The phrase
"silence genes" refers to a process in which certain genes in our body are turned off or made inactive. This can happen naturally or through medical techniques, and it helps researchers study genes or prevent them from causing diseases. In simpler terms, it's like pressing a mute button on specific genes to control their behavior.
Full definition
The signature may be responsible for
silencing genes in immune cells, which in turn could affect the ability of the immune system to prevent breast cancer development.
We have led the way in the development of what has been hailed as a major breakthrough in molecular biology:
silencing gene expression by RNA interference (RNAi).
A way
of silencing genes using specially designed molecules of RNA — like DNA but made of only a single strand — that target the message molecules in cells and tell them not to make a certain protein
In tests in nonhuman primates, the researchers found that the particles could
effectively silence a gene called TTR (transthyretin), which has been implicated in diseases including senile systemic amyloidosis, familial amyloid polyneuropathy, and familial amyloid cardiomyopathy.
Some of the genes in sperm and egg cells have chemicals called methyl molecules that attach to them, a process called methylation; these molecules can either activate or
silence a gene when the sperm and egg DNA unite in an embryo.
GATA4 and TBX5 work together to activate genes responsible for heart formation and function, and
silence genes involved in other organs.
They next showed that iNOP - 7DS can be delivered effectively inside cultured murine liver cells, where the siRNA molecules
silenced a gene called ApoB.
Biologically, hypermethylation
often silences genes that keep runaway cell growth in check, and its appearance in the DNA code of breast cancer - related genes shed into the blood may indicate that a patient's cancer growth is increasing and the disease has worsened.
In September, Alnylam Pharmaceuticals announced that its small RNA
molecules silenced the gene that causes the progressive disease hereditary ATTR amyloidosis in a successful phase III trial.
Drugs capable of
activating silenced genes improve survival and growth outcomes in a mouse model of Prader - Willi syndrome (PWS), a rare and incurable childhood disease, according to a study funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
To the scientists» surprise,
temporarily silencing gene expression in this way was much more consistent than permanently cleaving the genome.
Silencing genes with C2c2 could make pathogens harmless, says John Rossi at City of Hope medical centre in Duarte, California, who is leading efforts to use RNA molecular tools to fight HIV.
If
chemically silencing genes — a process called epigentic methylation — can drive cancer, there are potentially several ways to flip the switch in the opposite direction.
«We can use different approaches to reverse methylation,» she says, «
turning silenced genes back on, and seeing whether we can prevent the tumours from occurring or treat the cancer after it has appeared.»
The team's biggest finding was that dsRNA can travel from body cells into germ cells and
silence genes within the germ cells.
Now, UMD geneticist Antony Jose and two of his graduate students are the first to figure out a specific mechanism by which a parent can
pass silenced genes to its offspring.
The research team, which included scientists from Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, also found that the nanoparticles could
powerfully silence genes in nonhuman primates.
Indeed using genome - wide transcriptional profiling, the researchers revealed that expression of clipped H3
.3 silences genes that regulate the division and duplication of a cell.
To kill an insect, the RNAs must
silence a gene essential for life, and species often share genes of such crucial importance, making it difficult to target one insect over another.
Because this
approach silences genes but does not introduce heritable changes into the genome, it may not be regulated as a GM product.
So the group introduced mutations that
silenced genes associated with autism spectrum disorders in mice, adding them in a way that restricted the effects to peripheral nerve cells, they report today in Cell.
When the
researchers silenced the genes in the peripheral nerves of adult animals, they were still hypersensitive to light touch, but they didn't display the behavioral abnormalities seen in the animals that had the gene silenced from birth.
These traits are diametrically opposite to the traits that show up in fragile X, a condition in which a
mutation silences the gene called FMR1, or fragile X mental retardation 1.
The results, although still preliminary in a quantitative sense, demonstrate that the reactivation of methylation -
silenced genes does occur in different cell lines, suggesting it is a general phenomenon.
To this end, we recently developed a novel strategy to
permanently silence gene expression through targeted epigenetic editing.
Since telomeres
normally silence genes located near them, the researchers looked for mutations that would restore the expression of marker genes placed near two telomeres.
The new study found significant hypermethylation in the most aggressive meningiomas, and showed that these DNA modifications
specifically silenced genes that usually inhibit FOXM1 expression and Wnt signaling.
Known as RNA interference, or RNAi, the research garnered a Nobel Prize in 2006 and spurred the creation of start - ups aimed at turning this powerful method of
silencing genes into therapies.
Using a technology that combines RNA interference, a method to
silence gene expresson, with lentiviral transgenesis, a method to genetically modify animals, the scientists can manipulate gene activity in the most widely used mouse model for type 1 diabetes, the nonobese diabetic mouse (NOD).
Women who ate less than a thousand carb calories per day during the early part of pregnancy were more likely to give birth to babies with an
overly silenced gene for the Vitamin A receptor RXR - alpha.
According to the LA Times, twenty - two teams of researchers are working on the sterilization «problem»
already silencing genes and stimulating immune systems to try to shut down the reproductive cycle.
To determine whether the reactivation of methylation -
silenced genes by EGCG is a general phenomenon that also occurs in other cell lines, we studied the effects of EGCG treatment on the methylation status and mRNA levels of p16INK4a or RARβ in three other human cancer cell lines (Fig. 3C) ⇓.
Molecules of dsRNA are known to travel between body cells (any cell in the body except germ cells, which make egg or sperm cells) and can
silence genes when their sequence matches up with the corresponding section of a cell's DNA.