The Human NOVA1 gene affects alternative splicing and courtship calls in the vocal behavior of mice, rats, and human brains
In the mouse brains, the human version of NOVA1 affected a molecular process, called alternative splicing, in which coding sequences of other individual genes are mixed and matched to create diverse proteins. The vocal behavior has been implicated by some of the alternatively spliced genes. The results were published1 on 18 February in Nature Communications.
Inexhaustively analyzed the differences between mice and rats, it was found that there were subtle differences between the mice and rats. Similarly, in the presence of a female mouse in heat, male mice carrying the change made more complex courtship calls.
To study the effects of the change a neuroscientist in Darnell’s group Yoko Tajima used CRISPR gene editing to engineer mice carrying the human version of NOVA1.
One of the few changes that changed over half a million years after the hominin groups split from Africa was the genetic change which swaps isoleucine with valine. This suggests that the changes benefited early humans so greatly that the mutations became ubiquitous.
Thirty years ago, Robert Darnell and his team at Rockefeller University first discovered the NOVA1Gene, which they linked to an autoimmunity disorder that caused severe movement problems in people. The gene is usually switched on only in the brain where the NOVA1 protein controls the expression of dozens of other brain-active genes.
Carl Zimmer’s Airborne: How Microbes Spread through the Airborne, How COVID-19 Sets the Record, and How Cancer Meets CAR-T Cell Therapy
Mice carrying a gene variant present in nearly every human on Earth — and not by extinct relatives including Neanderthals — produce more complex chirps than normal rodents1.
Thanks to recent progress in synthetic genomics technologies, “you can mimic and test evolutionary steps which otherwise would have taken billions of years to evolve — or wouldn’t have evolved ever”, says synthetic genomicist Akos Nyerges. But progress doesn’t always equal smooth sailing. There are a lot of surprising challenges that can be thrown up by altered or deleted genes, which has laid bare how much we don’t know about the fundamental language of the genome. When it comes to heavily modified genomes, says Nyerges, “we underestimated how complex biology is”.
Carl Zimmer’s Air-borne “is a fascinating story of the evolution of a highly interdisciplinary field over centuries”, writes environmental engineer Linsey Marr in her review. In tracing the history of ‘aerobiology’ from ancient Greece to the modern day, Zimmer explains why the idea that microbes can spread through the air and cause disease was contentious for centuries, and how the COVID-19 pandemic finally set the record straight. The book shows a birds-eye view of life in the atmosphere and its effects on humans, says Marr.
Source: Daily briefing: CAR-T-cell therapy recipient nears two decades in cancer remission
The smell of an Egyptian mummy as a tool to discover the hidden ingredients of a person’s migraine and how to stop it
Migraine can cause severe headaches, nausea and sensitivity to light and sound, and it affects one billion people worldwide. Recently approved drugs that alleviate some of the headache symptoms of migraine have redefined it as “a treatable and manageable condition”, says neuropharmacologist Diana Krause. But what makes a person’s brain prone to migraine, and why it affects people differently, is still somewhat of a mystery. To stop migraine completely “we need to create new frameworks to understand how the brain activates the whole system of migraine”, says neurologist Arne May.
Researchers are investigating whether the smell of an Egyptian mummy could enable them to discover what materials were used to preserve the body without disturbing it. The air coming from the sarcophagi of nine mummies was asked to be analysed to see how they compare to contemporary smells. They then analysed each air sample to identify volatile compounds responsible for certain smells. The team also hope their work can provide curators with a synthetic recreation of how mummies smell to make exhibits more engaging.
A woman who was 4 years old when she received CAR-T-cell therapy to treat a nerve-cell cancer is still cancer-free 19 years later. She received the therapy in 2006; it uses CAR T cells. In some blood cancers, CAR-T-cell therapies proved effective, but researchers have struggled to repeat that success against solid tumours. That makes the results very good, says Sneha.