Transparent Frog, First see-through frog

Professor Masayuki Sumida, Research Team @ Hiroshima University’s Institute for Amphibian Biology has created a  transparent frog whose internal organs are visible through its skin.

The researchers say the see-through frogs can help in the study of diseases and in the development of medical treatments by allowing laboratory scientists to check the status of internal organs and blood vessels while the frogs are alive and without having to dissect them.

According to Sumida, the transparent frog is the result of breeding two specimens of Japanese brown frog (Rana japonica) that had a genetic mutation giving them pale skin. By selectively breeding their offspring, the researchers were able to create a frog that remains transparent for its entire life cycle.

Most of the world’s known transparent creatures live underwater, and transparent four-legged animals are extremely rare.

The researchers also say that by fusing the genes of fluorescent proteins to the frog’s genes, they can create frogs that glow. Glowing frogs can help scientists study specific “problem” genes by providing a real-time visual indication (i.e. the frogs glow) when those genes become active.

Professor Sumida says, “Transparent frogs will prove useful as laboratory animals because they make it easier and cheaper to observe the development and progress of cancer, the growth and aging of internal organs, and the effects of chemicals on organs.”

Very Interesting..............

Square Watermelons! It's true.

Farmers in the southern Japanese town of Zentsuji have figured out how to grow their watermelons so they turn out square.

 It's not a fad. The technique actually has practical applications. "The reason they're doing this in Japan is because of lack of space," said Samantha Winters of the National Watermelon Promotion Board in Orlando, Florida.

A fat, round watermelon can take up a lot of room in a refrigerator, and the usually round fruit often sits awkwardly on refrigerator shelves. But clever Japanese farmers have solved this dilemma by forcing their watermelons to grow into a square shape.

Farmers insert the melons into square, tempered glass cases while the fruit is still growing on the vine.

The square boxes are the exact dimensions of Japanese refrigerators, allowing full-grown watermelons to fit conveniently and precisely onto refrigerator shelves.

But cubic fruit comes with a price: Each square watermelon costs 10,000 yen, the equivalent of about $82. Regular watermelons in Japan cost from $15 to $25 each.

Japanese farmers have perfected the art of growing square watermelons, but they aren’t about to reveal their secret process. When a square watermelon sells for $82 who can blame them.

Plant Grows at high Temperatures with help of Fungi/Virus

Let us talk about three new things I didn't know till now. Hope it will be informative or useful for your entrance exams.

1. Dichanthelium lanuginosum is grass plant known as Panic grass*and was able to survive intermittent high temperatures in geothermal soils (up to 65 °C.) of Yellowstone National Park, USA. 

2. In 2007 it was found that the heat tolerance is conferred to the grass due to its association with an endophytic fungus, Curvularia protuberata. 

3. "Thermal Tolerance" trait conferred by the endophytic fungus is actually due to a specific RNA virus onboard. This dsRNA virus is aptly named "Curvularia thermal tolerance virus" (CThTV). Infected fungal mycelia contain two viral dsRNA molecules: a 2.2 kb dsRNA molecule that encodes two ORFs related to viral replication and a 1.8 kb dsRNA molecule with two ORFs with no similarity to any protein of known function.

As we all know virus is pathogenic. CThTV is Symbiotic.

This is an example of a tritrophic interaction, as three organisms are interacting.

 

Work is continuing to determine the mechanism by which the uncharacterized ORFs within the 1.8 dsRNA of CThTV confer the thermal tolerance in this fungal-plant mutualism.

*Panic grass, incidentally, has nothing to do with botanical phobias; instead, the name derives from the Latin panicum, referring to foxtail millet.

Two Drugs Used to Treat Other Cancers Have Positive Effect on Brain Tumors

A study suggests two drugs being used to treat other types of cancer can have a positive effect on certain kinds of brain tumors. Researchers also found a genetic mutation that they linked to at least some cases of glioblastoma, the most common form of brain tumor.

What is GBM?

There are more than 120 kinds of brain tumors. Brain tumors are not technically considered brain cancer, as they do not spread past the spinal cord or the brain unlike cancers, which can spread throughout the body. Glioblastomas account for approximately 9,000 newly diagnosed cases in the U.S. each year. It is also the most aggressive and least treatable form of brain tumor and is largely resistant to traditional treatments such as surgery or chemotherapy. People diagnosed with GMB have an average survival time of 14 months.

What are the specifics of the study?

The study was conducted through the cooperative efforts of many teams in the U.S. and abroad. Scientists from the University of California, UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center and the San Diego School of Medicine collaborated with several other groups in Boston and South Korea. The research, which used mice, was published in the online version of the journal Cancer Research.

What did the research reveal about brain tumors?

The research highlighted the link between GBM and a gene known as epidermal growth factor receptor. A deletion mutation in a small segment of a molecule within EGFR is thought to cause cells to transform and become cancerous.

What are the drugs that were found to have potential in treating brain tumors?

The drugs in question specifically target EFGR. Cetuximab, which has the brand name Erbitux, is used in the treatment of some head and neck carcinomas, as well as in the treatment of colorectal cancer. The second drug is Erlotinib, which is distributed under the brand name Tarceva. It is used to treat pancreatic and lung cancers. Cetuximab proved more effective overall when tested in mice. Neither drug is effective in treating all GBM tumors and can have some unpleasant side effects, meaning the administration might have to be very selective.

A Better Test for a Potato Pest

ARS scientists have developed a new diagnostic test that identifies the type of potato nematode infesting a field, providing much better guidance for growers when it comes to response. (Credit: Lynn Carta)

Xiaohong Wang, a molecular biologist with the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) Robert W. Holley Center for Agriculture and Health in Ithaca, N.Y., has filed a patent application on the monitoring tool, developed in part by cloning and sequencing key genes. ARS is USDA's principal intramural scientific research agency. This research supports the USDA priorities of ensuring food safety and promoting international food security.

