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posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday August 27 2019, @07:15AM   Printer-friendly
from the don't-misread-the-title dept.

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow3196

A single change at telomeres controls the ability of cells to generate a complete organism

Pluripotent cells can give rise to all cells of the body, a power that researchers are eager to control because it opens the door to regenerative medicine and organ culture for transplants. But pluripotency is still a black box for science, controlled by unknown genetic (expression of genes) and epigenetic signals (biochemical marks that control gene expression like on/off switches). The Telomeres and Telomerase Group, led by Maria Blasco at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), now uncovers one of those epigenetic signals, after a detective quest that started almost a decade ago.

It is a piece of the puzzle that explains the observed powerful connection between the phenomenon of pluripotency and telomeres—protective structures at the ends of chromosomes—a kind of butterfly effect in which a protein that is only present in telomeres shows a global action on the genome. This butterfly effect is essential to initiate and maintain pluripotency.

The DNA of telomeres directs the production of long RNA molecules called TERRAs. What the CNIO researchers found is that TERRAs act on key genes for pluripotency through the Polycomb proteins, which control the programs that determine the fate of cells in the early embryo by depositing a biochemical mark on the genes. The on/off switch that regulates TERRAs, in turn, is a protein that is only present in telomeres; this protein is TRF1, one of the components of the telomere-protecting complex called shelterin. The new result is published this week in the journal eLife.

Rosa María Marión et al. TERRA regulate the transcriptional landscape of pluripotent cells through TRF1-dependent recruitment of PRC2, eLife (2019). DOI: 10.7554/eLife.44656


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  • (Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday August 27 2019, @10:22AM

    by bzipitidoo (4388) on Tuesday August 27 2019, @10:22AM (#886014) Journal

    I have often felt that biologists could use more training and knowledge of the principles of Computer Science. Computational Biology, if I understand it correctly, seems more about the use of computers for biological studies, than understanding the links and analogies between the principles of Universal Computation and Information Theory and the machineries around that, and biochemical machinery. Wonder how many biologists have not heard of cellular automata and Conway's Game of Life?

    Another example of the ignorance of biologists is their Newick tree format. It's okay, good enough to be useful, but it could be better. However, Computer Scientists haven't done much better at representing trees of the graph theoretical variety.

    It would be helpful if journalists would refrain from reporting every tiny advance as possibly, this time, the breakthrough that has unlocked the Secret of Life, and the Fountain of Youth and all that. But I suppose that would be like asking them not to breathe. I don't see that problem in this particular article. Way back in the day, some thought the discovery of DNA was It. Turned out, DNA was only the start, only an alphabet. That was like staring at compiled code without any idea of what it is other than that it makes computers go, and realizing there's letters in there, and those letters are '0' and '1'. And that was good enough to earn a Nobel Prize.

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