genetic information

When individuals infected with HIV become infected with a second strain of the virus, the two viral strains can exchange genetic information, creating a third, recombinant strain of the virus that can evade immune system control.

Now a study from the Partners AIDS Research Center at Massachusetts General Hospital shows that how and where viral strains swap DNA may be determined by the immune response against the original infecting strain.

How a genomic code is deciphered is traditionally left to professional annotators who use information from a number of sources (for instance, knowledge about similar genes in other organisms) to work out where a gene starts, stops and what it does.

Even the "gold standard" of professional annotation is an exceptionally slow process. However, new technology may provide a faster solution.

Biochemists have discovered a new pathway by which the cell selectively degrades ribosomes. The pathway is called ribophagy and will probably mean new revisions for the textbooks.

Ubiquitin makes it all possible. Ribosomes are the cell's translation engines. They use genetic information to build chains of amino-acids that afterwards fold to form proteins.

Scientists have uncovered details about the mechanisms through which dietary restriction slows the aging process.

Working in yeast cells, they have linked ribosomes, the protein-making factories in living cells, and Gcn4, a specialized protein that aids in the expression of genetic information, to the pathways related to dietary response and aging.

Small molecules known as miRNAs, which are generated naturally by the body, regulate the conversion of genetic information into proteins.

New data have now indicated that miRNAs can control the fertility of female mice by regulating the development and function of the corpus luteum, the structure that forms at the site of release of the fertilized egg and that is required to maintain pregnancy at the early stages.