Posted on 01/17/2019 10:03:52 PM PST by BenLurkin
"The same regulatory networks that control mechanisms regulating how a body pattern is formed are often coopted for other developmental processes," says Moisés Mallo, a researcher at Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência in Lisbon, Portugal, and senior author of one of the two papers.
"Studying these networks can give us relevant information for understanding other developmental, or even pathological, processes."
Both groups' findings are related to a gene called Lin28, which was already known to have a role in regulating body size and metabolism, among other functions.
"We were trying to make mouse models of Lin28-driven cancer, but we were surprised to find that these mice had super long tails. They had more vertebrae," says George Daley (@G_Q_Daley), an investigator and dean at Harvard Medical School and senior author of the other paper. His team was studying the Lin28/let-7 pathway, which regulates developmental timing and has been implicated in several types of cancer.
Mallo, on the other hand, was studying a gene called Gdf11, which was already known to be involved in triggering the development of the tail during embryonic development. In his lab, they found that mice with Gfd11 mutations had tails that were shorter and thicker than those of regular mice. "They also contained a fully grown neural tube inside, as opposed to a normal tail that is essentially made of vertebrae," Mallo says. "We were able to pinpoint the Lin28 and Hox13 genes as key regulators of tail development downstream from Gdf11."
(Excerpt) Read more at phys.org ...
If I were a mouse, I would be extremely upset with “science” for giving me an unusually long and short tail. One or the other I could probably deal with . . . but both?
Must be what they mean by "unusually."
Quantum entanglement?
It’s easily explained as existing in both states simultaneously until an observation is made and the wave form collapses. So just don’t look.
Is it us that must not look or the mice that must not look? If the latter, the mice should be blind for their own protection. But that may not protect them from the farmer’s wife.
Hmmm, if it works for mice, I wonder if it would be effective for...uh, never mind. (Will keep folding it in half.)
I guess that would have it’s ups and downs.
Are you from Kent?
Yes, and for some reason, I have no sense of direction.
Figures...
Are they going to engineer a male porn mouse next?
You’re gonna need bigger mouse traps!
Schrödinger’s cat will take care of it.
Quantum entanglement?
HOw long is the tail on Schrodinger’s cat?
Bet, nobody ever asked that one before!
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