Schlagwort: evolution

The genetic origins of the world’s first farmers clarified

13. Mai 2022
The genetic origins of the first agriculturalists in the Neolithic period long seemed to lie in the Near East. A new study published in the journal Cell shows that the first farmers actually represented a mixture of Ice Age hunter-gatherer groups, spread from the Near East all the way to south-eastern Europe. Researchers from the University of Bern and the SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics as well as from the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and the University of Fribourg were involved in the study. The method they developed could help reveal other human evolution patterns with unmatched resolution.

Quelle: IDW Informationsdienst Wissenschaft

Sex pays off: Asexual reproduction can have negative effects on genome evolution in stick insects

24. Februar 2022
Stick insects that reproduce asexually cannot adapt as quickly in the course of evolution as sexually reproducing species, leading to a decrease in biological diversity / publication in ‘Science Advances’

Quelle: IDW Informationsdienst Wissenschaft

New personalized test for an earlier and more accurate prediction of cancer relapse

8. Februar 2022
Researchers have developed a new protocol for monitoring acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), the most common cancer in children, to inform more effective treatment strategies and detect disease recurrence. The personalized mediator probe PCR (MP PCR) uses multiple genomic cancer cell markers in a single assay and is simpler than current techniques. It improves monitoring clonal tumor evolution to detect a relapse sooner and avoid false negative results.

Quelle: Sciencedaily

Systematically examining the way spatial structure influences the evolution of cancer

15. Januar 2022
Characterizing the way, manner or pattern of evolution in tumors may be important for clinical forecasting and optimizing cancer treatment. Researchers are systematically examining how spatial structure influences tumor evolution. To do this the group developed a computational model with the flexibility to simulate alternative spatial structures and types of cell dispersal.

Quelle: Sciencedaily

Mitochondria and the evolutionary roots of cancer

23. Februar 2015

Cancer is a group of almost 200 diseases that involve variety of changes in cell structure, morphology, and physiology. Cancer phenotype is underlying several alterations in cellular dynamics with three most critical features, which includes self-sufficiency in growth signals and insensitivity to inhibitory signals, evasion of programmed cell death and limitless replicative potential with a potential for the invasion of other organs. Cancer disease is widespread among metazoans. Some properties of cancer cells such as uncontrolled cell proliferation, lack of apoptosis, hypoxia, fermentative metabolism and free cell motility, i.e. metastasis, resemble a prokaryotic lifestyle, which leads to the assumption of a reversal like evolution from eucariotic back to proteobacterial state. This phenotype matches the phenotype of the last universal common ancestor (LUCA) that resulted from the endosymbiosis between archaebacteria and α-proteobacteria, which later became the mitochondria.

 Davila AF and Zamorano P (2013) Mitochondria and the evolutionary roots of cancer. Phys. Biol. 10 (2013) 026008, doi:10.1088/1478-3975/10/2/026008

Quantum Tunnelling to the Origin and Evolution of Life

23. Februar 2015

Quantum tunnelling is a phenomenon which becomes relevant at the nanoscale and below. It is a paradox from the classical point of view as it enables elementary particles and atoms to permeate an energetic barrier without the need for sufficient energy to overcome it. Tunnelling is being of vital importance for life: physical and chemical processes can be traced directly back to the effects of quantum tunnelling. These processes include the   prebiotic chemistry as well as the function of biomolecular nanomachines and has many highly important implications that can be derived from to the field of molecular, prebiotic chemistry and biological evolution, respectively.

Trixler, F (2013) Quantum Tunnelling to the Origin and Evolution of Life. Curr Org Chem. 2013 Aug; 17(16): 1758–1770. doi: 10.2174%2F13852728113179990083