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    News and Articles on Eukaryotes

    Archives: Eukaryotes

    Evolution: Life Took 2-million-fold Leaps  Dec 23, 2008
    Although the first fossil eukaryotes were likely also single-celled organisms, the eukaryotes distinguish themselves by means of their internal structure and functioning. Instead of having the cellular processes of life take place by means of diffusion in the cell, eukaryotes have organized innards, with a nucleus and other cellular structures that are dedicated to specific functions in the respiratory process ... Payne said there are clearly multi-cellular eukaryotes in the fossil record for... (Science Daily)

    African thicket rat malaria linked to virulent human form  Dec 23, 2008
    The maternally inherited mitochondria of Plasmodium are among the smallest known in eukaryotes, containing only three protein-coding genes and a total of only about 6,000 nucleotides (the mitochondrial genomes of human and other animals are about 16,000 bases). The genome is also unusual because of its organization into linear, tandemly repeated DNA. These features allowed Perkins to take the unusual step of amplifying the entire genome in a single piece via polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and... (EurekAlert!)

    Conservation and implications of eukaryote transcriptional regulatory regions across multiple species  Dec 21, 2008
    Increasing evidence shows that whole genomes of eukaryotes are almost entirely transcribed into both protein coding genes and an enormous number of non-protein-coding RNAs (ncRNAs). Therefore, revealing the underlying regulatory mechanisms of transcripts becomes imperative. (BioMed Central)

    Computation And Genomics Data Drive Bacterial Research Into New Golden Age  Dec 12, 2008
    As Buttner noted, second messengers were known to play an important role in complex eukaryotes, for example in controlling processes as important as vision and smell in animals. But the full role of such molecules in controlling bacterial physiology is only just being appreciated. (Science Daily)

    Research-based undergraduate course expands beyond Washington University  Dec 9, 2008
    In eukaryotes such as humans and fruit flies, only a small percentage of the genome contains instructions for making proteins. Elgin explains, "It's as though someone has given you Moby Dick, but they've actually given it to you in twenty volumes because they've interspersed gibberish into the text at random places. The students' job is to go in there and parse out the sentences.". (EurekAlert! -- Business News)

    Proteins Strangle Cell During Division  Dec 8, 2008
    Archaea, like bacteria, are unicellular organisms but in terms of evolution they are more closely related to another main group of living things, the eukaryotes (humans, animals, plants, fungi, etc) ... Some of the proteins in the new type of cell division are similar to proteins in other eukaryotes that have a completely different function ... In eukaryotes, and therefore also in humans, these proteins are involved in protein transport within the cell. (Science Daily)

    Humanity May Hold Key For Next Earth Evolution  Dec 1, 2008
    More complex single-celled creatures, the eukaryotes, joined bacteria in the Earth s microscopic menagerie, eventually teaming up to form multi-celled creatures. Eventually, enough oxygen built up that ozone was formed high in the atmosphere, shielding the land from harmful radiation, and allowing life to emerge from the seas. (Science Daily)

    In tough times, even amoebas turn to family  Nov 25, 2008
    Amoebas, along with plants, animals, , are considered eukaryotes by biologists. Sociality has also been detected among the other major group of organisms, prokaryotes (bacteria and archaea), which are generally single-celled organisms. (Yahoo News)

    New Gene-silencing Pathway Found In Plants  Nov 21, 2008
    According to Pikaard, most eukaryotes use the same two-pronged method for silencing genes at the transcriptional level: DNA methylation, or adding chemical flags to genes, and modification of proteins called histones that act as spools for DNA.. All eukaryotes share three essential RNA polymerases: Pol I, II, and III. These polymerases are indispensable for expressing biological traits and play a critical role in maintaining basic metabolic functions necessary for survival. (Science Daily)

    'Cheshire Cat' Escape Strategy In Response To Marine Viruses  Oct 30, 2008
    These results enable a clearer understanding of the origin of, and reasons for, sexual reproduction in eukaryotes (1). The researchers studied the impact of marine viruses on Emiliania huxleyi, one of the most abundant unicellular eukaryotes in oceans that significantly influences the carbon cycle and climates ... In the same way, by changing their form during the haploid phase, eukaryotes can evade biotic pressure and reinvent themselves within their own species. (Science Daily)

