Biological complexity: metabolic gene controls (Introduction)

by David Turell , Saturday, July 25, 2015, 15:46 (3409 days ago) @ David Turell

Plant research is unearthing how automatic are many of the metabolic functions which changes in gene translations. It shows it can affect development as well as metabolism.. This will be found in animal metabolism also:-http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/07/150724151844.htm-"In plants as in animals and humans, intricate molecular networks regulate key biological functions, such as development and stress responses. The system can be likened to a massive switchboard--when the wrong switches are flipped, genes can be inappropriately turned on or off, leading to the onset of diseases.-"Now, VARI scientists have unraveled how an important plant protein, known as TOPLESS, interacts with other molecules responsible for turning genes off. The findings in plants provide a general model across species for this type of gene silencing, which is linked to several vital biological functions in humans. The discovery was published today in Science Advances.-"'This is really a fundamental discovery--our structure shows the corepressor TOPLESS interacting with key repressor motifs, which constitutes a major component of gene silencing in plants," said Van Andel Research Institute's Karsten Melcher, Ph.D., one of the study's corresponding authors. "Understanding this interaction in plants gives us unique insight into similar pathways in humans that involve these proteins, which are notoriously tough to investigate."-***-"Gene expression is regulated by both activators and repressors. Although gene repression is thought to be equally important as gene activation for this regulation, relatively little is known about the mechanisms of gene repressors and co-repressors.-"TOPLESS functions as a co-repressor and interacts with repressors containing ethylene-responsive element binding factor-associated amphiphilic repression (EAR) motifs. EAR motifs are the most common form of transcriptional repression motifs found in plants and are thought to facilitate stable epigenetic regulation of gene expression via recruitment of chromatin modifiers.-"TOPLESS plays important roles in plant development; its name stems from the fact that mutations in TOPLESS can give rise to seedlings in which the shoot is transformed into a second root, hence "topless" seedlings.-"In humans, similar proteins also are altered in many types of tumors, and control embryonic development and the development of neurons."