(Press-News.org) Researchers at UCLA and New York University have developed a method to detect sequence differences in individual DNA molecules by taking nanoscopic pictures of the molecules themselves.
The work is reported in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface.
Using the approach they call "Direct Molecular Recognition," the UCLA and NYU researchers used nanoparticles to turn the DNA molecules into a form of molecular braille that can be read in the scale of nanometers, or one billionth of a meter, using high-speed Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM).
The leaders of the study are: Jason Reed, a research professor, and Professor Jim Gimzewski, nanotechnology pioneer, both at UCLA's California Nanosystems Institute, and Professor Bud Mishra, genomics expert, at NYU's Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. This group believes the method will have many practical uses, such as super-sensitive detection of DNA molecules in genomic research and medical diagnostics as well as in identifying pathogens.
While there are a variety of techniques currently used for this purpose, they are time consuming, technically difficult, and expensive. They also require a significant amount of genetic material in order to make accurate readings and often require prior knowledge of the sample composition.
According to Mishra, to overcome these shortcomings, the team devised a "single-cell, single-molecule" method that would dispense with the complex chemical manipulations on which existing methods are based, and, instead, utilize the unique shapes of the molecules themselves as the method of identification. This approach has the benefits of being rapid and sensitive to the level of a single molecule.
Reed says that "the long term goal of our team's research is to dissect, understand, and control the biology of single cells in complex tissues, such as brain, or in malignant tumors. Furthering this body of work requires that we address an unsolved problem in single-cell molecular analysis: the lack of a method to routinely, reliably, and inexpensively determine global gene transcriptional activity."
In their paper, the team closely examined the potential use of this technique to quantify the activity of genes in living tissue, a method known as transcriptional profiling. They were able to show that their Direct Molecular Recognition technique could accurately quantitate the relative abundance of multiple DNA species in a mixture using only a handful of molecules – a result not achievable using other methods.
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Their study was supported by a grant to from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, part of the National Institutes of Health.
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Mount Sinai School of Medicine researchers presented 86 abstracts and plenary sessions at the American College of Cardiology's (ACC) 61st Annual Scientific Session, including ground-breaking research on aggressive statin therapy, the prevalence of unrecognized cardiovascular disease symptoms in women, and morbidity associated with non-adherence to medication after stent implantation. The meeting took place March 23-27, 2012 in Chicago.
Mount Sinai Researchers Show Aggressive Statin Regimen Reduces Fat Content in Coronary Blockage That Can Lead to Acute Thrombosis: Results ...
Boulder, Colo., USA – Topics in the 26 March posting of Geology include anthropogenic impacts on the Indus River into the Arabian Sea; possible electrical conductivity beneath the Yellowstone hotspot track; mountain-forming volcanoes and deadly debris flows; melting beneath the Colorado Plateau; widespread weathered glass on Mars; and a new view into Mars' global aqueous history.
Highlights are provided below. Representatives of the media may obtain complimentary copies of Geology articles by contacting Christa Stratton at the address above. Abstracts for the complete ...
NEW YORK (March 27, 2012) -- A team of researchers led by scientists at Weill Cornell Medical College has designed what appears to be a powerful gene therapy strategy that can treat both beta-thalassemia disease and sickle cell anemia. They have also developed a test to predict patient response before treatment.
This study's findings, published in PLoS ONE, represents a new approach to treating these related, and serious, red blood cells disorders, say the investigators.
"This gene therapy technique has the potential to cure many patients, especially if we prescreen ...
Boulder, Colo., USA - Lithosphere topics include Deccan volcanism; river profiles in Eastern Papua, New Guinea; significant seismic hazard in the Camarillo fold belt, Southern California; mechanics of the San Jacinto and southern San Andreas faults; new evidence from the SAFOD core; chalcedony of the White River Group, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Colorado; and using seismic data to study the crust and upper mantle beneath the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina.
Lithosphere is the newest bimonthly publication of The Geological Society of America, printing February, ...
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Later-stage cancers thrive by finding detours around roadblocks that cancer drugs put in their path, but a Purdue University biochemist is creating maps that will help drugmakers close more routes and develop better drugs.
Kinase enzymes deliver phosphates to cell proteins in a process called phosphorylation, switching a cellular function on or off. Irregularities in phosphorylation can lead to uncontrolled cell growth and are a hallmark of cancer.
Many successful cancer drugs are kinase inhibitors, which block the ability of a kinase to bind ...
During peak migration days in the early 1900s, tens of thousands of canvasback ducks could be seen floating and diving on Minnesota's Lake Christina. Since midcentury, changes to the lake have diminished this grand, iconic spectacle.
Restoring it will require both top-down control of life in the lake, and bottom-up management of the surrounding landscape. So says a team of Minnesota scientists calling on extensive modern records and 200 years of history trapped in sediment, in a report released online last week in the journal Ecological Applications.
"Lake Christina ...
A low pressure system that has been lingering in the western North Pacific Ocean for several days appears to be coming together today in infrared imagery from NASA's Aqua satellite.
NASA's Aqua satellite passed over the low pressure area called "System 96W" on March 27 at 0547 UTC (1:47 a.m. EDT) and the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument captured an infrared and visible look at the storm.
On March 27, 2012 at 0600 UTC (2 a.m. EDT), System 96W was located in the western North Pacific Ocean about 205 miles north-northwest of Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei, near ...
HOUSTON -- (March 27, 2012) -- They look like fruit, and indeed the nanoscale stars of new research at Rice University have tasty implications for medical imaging and chemical sensing.
Starfruit-shaped gold nanorods synthesized by chemist Eugene Zubarev and Leonid Vigderman, a graduate student in his lab at Rice's BioScience Research Collaborative, could nourish applications that rely on surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS).
The research appeared online this month in the American Chemical Society journal Langmuir.
The researchers found their particles returned ...
Dr. Ed Christiansen, Colorado Springs dentist, is pleased to introduce laser dentistry technology to his patients. The use of lasers is one of the most exciting advances in modern dentistry and Dr. Christiansen is one of a relatively small number of dentists to offer this service to their patients.
"I am excited that we are able to better serve our patients through the use of laser technology. Laser treatments offer many benefits over older methods and I believe that the future will see dentists everywhere using this treatment," said Dr. Christiansen, family ...
Zombie Games 365, a website that offers tons of free games featuring the new staple of horror movies, the zombie, has just today added three new games to its collection: Tomb Digger, Zombotron, and Towely Zombie Killer. The three games are all consistent with the ZombieGames365's mission, which is to always be creating fresh new original games that feature everyone's favorite horror movie monsters, zombies.
Whenever you have a few minutes to spend or feel like you need to relax, Zombie Games 365 always has something new to try, and it never costs anything. This makes ...
