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Eed, a member of the Polycomb group family of chromatin regulators, acts early in mouse development to maintain imprinted X-chromosome inactivation in females. But does this protein also contribute to imprinting on mouse autosomes?
Recent papers have shown the feasibility of classifying humans into categorical populations from their genotypes. How can this be reconciled with the claim that human races are biologically meaningless, and what are the implications for medical genetics projects?
An altered form of an esterase has been implicated in the development of neurotoxicity after exposure to organophosphates. Mice deficient in this enzyme should be less susceptible to toxicity, but the opposite turns out to be the case.
Reliable identification of genetic variants that affect gene regulation is still a challenge in genomics and is expected to have an important role in the molecular characterization of complex traits. A new study describes a robust functional assay that detects the presence of cis-acting polymorphisms that regulate gene transcription.
For the detection of human gene mutations to have practical application, clear clinical descriptions of the affected individuals (as well as those clinically affected in whom mutations are not found) should be part of the publication.
Gene transfers from chloroplasts to the nucleus occur naturally over evolutionary time scales but have always been inferred from sequence comparisons, never directly observed. A notable new report has caught plastid-to-nucleus gene transfer in the act, providing exciting opportunities to study its mechanisitic details in the laboratory and its ecological implications in nature.