Equi-Different There’s something special about grey horses (six Lipizzaners pictured). They’re born with a distinct coat colour, but speckling and dappling begins soon after birth, progressing to near white as years go by. This all-over grey is caused by mutation in a gene called STX17. It’s been selected for because it brings beauty. But it’s accompanied by a beast – at 15-years most greys will have melanoma [a skin cancer]. And a proportion also develops vitiligo [skin depigmentation] – a condition that may be linked with melanoma in some people. STX17 is activated in the melanoma tumours of grey horses, suggesting its involvement in the cancer. With the possibility of the noble grey as a disease model, STX17 mutation was sought in human melanomas. It wasn’t apparent; but understanding the complex equine genetic linkage between hair colour, melanoma and vitiligo may yet yield clues to the human disease. Written by Lindsey Goff — Ino Curik, University of Zagreb, Croatia Johann Sölkner, University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences, Austria Originally published under a Creative Commons Attribution license Published in PLoS Genetics 9(2): e1003248
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Equi-Different

There’s something special about grey horses (six Lipizzaners pictured). They’re born with a distinct coat colour, but speckling and dappling begins soon after birth, progressing to near white as years go by. This all-over grey is caused by mutation in a gene called STX17. It’s been selected for because it brings beauty. But it’s accompanied by a beast – at 15-years most greys will have melanoma [a skin cancer]. And a proportion also develops vitiligo [skin depigmentation] – a condition that may be linked with melanoma in some people. STX17 is activated in the melanoma tumours of grey horses, suggesting its involvement in the cancer. With the possibility of the noble grey as a disease model, STX17 mutation was sought in human melanomas. It wasn’t apparent; but understanding the complex equine genetic linkage between hair colour, melanoma and vitiligo may yet yield clues to the human disease.

Written by Lindsey Goff

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Source: bpod.mrc.ac.uk

Vicious Circles A third of the world’s population has the parasite Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii) living inside them. Infestation by these simple organisms (usually from eating infected meat) can cause serious problems during pregnancy. Here T. gondii has been genetically-modified to glow in a dish, allowing us to see how they might travel around inside our bodies. Their swirling traces were captured by microscope, similar to how a night-time video captures the trail of light from the tip of a sparkler. While it may look a little chaotic, this picture shows three distinct types of movement. The parasites (each cell is a white dot 400 times smaller than a glowing match head) are either spiralling, looping-the-loop, or twirling in star-like patterns. However pretty they are, watching these parasitic patterns could also guide the design of more effective drugs to stop future invasions in their elegant tracks. Written by John Ankers — James McCoy, Christopher Tonkin The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, Australia Originally published under a Creative Commons Attribution license Published in PLOS Pathogens 8(12): e1003066
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Vicious Circles

A third of the world’s population has the parasite Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii) living inside them. Infestation by these simple organisms (usually from eating infected meat) can cause serious problems during pregnancy. Here T. gondii has been genetically-modified to glow in a dish, allowing us to see how they might travel around inside our bodies. Their swirling traces were captured by microscope, similar to how a night-time video captures the trail of light from the tip of a sparkler. While it may look a little chaotic, this picture shows three distinct types of movement. The parasites (each cell is a white dot 400 times smaller than a glowing match head) are either spiralling, looping-the-loop, or twirling in star-like patterns. However pretty they are, watching these parasitic patterns could also guide the design of more effective drugs to stop future invasions in their elegant tracks.

Written by John Ankers

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Source: bpod.mrc.ac.uk

Revealing Connections Multispectral imaging takes information not visible to the naked eye and gives it a ‘false colour’. Features that were invisible become obvious. First used to analyse distant nebula, here it has been adapted to track cells in a chick embryo in 3D and in real time. When a fertilised egg develops to become a fully formed chick there is a strictly programmed pattern of movement, or migration, of cells to different areas of the transforming body. Pictured is a snap-shot of migrating cells. The control centre (nucleus) inside each is false-coloured yellow and the outside surfaces of different cells have been false-coloured red or blue. Using this technology, the finger-like extensions cells use to connect with their neighbours are visible for the first time in a live embryo. Tracking these microspikes helps researchers understand how the chemical messages that dictate the pattern of migration, are shared between cells. Written by Julie Webb — Paul M Kulesa The Stowers Institute for Medical Research, USA Originally published under Creative Commons (CC-BY 2.0) Published in BMC Developmental Biology
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Revealing Connections

Multispectral imaging takes information not visible to the naked eye and gives it a ‘false colour’. Features that were invisible become obvious. First used to analyse distant nebula, here it has been adapted to track cells in a chick embryo in 3D and in real time. When a fertilised egg develops to become a fully formed chick there is a strictly programmed pattern of movement, or migration, of cells to different areas of the transforming body. Pictured is a snap-shot of migrating cells. The control centre (nucleus) inside each is false-coloured yellow and the outside surfaces of different cells have been false-coloured red or blue. Using this technology, the finger-like extensions cells use to connect with their neighbours are visible for the first time in a live embryo. Tracking these microspikes helps researchers understand how the chemical messages that dictate the pattern of migration, are shared between cells.

Written by Julie Webb

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Source: bpod.mrc.ac.uk