    DNA Repair: Structure Of The Mre11 Protein Bound To DNA  Oct 28, 2008
    Mre11 from eukaryotes organisms including yeast, frogs, and humans, whose cells, unlike archaea and bacteria, have membrane-packaged nuclei exhibit only five of these recognition loops but are otherwise similar. How Mre11 works. (Science Daily)

    Basic Cell Biology for Understandin...  Oct 27, 2008
    Basic Cell Biology for Understanding Genetics: Introduction to Eukaryotes, Prokaryotes, Chromosomes & Cell Division ... Introduction to Eukaryotes, Prokaryotes, Chromosomes & Cell Division ... The journey begins with two basic groups of organism (life form) eukaryotes and prokaryotes. (Suite101.com)

    1st proof of photosynthesis unreliable  Oct 25, 2008
    MELBOURNE: Researchers have discovered that the first evidence of oxygen producing organisms was in fact contaminated, a finding they claim could lead to a fresh debate over the early history of life. A team at Curtin University of Technology has found that biomarkers contained in 2. (India Times, India)

    Diatom Genome Helps Explain Success In Trapping Excess Carbon In Oceans  Oct 22, 2008
    "We believe this is the first time bacterial horizontal gene transfer has been observed in eukaryotes at such scale," says senior author Igor Grigoriev of DOE JGI. "This study gets us closer to explaining the dramatic diversity across the genera of diatoms, morphologically, behaviorally, but we still haven't yet explained all the differences conferred by the genes contributed by the other taxa.". From plants, the diatom inherited photosynthesis, and from animals the production of urea. (Science Daily)

    New Self-training Gene Prediction Program For Fungi Developed  Oct 7, 2008
    "While we previously showed that our unsupervised training program worked well to predict genes in many eukaryotes, it didn't work as well for various fungal genomes that carry a significant part of the information that facilitates accurate gene prediction in locations called branch point sites," said Mark Borodovsky, director of Georgia Tech's Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Genomics ... Borodovsky and his colleagues expanded the eukaryotic genome self-training software program they... (Science Daily)

    High bio enrollment stretches capacity  Sep 18, 2008
    Have people gotten tired of talking about Brad and Angelina's 52nd child and moved on to the next hot topic, cellular metabolism in eukaryotes. Not exactly. (The Daily Campus, CT)

    Packing DNA: How Did Genetic Storage Evolve?  Aug 24, 2008
    Like mammals, fruit flies belong to the pantheon of eukaryotes. In contrast to prokaryotes like bacteria, eukaryotes pack their genetic material in a cellular nucleus ... "Cations play a very important role in the folding and charge neutralization of DNA in all eukaryotes, but more so in dinoflagellates," Rizzo said. (Science Daily)

    Molecular Bridge Serves As A Tether For A Cell’s Nucleus  Aug 14, 2008
    In fission yeast, the single-cell eukaryotes that the researchers used as a model organism, the nucleus has to stay centered within the cell before cell division is initiated. In other eukaryotes, microtubules push on the nucleus by interacting with nuclear membrane proteins from two previously discovered families: KASH domain proteins, which span the outer nuclear membrane, and SUN domain proteins, which reside in the inner nuclear membrane. (Science Daily)

    Trim the trees  Aug 12, 2008
    Offshoots of bacteria may have developed a nucleus and become eukaryotes. Humans are a subset of eukaryotes and the myriad small steps over 3. (Longview Daily News, WA)

    Kiwi Fruit DNA Sequences Released  Aug 2, 2008
    (July 10, 2003) Scientists have long thought gene exchange between individuals of unrelated species to be an extremely rare event among eukaryotes -- the massive group of organisms that counts among its members. . (Science Daily)

    Call me a conspiracy theorist  Aug 1, 2008
    On page 216 he writes, It is quite legitimate to refer to the series of steps from prokaryotes to eukaryotes, vertebrates, mammals, primates, and man as progressive. Each step in this progression was the result of successful natural selection. (Longview Daily News, WA)

    Researchers Unveil Near-complete Protein Catalog For Mitochondria  Jul 15, 2008
    Mitochondria are linchpins of cellular life, found within the cells of all eukaryotes from yeast to humans ... A group of key mitochondrial proteins, known to be absent in yeast but otherwise present among eukaryotes, are actually missing from several other single-celled species. (Science Daily)

    US Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute announces new genome sequencing projects  Jul 3, 2008
    The CSP selections draw from all three branches of life: eukaryotes (such as plants and fungi), bacteria, and archaea. Desulfurococcus fermentans, isolated from the Uzon Caldera on the Kamchatka Peninsula, is the only known archaeon that breaks down cellulose and, unlike most known microorganisms that carry out fermentation, it produces hydrogen in the presence of hydrogen while fermenting cellulose and starch without experiencing an inhibition of growth. (EurekAlert!)