There are two types of potato cyst nematode (PCN), the golden nematode and the pale cyst nematode. Being able to tell one from the other is important because breeders have developed potatoes that can resist the golden nematode, but have yet to develop varieties that resist the pale cyst nematode. If the pale cyst nematode is found in a field, potatoes cannot be grown there.

The golden nematode (Globodera rostochiensis) has been a problem in New York State since 1941 and has been found in Canada. The pale cyst nematode (G. pallida) was discovered in Idaho in 2006 and remains a major threat in Europe. Potatoes and seed potatoes are freely exchanged across international boundaries, so monitoring potato growing regions is essential.

Traditional methods of distinguishing between the two PCN species have relied on time-consuming morphological analyses and PCR (polymerase chain reaction) assays. They also require relatively large samples of nematode cysts. But Wang and her colleagues cloned the parasitism gene the nematodes use to produce a protein that plays an important role in the infection process, known as chorismate mutase.

The researchers then sequenced those chorismate mutase genes, compared the sequences, and identified unique regions in each sequence. They then developed a probe capable of recognizing the unique regions in each nematode's DNA. Wang described the process in a paper in the European Journal of Plant Pathology.

The diagnostic test is one of several new technologies designed to distinguish PCN types from each other, but it is a thousand times more sensitive than other systems and is expected to be widely used in regulatory and quarantine programs because it can give reliable results from tiny amounts of nematode material.

Why Plant 'Clones' Aren't Identical

A new study of plants that are reproduced by 'cloning' has shown why cloned plants are not identical. (Credit: © Vasiliy Koval / Fotolia)

Scientists have known for some time that 'clonal' (regenerant) organisms are not always identical: their observable characteristics and traits can vary, and this variation can be passed on to the next generation. This is despite the fact that they are derived from genetically identical founder cells.

Now, a team from Oxford University, UK, and King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Saudi Arabia, believe they have found out why this is the case in plants: the genomes of regenerant plants carry relatively high frequencies of new DNA sequence mutations that were not present in the genome of the donor plant.

The team report their findings in this week's Current Biology.

'Anyone who has ever taken a cutting from a parent plant and then grown a new plant from this tiny piece is actually harnessing the ability such organisms have to regenerate themselves,' said Professor Nicholas Harberd of Oxford University's Department of Plant Sciences, lead author of the paper. 'But sometimes regenerated plants are not identical, even if they come from the same parent. Our work reveals a cause of that visible variation.'

Using DNA sequencing techniques that can decode the complete genome of an organism in one go (so-called 'whole genome sequencing') the researchers analysed 'clones' of the small flowering plant 'thalecress' (Arabidopsis). They found that observable variations in regenerant plants are substantially due to high frequencies of mutations in the DNA sequence of these regenerants, mutations which are not contained in the genome of the parent plant.

'Where these new mutations actually come from is still a mystery,' said Professor Harberd. 'They may arise during the regeneration process itself or during the cell divisions in the donor plant that gave rise to the root cells from which the regenerant plants are created. We are planning further research to find out which of these two processes is responsible for these mutations. What we can say is that Nature has safely been employing what you might call a 'cloning' process in plants for millions of years, and that there must be good evolutionary reasons why these mutations are introduced.'

The new results suggest that variation in clones of plants may have different underlying causes from that of variation in clones of animals -- where it is believed that the effect of environmental factors on how animal genes are expressed is more important and no similar high frequencies of mutations have been observed.

Professor Harberd said: 'Whilst our results highlight that cloned plants and animals are very different they may give us insights into how both bacterial and cancer cells replicate themselves, and how mutations arise during these processes which, ultimately, have an impact on human health.'

Big pest, small genome: Blueprint of spider mite may yield better pesticides

Scanning electron microscope image of a two-spotted spider mite, which is less than one millimeter long. Richard Clark of the University of Utah helped lead an international team of 55 scientists who deciphered the genome of the two-spotted spider mite in a paper published in the Nov. 24 issue of Nature. Credit: Nature, Vladimir Zhurov, University of Western Ontario

The voracious mites, which technically are not insects, can eat more than 1,100 plant species – a rare trait. The mites' newly revealed and sequenced genome contains a variety of genes capable of detoxifying pesticides as well as toxins plants use to defend themselves, the scientists report in the Thursday, Nov. 24 issue of the journal Nature.

"One key thing that makes spider mites unique is they can eat many, many different plant species," says Richard M. Clark, one of five main authors of the study and an assistant professor of biology at the University of Utah. "These mites are often house plant pests – a major cause of people's house plants turning yellow and getting sick. They also are a major problem for agricultural nurseries and greenhouses, and for field crops."

Primary targets are tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, strawberries, corn, soybeans, apples, grapes and citrus.

Clark says the new study's "importance is largely in understanding how animals eat plants, with the long-term goal of developing effective ways to prevent crop damage from mites and insects. If we can identify the biological pathways mites use to feed on plants, we can potentially identify chemical and biological methods to disrupt those pathways and stop the mites from feeding."

The two-spotted spider mite, which is no more than 1 millimeter long, "is a major global pest, and is predicted to be a growing concern in a warming climate because they multiply extremely fast at high temperatures – 90 degrees Fahrenheit or more," he adds. "They do really well in hot and dry climates like Utah."

Yet, the two-spotted spider mite "has been found to rapidly develop resistance to multiple types of pesticides, often within a couple of years after a pesticide is introduced," says Clark. "It is resistant to many common pesticides used against insects."

The Nature study deciphering the genome of Tetranychus urticae, the two-spotted spider mite (which has two red spots), was conducted by an international research team of 55 scientists from North America, Europe and South America.