Sterol biosynthesis by a cell free extract of Dioscorea floribunda

The biosynthesis of sterols from mevalonate by a cell free extract prepared from actively growing tuber portions and leader shoots with young leaves of Dioscorea floribunda has been demonstrated. The preparation was capable of synthesizing 86.4 μg and 34.0 1£g of sterols from leader shoots with young leaves and actively growing tuber portions respectively. The cofactor requirement for the above system was also studied.     

Mining the 3′UTR of Autism-implicated Genes for SNPs Perturbing MicroRNA Regulation

Autism spectrum disorder(ASD) refers to a group of childhood neurodevelopmental disorders with polygenic etiology. The expression of many genes implicated in ASD is tightly regulated by various factors including microRNAs(miRNAs), a class of noncoding RNAs 22 nucleotides in length that function to suppress translation by pairing with ‘miRNA recognition elements'(MREs) present in the 30untranslated region(30UTR) of target mRNAs. This emphasizes the role played by miRNAs in regulating neurogenesis, brain development and differentiation and hence any perturbations in this regulatory mechanism might affect these processes as well. Recently, single nucleotide polymorphisms(SNPs) present within 30UTRs of mRNAs have been shown to modulate existing MREs or even create new MREs. Therefore, we hypothesized that SNPs perturbing miRNA-mediated gene regulation might lead to aberrant expression of autism-implicated genes, thus resulting in disease predisposition or pathogenesis in at least a subpopulation of ASD individuals. We developed a systematic computational pipeline that integrates data from well-established databases. By following a stringent selection criterion, we identified 9 MRE-modulating SNPs and another 12 MRE-creating SNPs in the 30UTR of autism-implicated genes. These high-confidence candidate SNPs may play roles in ASD and hence would be valuable for further functional validation.     

iPSC-derived myelinoids to study myelin biology of humans

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Superoxide dismutase as multipotent therapeutic antioxidant enzyme: Role in human diseases

Biotechnology Letters - Reactive oxygen species (ROS) is consistently recognized as a threat to living organisms, especially for human beings. For proper working of cellular signaling, functioning,...