    The tiniest things  Jun 27, 2008
    Scientists believe mitochondria originated eons ago as free-living bacteria that were absorbed and incorporated into eukaryotes (cells with nuclei) as complex life developed on Earth. The relationship is endosymbiotic. (San Diego Union-Tribune)

    Unique motifs identify PIG-A proteins from glycosyltransferases of the GT4 family  Jun 4, 2008
    The PIG-A gene has been shown to be an essential gene in various eukaryotes. In humans, mutations in the protein have been associated with paroxysomal noctural hemoglobuinuria. (BioMed Central)

    Hot and deep, but microbes thrive  May 27, 2008
    The lack of cell nuclei distinguishes them from eukaryotes, or all animal and plant life. "If there is a substantial subsurface biosphere on earth there could also be substantial biospheres on other planets," Prof. (Globe and Mail -- Technology)

    The Emerging Role Of Infection In Alzheimer's Disease  May 26, 2008
    The first review shows the importance of chronic inflammation in AD, followed by three articles presenting evidence on the involvement of spirochetes, Chlamydia pneumoniae and Herpes simplex virus type 1 in AD. These are followed by a review of amyloid proteins, which occur in many cellular forms in Eukaryotes and Prokaryotes. The link between several viral and bacterial infections and the most significant genetic factor for AD, APOE. (Science Daily)

    Fun Cell Biology Education  May 23, 2008
    Bad guy microbes (pathogenic , eukaryotes & viruses) are everywhere. You can't avoid them, and your body's police force is constantly intervening to prevent you from being colonized by pathogens. (Suite101.com)

    Researchers explore the emerging role of infection in Alzheimer's disease  May 23, 2008
    The first review shows the importance of chronic inflammation in AD, followed by three articles presenting evidence on the involvement of spirochetes, Chlamydia pneumoniae and Herpes simplex virus type 1 in AD. These are followed by a review of amyloid proteins, which occur in many cellular forms in Eukaryotes and Prokaryotes. The link between several viral and bacterial infections and the most significant genetic factor for AD, APOE 4, is discussed in the next review. (EurekAlert!)

    Giant bacterium carries thousands of genomes  May 9, 2008
    At the time, the gigantic Epulopiscium with its hairy flagellar coat and what seemed to be internal structures bound to the membrane, was classified as a protist: a junk-pile of a category populated with eukaryotes that don't fit into any better-defined clades. Angerts analysis grouped Epulopiscium with bacteria. (Nature News Service)

    Charting The Epigenome: Zooming In On Genome-wide DNA At Single Base Resolution  Apr 23, 2008
    "The genomes of higher eukaryotes are peppered with modifications but unless you can take a detailed look at a large scale there is no way of knowing whether a particular mark is critical or not." ... "This really is just the beginning of unmasking the role of these powerful epigenetic regulatory mechanisms in eukaryotes," says Ecker. (Science Daily)

    Bloodless Worm Sheds Light On Human Blood, Iron Deficiency  Apr 20, 2008
    " Heme and Blood Heme is a critical molecule for health in all eukaryotes, organisms whose cells are organized into complex structures enclosed in membranes. Species of eukaryotes range from humans to baker's yeast. Heme makes blood red and binds to oxygen and other gases we need to survive. Heme is created in the mitochondria, then moves through pathways that connect other cells, where it is synthesized to form blood. Heme on its own, however, is toxic. "We wanted to find out how heme gets... (Science Daily)

    Deficiency of oxygen and heavy metal delayed life on Earth by 2 bn ...  Mar 30, 2008
    And if bacteria can't fix nitrogen fast enough, then eukaryotes - a kind of organism that includes plants, pachyderms and people - are in trouble because eukaryotes cannot fix nitrogen themselves at all. "So, if bacteria were struggling to get enough molybdenum, there probably wouldn't have been enough fixed nitrogen for eukaryotes to flourish," said Anbar ... Knoll was perplexed by the fact that eukaryotes didn't dominate the world until around 0. (Economic Times)

