But Chen and coauthor Richard Novick, also of NYU, showed that bacteriophages could even shuttle deactivated genes for the toxic shock syndrome toxin from Staphylococcus aureus — one of the most prevalent, and increasingly lethal, causes of hospital infection — to the distantly related Listeria monocytogenes, a common foodborne pathogen that killed 20 in Canada last summer. (discovermagazine.com)
The researchers used valproic acid which can induce the activation of such deactivated genes in fungi. (sciencedaily.com)
Last January, state - of - the - art computer aided modeling enabled the researchers to identify an anti-cancer agent capable of deactivating a gene known to be essential for the metastatic spread of breast cancer. (sciencedaily.com)