Awor,
You are a very smart man, I am trying to get a grasp on this whole DNA thing. I firmly believe you have found are problem my endo is thinking are problem is within the P450 family. My question is if these molecules have attached to are DNA strands, are there any ways to remove them or turn them back on? I see there are pharmaceuticals approved for this type of things, could they be beneficial to us?
‘The good news, he adds, is that an epigenetic modification like hypermethylation is “a treatable defect.” That’s where the drugs Vidaza and Dacogen come in, reversing the hypermethylation and turning silenced genes back on.’
It is very likely that methylation, acetylation or maybe even phosphorylation are playing a role in making this problem persistent. Drugs exist that can act upon these mechanisms. The problem is though, that they are all pretty unspecific, meaning that you can’t target individual genes at this point. The good news is that this is one of the main areas of current cancer research and a lot of money is being invested here. Even though we don’t have cancer, it may well be that we will be able to benefit from cancer research findings (and vice versa, that is why our problem is so interesting from a science point of view).
Regarding P450: In light of what we have found, it is extremely unlikely that P450 class enzymes have anything to do with our problem. You can send me a pm on this.
video.sciencemag.org/#.T0TOsJuR2jc.link
There’s a video here titled: Rapid Visual Inventory & Comparison of Complex 3D Structures. The video shows 3D cross sections of a cell and some of the different components and their volumes. Interesting background info.
Thank you for these videos. Keep’em coming, please.
MOLECULAR BIOLOGY made simple and fun - fourth edition (2010)
http://www.amazon.com/Molecular-Biology-Made-Simple-Fun/dp/1889899046
I HIGHLY recommend this book for anyone who is interested in the epigenetic theory and wants to understand it better or anyone who simply wants to have a better understanding of many of the studies that are posted on this site. Unfortunately, methylation and acetylation aren’t discussed in the book, but it is still well worth the $40 (or less if you buy used) for as much information as there is packed in it. The book is written for non-scientists too, it doesn’t require a scientific knowledge beyond maybe high school science to comprehend the material in the first few chapters and doesn’t get overly complicated as long as you read the chapters in order.
Seriously, take my word for it, these videos are way better to watch if you have a little background on the molecules/structures/processes being depicted .
Here’s a list of chapters for anyone still interested in the book:
- Introduction.
- Bacteria: The Molecular Biologists’s Guinea Pigs
- Basic Genetics
- Required Reading: The Molecular Basis of Heredity
- Duplicating the DNA: Replication.
- Getting the Message Out: Transcription of Genes to Produce Messenger RNA
- Proteins: The Buck Stops Here
- Sex Among the Low-Lifes and Its Exploitation by Molecular Biologists: Gene Transfer in Bacteria
- Messing About with DNA
- Products from Biotechnology
- Genetic Organization in Higher Organisms
- Mutations: Things That Go Bump in the Night
- Inherited Human Disease
- Cancer and Aging
- Down on the Farm: Transgenic Plants and Animals
- Just Do It! Techniques of Molecular Biology
- PCR: The Polymerase Chain Reaction and Its Many Uses
- Whodunit? Forensic Medicine and Molecular Biology
- Gene Creatures, Part I: Viruses, Viroids and Plasmids
- Gene Creatures, Part II: Jumping Genes and Junk DNA
- Biological Warfare
- The Molecular Defense Initiative: Your Immune System at Work
- Genomics and DNA Sequencing
- Molecular Evolution: Memories of “The Way We Were”
- RNA: The Final Frontier
- Classification: Biology for the Neurotic and the Obsessive-Compulsive
- A Brief History of Molecular Biology
- What Was Said - What Was Meant: Understanding a Seminar in Molecular Biology.
- DNA Gets Personal
- Brush Up Your Chemistry
P.S. Sorry for not posting a video, but this article brings up a good point that seems to be forgotten often in discussions concerning methylation:
http://www.aps.anl.gov/Science/Highlights/Content/APS_SCIENCE_20080910.php
“Gene silencing via DNA methylation is critical for normal development and for curbing the runaway cell division that characterizes cancer,” said Peter Preusch, who oversees biophysics grants at the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health. “Alterations in methylation patterns are also important for generating embryonic stem-like cells from differentiated cells.”
The article also describes one of the mechanisms involved in transferring epigenetic data from parent cells to daughter cells.
Here’s another 10 minute primer video on epigenetics, provides explanation for the layman:
Hey Awor, thanks for all your hard work. Is it possible to look up in a database if Nystatin (the anti-fungal IHP took) has epigenetic affects for the androgen genes that got silenced in us? I’m trying to get my hands on some but I want to see if this is the reason it help IHP recover. You also mentioned antibiotics. When do you think you could look this up in a database? I don’t know about the other guys, but I am tired of letting my life waste away like this and I am willing to take nystatin or antibiotics or whatever if there is a chance it will reverse this shit. Thanks for all your hard work.
Also, you said some recovered on antibiotics, some didn’t. Those that didn’t did briefly see improvements though. Could it be that these drugs undo the epigenetic changes, but the changes come back because its sort of the new “state” of cells? IHP improved but he took Nystatin over a long period of time and in increasing dosages. Maybe this forced a new (the normal) epigenetic state that the cells then established/solidified.
Has anyone here been able to get Nystatin?
Nystatin is easy to get. unitedpharmacies.com/customer/search.php?substring=nystatin
Lots of people have been taking it. I am one of them. Haven’t noticed any improvements.
Let’s keep this thread on topic, Educational Videos on Molecular Biology Topics only please.
Great idea for a thread. Thanks and please keep them coming as you find them along with informational comments on how they could potentailly tie into PFS.
If I understand those videos correctly it’s pretty much a certainty we pass this along to our children?
Someone from the Karolina (sp?) Institut in Sweden who was interviewed for the news segment there on PFS a couple of years back mentioned this.
Has anyone here who has PFS had a baby boy? I would think that if androgens can’t act during development then male sex organs would not develop.
A Spanish guy called Insomnia mentioned he had. I think he ‘only’ had libido loss rather than ED etc but I guess he has the same underlying condition as we do. What’s wrong with girls anyway?
Positive and negative regulation in prokaryotes and eukaryotes.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3S3ZOmleAj0[/youtube]
Part in a series of 64 biology lessons. http://www.youtube.com/user/bozemanbiology?ob=0&feature=results_main
can we use Nigella sativa for acetylation. Please read
Dr. Arafat and her co-workers also found that thymoquinone caused “epigenetic”
changes in pancreatic cancer cells, modifying the cells’ DNA. She explains that
these changes involve adding acetyl groups to the DNA structure, specifically to
blocks of proteins called histones.
This “acetylation” process can be important for genes to be read and translated
into proteins. In this case, it could involve the genes that are key to initiating
programmed cell death. “We looked at the status of the histones and found
surprisingly that thymoquinone increased the acetylation process,” Dr. Arafat says.
“We never anticipated that.” At the same time, adding thymoquinone to pancreatic
cancer cells reduced the production and activity of enzymes called histone deacetylases
(HDACs), which remove the acetyl groups from the histone proteins, halting the gene
transcription process. Dr. Arafat notes that HDAC inhibitors are a “hot” new class
of drugs that interfere with the function of histone deacetylases, and is being
studied as a treatment for cancer and neurodegenerative diseases. Finding that
thymoquinone functions as an HDAC inhibitor, she says, “was very remarkable
and really exciting.”