    Low oxygen and molybdenum in ancient oceans delayed evolution of ...  Mar 28, 2008
    "By tracking molybdenum in shales rich in organic matter, we found the deep ocean remained oxygen- and molybdenum-deficient after the first step. This condition may have had a negative impact on the evolution of early eukaryotes, our single-celled ancestors. The molybdenum record also tells us that the deep ocean was already fully oxygenated by around 550 million years ago." ... Molybdenum limitations may have delayed the development of eukaryotes, including the first animals, our earliest... (Astrobiology News (press release))

    Reason For Almost Two Billion Year Delay In Animal Evolution On Earth Discovered  Mar 27, 2008
    And if bacteria can't fix nitrogen fast enough then eukaryotes -- a kind of organism that includes plants, pachyderms and people -- are in trouble because eukaryotes cannot fix nitrogen themselves at all ... "By tracking molybdenum in shales rich in organic matter, we found the deep ocean remained oxygen- and molybdenum-deficient after the first step. This condition may have had a negative impact on the evolution of early eukaryotes, our single-celled ancestors. The molybdenum record also tells... (Science Daily)

    Molybdenum plays major role in life evolution on Earth  Mar 27, 2008
    The molybdenum record shows that the second step occurred around 600 million years ago, when the entire ocean became oxygenated, which enabled the rise of multi-cellular life called eukaryotes -- the category that includes plants, humans and other complex creatures. Molybdenum enables bugs to convert nitrogen from the atmosphere from a raw form into a type useful for living things, a process known as "nitrogen fixation.". (Xinhuanet, China)

    Rethinking Early Evolution: Earth's Earliest Animal Ecosystem Was Complex And Included Sexual Reproduction  Mar 21, 2008
    6, 2006) New research shows organisms called eukaryotes, ancestors of the animal and plant species present today, existed 50 million to 100 million years before an ice age that created "Snowball Earth" some. (Feb. (Science Daily)

    Improving the prediction of mRNA extremities in the parasitic protozoan Leishmania  Mar 21, 2008
    However, as opposed to higher eukaryotes there is no consensus polyadenylation signal in trypanosomatid mRNAs. Results. (BioMed Central)

    Biological Electron Transfer Captured In Real Time  Mar 5, 2008
    It has particular functional importance in cell respiration, which in eukaryotes takes place in the inner mitochondrial membrane, and in the cell membrane of prokaryotes. In cellular respiration molecules stemming from food are oxidised to carbon dioxide, and the electrons liberated in the process are "fed" into the so-called respiratory chain, which consists of three successive membrane-bound enzyme complexes, finally to react with the oxygen we breathe, which is reduced to water using these... (Science Daily)

    Essential and distinct roles of the F-box and helicase domains of Fbh1 in DNA damage repair  Mar 3, 2008
    Failure to repair DSBs can lead to genomic instability or cell death and cancer in higher eukaryotes. The Schizosaccharomyces pombe fbh1 gene encodes an F-box DNA helicase previously described to play a role in the Rhp51 (an orthologue of S. cerevisiae RAD51)-dependent recombinational repair of DSBs. (BioMed Central)

    What Sparked Complex Life In Ancient Oceans?  Feb 26, 2008
    High-resolution geochemical data from the Doushantuo Formation indicate that the early diversification of eukaryotes may have coupled with episodic oxygenation of Ediacaran oceans. (Credit: Photograph by Shuhai Xiao). (Science Daily)

    New Control Mechanism For Genetic Code Translation Discovered In Bacteria  Feb 20, 2008
    The leader of the study, Llu;s Ribas de Pouplana, researcher at IRB Barcelona and head of the Gene Translation Laboratory, explains, "our work strengthens the theory that many of the components of the initial genetic code, established 3,500 million years ago, have matured separately between distinct branches of evolution: bacteria, archaea and eukaryotes". The origin of the genetic code is one of the issues in evolution biology in which most questions remain unanswered. (Science Daily)

    Parasite Biology Clarified With New Model  Feb 20, 2008
    Developing new drugs for these diseases is problematical since the Apicomplexa are eukaryotes and have many of the same metabolic pathways as their animal hosts, including humans. This means many drugs that might be used to kill or damage the parasites will also harm their hosts. (Science Daily)

