Bread mold keeps the secret of disabling the gene causing the disease

Most people see bread when they see bread, they leave it. The remaining percentage sees a potential world of small mold species. A University of Missouri scientist with a research team found new mechanisms in the reproductive cycle of a landmark.

This mechanism protects the mold from the abnormal expression of the gene by " diverging " the individual pair of genes in the process of mitosis (reducing stool). The findings may have certain implications for higher organisms and target precisely the undesirable genes, such as those of the HIV virus.

Assistant professor Patrick Shiu of the Department of Biology at MU University of Arts and Sciences said: 'Diving in the feces is also available in worms, mice and humans. Although not all have a common mechanism, but the principle of the odd DNA orientation for 'diving' seems to have both simple and complex organisms. Knowing the process of DNA in mold is crucial to the technique of diving unwanted genes, such as pathogenic genes. '

(Photo: PolyLam.com)

Shiu and his colleagues found that every sex cell in the mold has an internal mechanism to 'scan' pairs of chromosomes to find anomalous chromosome . They found that when a chromosome in a transcription pair had an extra gene that did not appear in the same chromosome, all copies of that gene were deactivated during the fecal reduction because they were considered sign of the intruder. The researchers call this process ' meiotic silencing by unpaired DNA (MSUD).

Shiu said: 'MSUD protects mold from any intrusion at the time of chromosome particularly susceptible to the spread of viruses as well as inserted gene sequences'.

Shiu's research has increased the understanding of how to "turn off" unwanted genes, and to clarify the genetic components in the MSUD. Research can also be applied in many industries, pharmaceuticals and agriculture.

Because of his great contribution to the field of genetic research, Shiu recently received the Beadle and Tatum Prize (named after the Nobel Prize winners George Beadle and Edward Tatum). The prize was awarded for the first outstanding research on the model of Neurospora bread mold.

Shiu's latest research, funded by the National Science Foundation, is the focus of Fungal Genetics and Biology.