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20 Comments
- lovemorgul, on 11/10/2008, -0/+13The discovery of novel molecular and metabolic pathways relevant to disease pathogenesis will be given specific emphasis.
- airunder, on 11/11/2008, -0/+3Yes. Excellent question. As you probably know, we have two copies of every chromosome, excluding sex chromosomes for men. That means if a gene appears once on a chromosome, it will appear again on the other, so in a single cell you have two copies (alleles) of a gene. For most genes, (probably 90% or more) they are activated and expressed or inactivated together.
So for your question, you can see the paper here: http://www.pathogeneticsjournal.com/content/1/1/2
But its probably hard to read.
The picture that answers your question is here:
http://www.pathogeneticsjournal.com/content/1/1/2/ ...
This is a western blot, which basically shows the amount of protein that is made from this gene inside the cell. If you look at the +/+ (two copies of SMAD4) compared to the +/- (1 copy of SMAD4), there is approximately half the amount in the +/-. This means that there is half of the SMAD4 protein product from the SMAD4 gene. Alpha tubulin is just a loading control to make sure that when they were processing the cells they didnt accidentally lose some so that the half level of the +/- isnt from dumping some of the protein.
There is an exception, though in something called imprinting (a type of epigentics). In imprinting, the gene is turned off or on depending on which parent you got the gene from. But this is a somewhat complicated subject, and imprinted genes usually have to do with sex determining things I believe. For a tumor suppressor gene, such as SMAD4, which is essential for long term health of an individual, it would be unlikely to be imprinted. - ingenious28, on 11/11/2008, -0/+3you only have 2 copies of each gene.
- omenmedia, on 11/11/2008, -5/+7My cat's breath smells like cat food.
- ninernick, on 11/11/2008, -0/+2Title is misleading, no one gene is enough to cause cancer. The article seems to suggest that smad4 mutations are often antimorphic (dominant negative), which most likely indicates a missense mutation or a fusing of 2 different proteins like brc-abl. Too bad smad4 is not a membrane protein. If it was we could probably create an antibody to target cells with the mutated proteins for destruction.
- ninernick, on 11/11/2008, -0/+1Too bad this "NERD" may have to save your life some day. Plus I'm pretty sure I can kick you and your oger friend's ass any day.
Now if you have an intelligent comment to make about cancer or genetics I would advise you to make one, because it is a serious topic. Otherwise go play with your oger friends in fantasy land, because I'm sure you got nothing better to do. - inactive, on 11/11/2008, -2/+3I bent my Wookie
- jamesinraro, on 11/11/2008, -1/+2It is becoming clearer than ever that we are not destined to live with the genetic inheritance of our parents and ancestors. First it was announced by Dr. Sinclair at Harvard that transmax resveratrol, a commercial extract of a red wine molecule by biotivia was able to switch on the SirT1 anti-aging gene and prevent the normal diseases of aging. Then scientists reported that a drug called Aircar that had been around for decades is capable or making sedentary mice into olympic contenders by modifying their muscles and increasing their endurance. Soon after that Harvard announced a way to create customized stem cells to treat specific diseases. In ten years we will hopefully wean ourselves from synthetic drugs by either preventing cancer and other fatal diseases or treating disease by modifying our body's natural defense systems through up regulating the appropriate genes.
- Brododium, on 11/11/2008, -0/+1But are both alelles of SMAD4 expressed at the same time?
Edit: I'm not a very scienc-y type, I'm just interested in this sort of stuff. - jpreall, on 11/11/2008, -0/+1Paraphrased title: "Dominant gene causes cancer."
- inactive, on 11/11/2008, -0/+1Help! She touched my special area!
- Realnemesis, on 11/11/2008, -1/+1Digg:
Curing Cancer and AIDS since 2004 - SnaggyMcGee, on 11/12/2008, -0/+0Thanks for the threats. Forgive me if, based on the completely immature nature of your remark, I am skeptical that you would save anyone's life. You have an under-developed sense of humor.
Sounds to me like you were spewing a bunch of genetics terminology because you like the sound of your own voice and want to impress uninformed people with your "knowledge." What those folks don't know (and what I DO know) is that the article in no way posits a single-mechanism hypothesis as you claim it does. That's obvious.
And "too bad smad4 is not a membrane protein" what?!?! Isn't that like saying "Too bad your ankle isn't your stomach, because then we could treat a sprain with pepto-bismol." You're telling ME I live in fantasy land...SMAD4 alleles that confer gain-of-function activity in vitro all share DNA-binding domain mutations. Hello, McFly! - Niocan, on 11/11/2008, -1/+1http://www.scientificfactsofpot.com/studies.htm#Ca ...
THC: Preventing cancer one toke at a time. - SnaggyMcGee, on 11/11/2008, -0/+0I just had a vision of Ogre on a rooftop bellowing "NERD!!!"
- Jenovaside, on 11/11/2008, -4/+3DIGG CURES CANCER!!!
AGAIN !!!!!! - airunder, on 11/11/2008, -2/+1Why, exactly, are you quoting the article? Because it is poorly worded? Hard to understand? Both?
- inactive, on 11/11/2008, -2/+1How can something be Half-broken? It's either broken, or it's not...
- inactive, on 11/11/2008, -5/+1I, however, believe that Silly Penis!!!
- wafflesomd, on 11/11/2008, -6/+1What about a 1/3 broken gene? Or 56/143.
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