Research Progress

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  BLOOD| Smarca5 mediated epigenetic programming facilitates fetal hematopoietic stem and progenitor cell development in vertebrates

  Hematopoiesis can produce all types of blood cells, including erythrocyte, megakaryocyte, macrophage, and lymphoid cells, etc. ...

  Aug 07, 2020
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  Unlocking olfactory secrets of the Oriental armyworm, a major pest in cereal crops

  The Oriental armyworm, Mythimna separata (Walker), is a major agricultural pest in Asia. It causes serious damage to cereal crops such as maize, rice, wheat and millet frequently. The adult moths have the characteristic of seasonal migration in a long distance. As a result, the armyworms appear and disappear mysteriously, and are very difficult to be controlled. For the strong attractiveness to the adult moths, both sex pheromone and sweet vinegar solution are employed to monitor the population occurrence and dynamics of this moth species. Recently, Chen-Zhu Wang’s lab in Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences serially published three research papers in the prestigious journal of Insect Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and uncovered the olfactory coding mechanisms of the Oriental armyworm to the sex pheromone and sweet vinegar solution.

  Aug 04, 2020
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  Researchers Reveal a New Role of CLOCK in Promoting Stem Cell Rejuvenation and Cartilage Regeneration by Stabilizing Heterochromatin

  Circadian clock is an evolutionarily conserved biological timing system that stabilizes tissue and cellular homeostasis by synchronizing mammalian physiology and behaviors with the external light-dark cycle. Accumulating evidence indicates an inextricable link between the circadian clock and the aging process. Adult stem cell exhaustion or senescence is one of the aging hallmarks and a crucial driving force for human degenerative disorders such as aging-related articular degeneration. However, the role of core circadian clock components in contributing to human stem cell aging has not been reported.

  Aug 03, 2020
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  UTX Regulates Human Neural Differentiation and Dendritic Morphogenesis

  Jul 20, 2020
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  Model human X chromosome random inactivation using naive human embryonic stem cells

  X chromosome inactivation (XCI) is an important epigenetic event during early mammalian development. One of the two X chromosomes is randomly inactivated to ensure that gene expression level is consistent between XX and XY individuals. The X chromosome status in human early embryos is dramatically different from mouse. In addition, neither primed nor naive human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) were able to fully recapitulate X chromosome status in human preimplantation epiblast and they failed to execute random X chromosome inactivation (XCI) upon differentiation. Therefore, the study of human XCI has been hampered by the lack of proper models.

  Jul 17, 2020
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  Researchers depict genome-wide R-loop landscapes during human stem cell multi-lineage differentiation and reprogramming

  Jul 13, 2020
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  Coprophagy Regulates Energy Metabolism and Cognitive Behavior by Affecting Gut Microbiota

  Jul 10, 2020
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  A novel major locus in regulating beak evolution of the Ground tit

  Classical quantitative genetics has found that most of phenotypes are polygenic traits. Under this polygenic model, natural selection often acts on many loci simultaneously, resulting in the combination of a few loci with major effects and many loci with small effects controlling adaptive changes in phenotypes, which presents challenges to our understanding of genetic basis underlying polygenic traits. Avian beak is a typical polygenic trait, which is the consequence of the variety of functions that beaks serve (e.g. foraging, preening, nest-building, cavity excavation) and the diversity of habitats where birds live. As a result, genetic basis of beak morphology was well studied in chickens and Darwin’s finches, yet remains poorly understood in wild birds. Due to the characteristics of being more likely to be fixed by strong selective coefficients and less susceptible to loss by genetic drift, major loci may be more relevant to phenotypes and easier to be detected from the genome.

  Jul 07, 2020
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  Tobacco budworm moths have receptors in their egg-laying organs that detect odorants produced by their host plants

  When most insects reproduce they lay eggs that hatch into juveniles known as larvae. To provide good sources of food for the larvae, the adult insects have to carefully select where to lay the eggs. Host plants produce specific sets of chemicals known as odorants that the adult insects are able to smell using proteins called odorant receptors.

  Jul 07, 2020
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  Researchers Discover That Overcoming the Genomic Imprinting Barrier Improves Mammal Cloning

  Somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT, also known as cloning) technology holds great potential in animal production and regenerative medicine. However, the extremely low efficiency and frequently observed abnormalities in cloned embryos limit the development and application of this technology. Although the cloned embryos harbor complete genomic DNA sequence, multiple epigenetic barriers are the limiting factors of cloning efficiency.

  Jun 19, 2020