    Sulfate assimilation in eukaryotes: fusions, relocations and lateral transfers  Feb 5, 2008
    In photosynthetic eukaryotes sulfate is reduced in the plastids whereas in aplastidic eukaryotes the pathway is cytosolic ... To obtain an insight into the evolution of the sulfate assimilation pathway in eukaryotes and relationships of the differently compartmentalized isoforms we determined the locations of the pathway in lineages for which this was unknown and performed detailed phylogenetic analyses of three enzymes involved in sulfate reduction: ATP sulfurylase (ATPS), adenosine... (BioMed Central)

    50 years ago in microscopy  Jan 23, 2008
    Some experiments then suggested that bacteria have no histones and in general fewer proteins bound to their DNA. My working hypothesis at that time was thus that during interphase the DNA-plasm of eukaryotes might be organized similar to that of prokaryotes; only the condensed metaphase chromosomes would have been specific for eukaryotes ... The DNA-plasm of interphase nuclei of eukaryotes, however, turned out not to be coagulation-sensitive ... This result was suspected to be in relation to DNA... (The Scientist)

    'Tree Of Life' Has Lost A Branch, According To Largest Genetic Comparison Of Higher Life Forms Ever  Jan 22, 2008
    It is, therefore, essential that we know the relationships between the largest groups in the great diversity of eukaryotes, he adds ... All life on Earth can be divided into two essentially different life forms eukaryotes and prokaryotes ... The eukaryotes gather their genetic material in a nucleus, while the prokaryotes (bacteria and archaea) have their genetic material floating freely in the cell. (Science Daily)

    Robert Whitcomb; entomologist explored the microbial world  Jan 6, 2008
    "Although we may pretend to be eukaryotes, we are impostors. . . . Spiroplasma, although discovered a mere 17 years ago, may be the largest genus of any kind on earth and may contain more than a million species.". He also was deeply interested in birds, and one of his articles, which applied the ideas of island biogeography to mainland bird populations in the eastern deciduous forest, was considered a landmark study. (Boston Globe)

    Checkpoint effects and telomere amplification during DNA re-replication in fission yeast  Dec 22, 2007
    We found that over-expressing a non-phosphorylatable form of the replication-initiation protein, Cdc18 (known as Cdc6 in other eukaryotes), drove re-replication of DNA sequences genome-wide, rather than forcing high level amplification of just a few sequences. Moderate variations in extents of re-replication generated regions spanning hundreds of kilobases that were amplified (or not) ~2-fold more (or less) than average. (BioMed Central)

    “Store that fat” says new gene. Is obesity explained?  Dec 21, 2007
    Any time you unravel a basic process used by a huge division of life (in this case, all "eukaryotes" -- all species that contain a cell nucleus), you have done something commendable. "The discovery we made is very fundamental," says Silver. (Why Files)

    Scientists seek to assess the microbial risks in the water we drink  Dec 12, 2007
    However, there is much we do not know about the causes and likelihood of waterborne illness, and we can and should do more to assess the risks, according to a new report, Clean Water: What is Acceptable Microbial Risk", released by the American Academy of Microbiology. In the developing world, where diarrheal illnesses claim roughly 2 million lives each year, access to clean water is a serious public health challenge, says Mark LeChevallier of American Water Works Service Company in Vorhees,... (EurekAlert!)

    Pathogens use previously undescribed mechanism to sabotage host immune system  Dec 8, 2007
    The researchers went on to identify a previously unknown catalytic mechanism of acid-base mediated "-elimination of phosphoserine/phosphothreonine that irreversibly inactivated the kinase. Our data provide biochemical and structural evidence for specific recognition of the dual phosphorylated MAPK substrates by the OspF family of phosphothreonine lyases and explain the enzymes differential activities towards different MAPK substrates, explains Dr. Shao. Further, as phosphorylation of serine... (EurekAlert!)

