CENTRAL DOGMA OF GENETIC INFORMATION

Daniel Vanegas Elorza

Medicine Student

Third semester

2011

INTRODUCTION

• The central dogma of genetic information explains the passage from DNA through RNA by a process known as transcription, to proteins by a process known as traduction.

• RNA is divided in messenger RNA that serves as a template for protein synthesis, ribosomal RNA that is a component of ribosomes and transfer RNA that is an adapter molecule that aligns the amino acids along the mRNA template.

Scientists Peer Into the Future of Stem Cell Biology

 

• Stem cell biology is making waves around the world with great hope for the eventual repair of parts of the body. While many scientists see these breakthroughs as viable, there are hurdles that must be overcome, including the worrisome potential for introducing cancer when making a repair to an organ. 

• Pluripotency is the ability of the human embryonic stem cell to differentiate or become almost any cell in the body.

• Many cells in the body have the potential to become pluripotent cells.

• MicroRNAs are a set of control genes that stop at the step of translation into proteins.

• Scientists have discovered 400 different microRNAs in both embryonic and induced pluripotent cells. Humans have approximately 1,000 microRNAs.

• MicroRNAs can provide information about the type of cell you are going to study.

• They can provide information about the different types of cancer, they can tell you the different types of cells, they can distinguish stem cells from other cells and the thwo types of stem cells and they can distinguish skin cells from brain cells.

OBSERVATION

• This investigation is very important because, stem cells can become the solution to many diseases that affects a lot people such as cancer or AIDS.

• MicroRNAs are so useful because they can provide information about the similarity between a stem cell and a cancer cell and this will prevent that the transplantation of this stem cells generate cancer, because that is the principal and biggest problem.

Single Cell Studies Identify Coactivator Role in

Fat Cell Maturation  

• The amount of fat in each cell and the central transcription factor, PPAR gamma (peroxisome proliferator activated receptor gamma), can vary widely.

• However the fat cells (adipocytes) can maintain stable levels of master switches known as steroid receptor coactivators (SRC)-2 and -3.

• The SRCs controls the transcriptional switch for PPAR gamma to maximize fat accumulation.

• PPAR gamma regulates the production of adipocytes (fat cells), it regulates the transcription which is the first step in gene expression.

• A Investigation that quantify the amount of fat in each cell and also show how much of the transcriptional regulator PPAR gamma was expressed, demonstrate that some cells did not have any PPAR gamma but still had somehow become adipocytes, and there were some cells that had increased levels of PPAR gamma but had never developed the characteristics of adipocytes, these cells represent a continuum of factors with modulated levels of PPAR gamma and lipids, reduced levels of SRC-2 and 3 resulted in more cells with low levels of lipid and increased PPAR gamma.

• Some drugs used to treat type 2 diabetes increase the activity of PPAR gamma, which increase the levels of genes associated with sensitivity to insulin. However, because PPAR gamma stimulates fat cell production, these drugs can also lead to increased abdominal fat and, more recently, cardiovascular complications.

• This investigation is very useful to improve treatment of type 2 diabetes avoiding the increased of fat that could generate cardiovascular complications.

• Also it might be important in treatment of obesity and in the prevention of cardiopaties and vascular diseases.

OBSERVATION

MEDICAL UTILITY

• The knowledge of this central dogma allows research, discovery and the incursion in the field of molecular biology which is very important for the development of new treatments in diseases such as cancer, obesity, AIDS, among others.

• Also by knowing the normal process of replication, transcription and traduction, it’s possible to understand the mechanism used by the viruses (reverse transcription) and find ways to prevent the replication of them in the body avoiding pathological and infectious processes.

• MicroRNAs can provide information about the percentage of similarity between the stem cells and cancer cells thus avoiding the production of tumors in transplantation.

• The identification of compounds that target the SRCs 2-3 and PPAR gamma interface might be alternatives to current therapeutic strategies for type 2 diabetes.

REFERENCES

• Martínez LM. Biología Molecular. 5. ed. Medellín: Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana; 2009. p. 70-73

• http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/12/101209152742.htm

• http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110110091315.htm

 

THANKS!!!