Adam, a robot designed at Aberystwyth University in the UK, created 20 hypotheses
about yeast genes and illuminated a decades - old puzzle concerning which genes code for an enzyme.
Video of Adam, which can originate hypotheses
about yeast genes and their functions, design experiments to test the ideas and conduct the work.
Not exact matches
But while this study has proved that the technique works in a simple organism, it could also be applied to other bacterial species,
yeast or even human cells to find useful information
about how
genes are controlled and how they can be manipulated.
So, I'll just say a little more
about why
yeast; which is, over the decades,
yeast molecular biologists have devised so many powerful tools that allow you to make very precise changes in
yeast, in their DNA; exquisite control, where you can change a single base that you want in a particular place, you can put a whole
gene in, take a whole
gene out, swap
genes etc..
In this episode, Scientific American news editor Phil Yam discusses how veterinarians, physicians and multinational food companies need to work together in the global fight against animal - borne infectious diseases; and University of Wisconsin evolutionary biologist Sean Carroll talks
about recent research tracking the evolution of
yeast genes with specific functions descended from a single, duplicated
gene with multiple functions.
A
yeast cell has
about 6,000
genes, of which 20 percent are considered essential — that is, if the
gene is removed, the cell dies.
These efforts produced a wealth of information
about how different
genes, and their associated pathways, modulate aging in
yeast.
«
About half of these [
genes] can be swapped... between humans and
yeast and they still work,» Marcotte says.
In
Yeast, Worms, Flies, and Mice, Only
About 1 in 3
Genes is Essential for Viability The consequences of some genomic perturbations can not be compensated for by normal epigenetic processes and result in the death of the organism prior to adulthood.
Stanford University
About Blog The Saccharomyces Genome Database (SGD) provides comprehensive integrated biological information for the budding
yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae along with search and analysis tools to explore these data, enabling the discovery of functional relationships between sequence and
gene products in fungi and higher organisms.