    Malaria Parasite In Patient Blood Finds Distinct Physiological States  Dec 5, 2007
    Since the malaria parasite and the baker's yeast are both single-celled eukaryotes, it is possible they may share some of the same cellular machinery and could also respond in some similar ways to their surroundings. With this unusual approach, co-senior author Regev and her colleagues were able to describe three different classes of parasites, one of which displayed features associated with a well-known form of parasite metabolism. (Science Daily)

    Fossil Find Gives Clues Of Early Life  Dec 4, 2007
    7 billion years and show the organism coexisted with life's two other known domains, bacteria and eukaryotes. The finding. (Science Daily)

    Transcription factor target prediction using multiple short expression time series from Arabidopsis thaliana  Nov 19, 2007
    The central role of transcription factors (TFs) in higher eukaryotes has led to much interest in deciphering transcriptional regulatory interactions. Even in the best case, experimental identification of TF target genes is error prone, and has been shown to be improved by considering additional forms of evidence such as expression data. (BioMed Central)

    Thirtieth Anniversary Of Discovery Of Third Domain Of Life  Oct 17, 2007
    They had divided all living organisms into two broad superkingdoms, or domains: the prokaryotes, which included both the true bacteria and archaea; and eukaryotes, including all animals, plants, fungi and protists (a diverse group that includes protozoans, algae, slime molds and other organisms) ... The genetic pattern held: The rRNA signatures of the methanogens were distinct from those of eukaryotes and bacteria. (Science Daily)

    Cells and Viruses  Oct 15, 2007
    Cellular Organisms: Prokaryotes & Eukaryotes. All living things are composed of cells that comprise the two main categories of living organisms, prokaryotes and eukaryotes ... Eukaryotes all belong to the biological domain Eukarya. (Suite101.com)

    Patterns of intron gain and conservation in eukaryotic genes  Oct 13, 2007
    The presence of introns in protein-coding genes is a universal feature of eukaryotic genome organization, and the genes of multicellular eukaryotes, typically, contain multiple introns, a substantial fraction of which share position in distant taxa, such as plants and animals. Depending on the methods and data sets used, researchers have reached opposite conclusions on the causes of the high fraction of shared introns in orthologous genes from distant eukaryotes ... However, the distribution of... (BioMed Central)

    Census Of Protein Architectures Offers New View Of History Of Life  Oct 6, 2007
    The folds belonging to organisms that eventually evolved into what we now call bacteria and the multicellular eukaryotes also began to lose folds, but they started downsizing their repertoires much later than the Archaea ... The eukaryotes evolution into large, multicellular bodies that could live in diverse environments relied on an extensive library of protein architectures, he said. (Science Daily)

    Giardia Genome Unlocked  Oct 3, 2007
    But the Giardia genome is compact compared to other eukaryotes, with simplified machinery for several basic processes, such as DNA replication and RNA processing ... The authors hypothesize that Giardia diverged from other eukaryotes more than a billion years ago ... "We embarked upon this genome project because of its importance to human health and suggestions from earlier molecular analyses that Giardia represents a very early-diverging lineage in the evolutionary history of eukaryotes," Sogin... (Science Daily)

    Prokaryotic and Eukaryotic Cells  Oct 2, 2007
    The Difference between Prokaryotes and Eukaryotes. There are only two basic types of cells, primitive prokaryotes and the more complex eukaryotes ... All cells fall into one of the two major classifications: prokaryotes or eukaryotes. (Suite101.com)

    Mapping global diversity of protozoans  Sep 26, 2007
    This has been broadly upheld for protists (microbial eukaryotes) by most morphological and some molecular analyses. However, morphology and most previously used evolutionary markers evolve too slowly to test this important hypothesis adequately. (BioMed Central)

    Synthetic memory in eukaryotes?  Sep 21, 2007
    The Scientist : Synthetic memory in eukaryotes ... Synthetic memory in eukaryotes ... Similar in eukaryotes have instead relied on trial and error. (The Scientist)

    New mechanism discovered for DNA recombination and repair  Sep 12, 2007
    They have important roles in cell proliferation, genome maintenance, and genetic diversity, particularly in higher eukaryotes. For example, Rad51-deficient vertebrate cells accumulate chromosomal breaks before death. (EurekAlert!)

