July 2011

Telomerase: Roles in aging, cancer and hereditary disease

Telomerase is an enzyme that adds DNA sequence repeats ("TTAGGG" in all vertebrates) to the 3' end of DNA strands in the telomere regions, which are found at the ends of eukaryotic chromosomes. This region of repeated nucleotide repeats called telomeres contain condensed DNA material and prevents constant loss of important DNA from chromosome ends. As a result, every time the chromosome is copied only a...

Author(s): K. Sreenivasulu and M. Vijaya Lakshmi

July 2011

Application of genomic technologies to the improvement of meat quality in farm animals

Meat quality is one of the most important economic traits in farm animals. The goal of genomics technologies is to provide genetic map and other resources to identify loci responsible for genetic variation in quantitative traits such as meat quality. Candidate gene and genome scanning are two main techniques for this purpose. In the past decade, advances in molecular genetics led to identify these genes and markers...

Author(s): Hamed Kharrati Koopaei and Ali Esmailizadeh Koshkoiyeh

July 2011

Investigating the potential role of platelet derived growth factor (PDGF)

PDGF is a growth factor and is extensively involved in multi-dimensional cellular dynamics. It switches on a plethora of molecules other than its classical pathway. It is engaged in various transitions of development however if the unleashed potentials lead astray it brings forth tumorigenesis. Conventionally, it has been assumed that the components of this signaling pathway show fidelity and act with a high degree of...

Author(s): Syed Shoaib Ahmed, Atif Adnan, Anam Batool, Ziaur Rahman, Muhammad Ilyas and Syyada Samra Jafri