Sentences with phrase «lactase gene»

To supply lactase over the long haul, Matthew During and his colleagues at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia devised a strategy for incorporating the bacterial lactase gene into intestinal cells.

Unravelling the epigenetic control of the lactase gene involved a collaborative effort of CAMH, University of Toronto, the Hospital for Sick Children, Vilnius University and the Lithuanian University of Health Sciences.

Over time, these epigenetic changes build up and inactivate the lactase gene in some — but not all — individuals.

«Now, we know that epigenetic factors accumulate at a very different pace in each person, depending on the genetic variants of the lactase gene.»

First Farmers (Middle East and Europe 3,000 - 14,000 years ago) Analyses of hundreds of genomes show how early Middle Eastern farmers spread to Europe, mixed with hunter - gatherers and adapted to agricultural diets, including through a lactase gene mutation that allowed people to drink milk after childhood.

After extracting the DNA from the fossils, researchers identified the sequence of the lactase gene for each of the eight Neolithic individuals.

However, over 90 % of northern Europeans have a version of the lactase gene that remains active throughout life, enabling them to continue drinking milk as adults.

For example, the widespread but not universal ability to digest the milk sugar lactose in adulthood (lactose tolerance) has recently been shown to arise from any of several different mutations in and near the lactase gene.

As children get older, the lactase gene is gradually disabled, which means that no lactase is formed and the lactose enters the colon undigested, where it is typically converted into acids and hydrogen gas and, in many people, causes the painful symptoms of lactose intolerance.

While a handful of food - gene interactions have been studied before — lactose intolerance, for instance, is known to be caused by a variation in the lactase gene — most are only now being charted.

Two years ago, a team led by Leena Peltonen of the University of Helsinki, Finland, and the University of California, Los Angeles, tracked down gene mutations associated with lactose tolerance, which likely play a role in regulating the lactase gene.

But in many people, the lactase gene gradually gets turned off after infancy, leaving them unable to tolerate milk.

Among the more than 700 signals the team found were previously known sites of recent adaptation, such as the salt - sensitive hypertension gene and the lactase gene — the strongest signal in the genome hunt.

In the paper, the researchers listed the top 16 categories that had the strongest signals, including olfaction (the sense of smell), reproduction - related processes and carbohydrate metabolism, which includes the lactase gene.

Along with the growing of grains came the domestication of certain animals for use as food, mainly cattle, sheep / goats, pigs and chickens, introducing new foods made from milk into our diets, and subsequently the retention of the lactase gene into adulthood in cattle - raising populations.