    Bacterial genes jump to host  Aug 31, 2007
    Bacteria living within insects, nematodes and other eukaryotes transfer genes into their hosts more often than previously thought, according to a published online this week in Science ... The findings may also affect how researchers sequence genomes of eukaryotes, the authors suggest ... told The Scientist, "any bacterial sequences they discover may not be the result of contamination, but rather the result of gene transfers." Geneticists have long debated the extent to which bacterial genes jump... (The Scientist)

    Bacterial genome found within a fly's  Aug 31, 2007
    DNA from mitochondria and chloroplasts cell structures thought to have evolved from specialized bacteria have also made their way into the genomes of multicellular eukaryotes (a category including plants and animals). And a worm parasite of plants has been found to contain a gene from nitrogen-fixing soil bacteria. (Nature News Service)

    Ontario mine yields scientific treasures  Aug 23, 2007
    Scientists have suspected archaea, bacteria and eukaryotes went their separate ways around three billion years ago, but it has been hard to pin down the time of the split. "Now, we are sure the three domains of life were well separated and evolving [independently] by 2.7 billion years ago," said Kenig. (Canada.com)

    Ancient Organisms Discovered In Canadian Gold Mine  Aug 23, 2007
    Scientists have suspected that the three known domains of life -- eukaryotes, bacteria, and archaea -- branched off and went their separate ways around three billion years ago ... Fabien Kenig, associate professor of earth and environmental sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and his former doctoral student Gregory Ventura, spent nearly five years carefully analyzing the shale samples, originally to compare what they found with an earlier Australian study suggesting the presence... (Science Daily)

    All eukaryotic kinases share 1 common set of substrates  Aug 22, 2007
    In addition, the elucidation of many kinase cascades has proved pivotal for understanding and manipulating cellular behaviour in a variety of divergent eukaryotes ... Furthermore, the results suggest the presence of a set of kinase substrates in an ancestral eukaryote that has remained unchanged in eukaryotic life, so the earliest eukaryotes may have been less primitive than generally thought. (EurekAlert!)

    DNA Replication Behavior In Complex Organisms May Foreshadow Leaps In Genomic Discoveries  Aug 18, 2007
    GIS Group Leader and the corresponding author of the publication, Dr Liu Jianhua, said, "Our evidence strongly supports the stochastic model for the regulation of DNA replication in high eukaryotes (organisms whose cells are organised into complex structures by internal membranes and a cytoskeleton) such as humans. We have shown that replication efficiency can be directly determined on a genomic scale. More significantly, our study provides for a novel methodology for the analysis of replication... (Science Daily)

    Muscle mass: Scientists identify novel mode of transcriptional regulation during myogenesis  Aug 18, 2007
    For nearly 30 years, we have assumed that the basal transcription machinery, particularly the highly conserved TBP and TFIID complex, would be invariant and universal for all cell types in eukaryotes. It seems that this simplistic model will need to be revised with significant implications for mechanisms controlling multi-cellular differentiation, explains Dr. Tjian. (EurekAlert!)

    Chromatin Remodeling Complex Connected To DNA Damage Control  Aug 11, 2007
    Shen's research is conducted in yeast, but the pathways involved are conserved in all forms of life with complex cellular organization, known as eukaryotes, right on up to humans, Shen notes. Research was funded by the National Cancer Institute, the National Institute of Environmental Health Studies, the American Cancer Society, the M. D. Anderson Odyssey Fellowship and the Theodore N. Law Award. (Science Daily)

    First complete eukaryotic genome  Jul 12, 2007
    By virtue of these attributes and others that we had discovered previously, C. merolae appears to have the simplest nuclear genome of the non-symbiotic eukaryotes. These unusually simple genomic features in the 100% complete genome sequence of C. merolae are extremely useful for further studies of eukaryotic cells. (BioMed Central)

    Surprises in sea anemone genome  Jul 6, 2007
    According to the study, about 80% of pan-eumetazoan genes have clearly recognizable homologs in fungi, plants, or other eukaryotes. The remaining 20% are specific to eumetazoan animals. (The Scientist)

    Cell Structure  Jun 25, 2007
    Cells are divided into two major classes, eukaryotes and prokaryotes. The difference between these two classes is that the materials making up the nucleus of eukaryotic cells are separated from the rest of the cell by the nuclear membrane, whereas in prokaryotic cells these materials are not separated. (Suite101.com)

    Yeast non-coding RNA pool runs deep  Jun 22, 2007
    Whole genome screens in higher eukaryotes, for instance, provided evidence for a surprisingly large number of ncRNAs. To supplement these searches, we performed a computational analysis of seven yeast species and searched for new ncRNAs and RNA motifs. (BioMed Central)

