned, but instead how best to make an appropriate selection and how to strike a balance between the possible benefits of disclosure and the harms of unduly hindering biomedical research.

TL;DR: New models of aneuploidy and chromosomal instability have shed light on the diverse effects that karyotypic imbalances have on cellular phenotypes, and suggest novel ways of understanding the role of anneuploids in development and disease.

TL;DR: A fundamental biological process of eukaryotes influenced by bacterial endosymbionts: the mechanisms of sex determination is discussed, which might represent excellent models for studying transitions between sex-determining systems and, more generally, the evolution of sex-determination mechanisms in eukARYotes.

TL;DR: A formal theoretical treatment of small gene circuits of cross-inhibition and self-activation that deal with their dynamics on the 'epigenetic landscape' could offer some guidance to find the optimal way of cell reprogramming.

TL;DR: The implementation of insect models in the study of DNA methylation will accelerate progress in understanding the functional significance of this important epigenetic mechanism in controlling gene splicing, in environmentally driven reprogramming of gene expression and in adult brain plasticity.

TL;DR: A deeper understanding of the underlying genetics increasingly calls into question the assumption that unisexuality in vertebrates is an evolutionary dead-end.

TL;DR: It is suggested that studying gene-environment interactions in animal models, although more tractable, might not be sufficient to shed light on the genetic architecture of human diseases.

TL;DR: The distribution and structure of PARs among animals and plants, the theoretical predictions concerning their evolutionary dynamics, the reasons for their persistence, and the diversity and content of genes that reside within them are reviewed.

TL;DR: These attributes provide the tools to tackle the complex biological problems of the new century, including cellular reprogramming, organogenesis, regeneration, gene regulatory networks and protein interactions controlling growth and development, all of which provide insights into a multitude of human diseases and their potential treatments.

TL;DR: The use of antisense oligonucleotides to modify splicing as well as the principles and latest work in bifunctional RNA, trans-splicing and modification of U1 and U7 snRNA to target splice sites are discussed.

TL;DR: Evidence of an interplay between pioneer factors and the epigenome that could be central to this process of recruitment of downstream transcription factors to establish lineage-specific transcriptional programs is presented.

TL;DR: The origins, prevalence and implications of somatic mosaicism in healthy human tissues are discussed and its implications for heightened disease risks are discussed.

TL;DR: It is found that the stage of organ abortion in male and female flowers is temporally correlated within species and also confirmed that the arrest of development does not tend to occur preferentially at a particular stage, or via a common process.

TL;DR: The recent discovery of epigenetic sex differences that are not hormone-induced brings us closer to understanding differences in autosomal gene expression.