    Eukaryote to prokaryote gene transfer  Jun 21, 2007
    Horizontal or lateral transfer of genetic material between distantly related prokaryotes has been shown to play a major role in the evolution of bacterial and archaeal genomes, but exchange of genes between prokaryotes and eukaryotes is not as well understood. In particular, gene flow from eukaryotes to prokaryotes is rarely documented with strong support, which is unusual since prokaryotic genomes appear to readily accept foreign genes ... Two non-homologous forms of fructose bisphosphate... (BioMed Central)

    On The Defense: Conserved Features Of Plant Innate Immunity  Jun 19, 2007
    "Our work is further evidence that the little plant Arabidopsis remains a very robust genetic tool for dissecting processes in multicellular eukaryotes, with relevance to the realm of human biology. To our knowledge, this is the first placement of the NTC into a known signaling pathway in any organism. We are continuing to find commonality between animal and plant innate immunity at the level of both receptors and signalling intermediates; the complex we describe, essential for plant innate... (Science Daily)

    DNA breakage surprisingly rare  May 30, 2007
    "It's probably why, in eukaryotes, there has evolved a more complex mechanism of histones. They need to chaperone the DNA closely and not let it break.". Andrea Gawrylewski. (The Scientist)

    bZIPDB : A database of regulatory information for human bZIP transcription factors  May 30, 2007
    Basic region-leucine zipper (bZIP) proteins are a class of transcription factors (TFs) that play diverse roles in eukaryotes. Malfunctions in these proteins lead to cancer and various other diseases. (BioMed Central)

    Archaea In Hot Springs Use Ammonia For Energy: May Shed Light On Early Evolution  May 26, 2007
    Discovered in the late 1970s, archaea are one of the three main branches on the tree of life, with bacteria and eukaryotes such as plants and animals on the other two branches. But scientists are just now gaining a fuller understanding of what archaea do -- in an ecological sense -- to make a living. (Science Daily)

    Great Bugs of Fire - Volcano Loving Bugs  May 19, 2007
    Unlike the better known bacteria and eukaryotes (plants and animals), many of the archaea can thrive in extreme environments like volcanic vents and acidic hot springs. They can live without sunlight or organic carbon as food, and instead survive on sulfur, hydrogen, and other materials that normal organisms can't metabolize. (FirstScience.com)

    Plankton Species' Genome Analysis Yields Surprises Regarding Evolution And Global Photosynthesis  May 2, 2007
    At one micron it is the smallest known phytoplankton and one of the smallest of all the eukaryotes, organisms with specialized internal cell structures that include plants and animals. A teaspoon of seawater taken off the Scripps Oceanography Pier typically contains more than 100,000 eukaryotic phytoplankton, which are found throughout the world's oceans. (Science Daily)

    Phylogenetic and functional analysis of the Cation Diffusion Facilitator (CDF) family: improved signature and prediction of substrate specificity  Apr 23, 2007
    Representative CDF members from all three kingdoms of life (Archaea, Eubacteria, Eukaryotes) were retrieved from genomic databases. Protein sequence alignment has allowed detection of a modified signature that can be used to identify new hypothetical CDF members. (BioMed Central)

    Identification and characterization of insect-specific proteins by genome data analysis  Apr 4, 2007
    Homologs in common to Drosophila melanogaster, Anopheles gambiae, Bombyx mori, Tribolium castaneum, and Apis melifera were compared to the complete genomes of three non-insect eukaryotes (opisthokonts) Homo sapiens, Caenorhabditis elegans and Saccharomyces cerevisiae. This operation yielded 154 groups of orthologous proteins in Drosophila to be insect-specific homologs; 466 groups were determined to be common to eukaryotes (represented by three opisthokonts) ... Stress and stimulus response... (BioMed Central)

    MotifCombinator: a web-based tool to search for combinations of cis-regulatory motifs  Mar 23, 2007
    A combination of multiple types of transcription factors and cis-regulatory elements is often required for gene expression in eukaryotes, and the combinatorial regulation confers specific gene expression to tissues or environments. To reveal the combinatorial regulation, computational methods are developed that efficiently infer combinations of cis-regulatory motifs that are important for gene expression as measured by DNA microarrays. (BioMed Central)

    Archives: Eukaryotes

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