COLONY OF HEALTHY Tasmanian devils is about to get a new island refuge as part of an attempt to beat the deadly facial tumour depleting the species.

Fourteen devils will this week be the first to move to Maria Island, off the east coast of Tasmania, in the hope they will be quarantined from the disease.

The aim is to establish a self-sustaining population of healthy devils on the island, listed as a national park, where the species is not found naturally.

The move is part of the joint state and federal Save the Tasmanian Devil Program funded with $10 million over five years by Canberra.

“We are leaving no stone unturned when it comes to protecting the Tasmanian devil,” federal Environment Minister Tony Burke said in a statement. “Translocation is one of the methods of last resort and it has to be done carefully with good scientific oversight. It’s part of making sure the Tasmanian devil never goes the way of theTasmanian tiger.”

Safety really is in the numbers for some of Australia’s iconic animals with a new study showing small island populations of platypus are in danger of being wiped out because of a lack of genetic diversity. The finding could help improve management of other animal populations with low genetic variation such as the koala and helps explain the decimation of the Tasmanian devils from a contagious cancer. The paper, published this month in the Journal of Heredity, shows platypuses on the Australian mainland and in Tasmania have high levels of genetic diversity within their populations. However those platypuses found on King Island, north-west of Tasmania, and Kangaroo Island, south-west of Adelaide, are at high risk of being wiped out. For the study, University of Sydney doctoral student Mette Lillie, examined the immune genes of 70 platypuses from populations in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania and the two smaller islands. She says the study shows the King Island population has no diversity in its major histocompatibility complex (MHC) gene which plays a critical role in the immune system identifying pathogens and disease. “If you have lots of variation in the MHC gene it means the populations is better able to resist disease and pathogens,” Lillie says. She says the genetic diversity has been lost because the King island population is an endemic species that has been isolated from other populations since the last Ice Age about 14,000 years ago. Genetic diversity would have been reduced through inbreeding and random genetic drift - evolutionary forces or events that dramatically change or influence genetic diversity from generation to generation. She says around 20 platypuses were introduced to Kangaroo Island in the 1930s and 1940s and the lack of genetic diversity is to be expected given the small size of the original population.

stressface:

One plant yields 3 clues to biofuel crops

The analysis of gene activity by researchers at Iowa State University and determination of protein structures by scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Sciences independently identified three related proteins that appear to be involved in fatty-acid metabolism. The researchers used thale cress (Arabidopsis thaliana) as the model plant.

The research groups then joined forces to test this hypothesis, demonstrating a role of these proteins in regulating the amounts and types of fatty acids accumulated in plants.

The researchers also showed that the action of the proteins is very sensitive to temperature and that this feature may play an important role in how plants mitigate temperature stress using fatty acids.

The discovery is published online in the journal Nature.

“This work has major implications for modulating the fatty-acid profiles in plants, which is terribly important, not only to sustainable food production and nutrition but now also to biorenewable chemicals and fuels,” says corresponding author Joseph Noel, a professor and director of the Jack H. Skirball Center for Chemical Biology and Proteomics at the Salk Institute and an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

In this photo: The blue areas in this thale cress plant indicate where the fatty-acid-binding protein one gene is expressed and also correspond to regions where high fatty acids would be synthesized by the plant. (Credit: Eve Syrkin Wurtele and Micheline Ngaki)

Read more here.

(via ikenbot)

False-colour SEM of a group of human chromosomes

credit

A team of Australian scientists involving the University of Adelaide has bred salt tolerance into a variety of durum wheat that shows improved grain yield by 25% on salty soils.

Using ‘non-GM’ crop breeding techniques, scientists from CSIRO Plant Industry have introduced a salt-tolerant gene into a commercial durum wheat, with spectacular results shown in field tests. Researchers at the University of Adelaide’s Waite Research Institute have led the effort to understand how the gene delivers salinity tolerance to the plants.

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Transgenesis - plasmids

1. Plasmids (accesory loop of DNA) are extracted from bacteria. 
2. They are cut with restriction enzymes to expose sticky ends.
3. The desired gene (cut with the same restriction enzyme to form complementary sticky ends) is inserted and joined with DNA ligase.
4. The plasmid is returned to the bacteria.
5. The bacteria is used to introduce the DNA into plant cells and integrate the new gene into the genetic material.
6. The tissue can be cultured and a new plant developed.

1. After the plasmid is returned to the bacteria, The bacteria can replicate and pass the DNA on via binary fission, or can replicate the DNA and share it with other bacterial cells via a pilus.

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DNA-DNA HYbridisation

1. Samples of DNA from two species are mixed and heated.
2. The DNA is separated.
3. Strands from each species join in an attempt to form a double helix. 
4. Poorly matched strands indicate a larger difference in DNA.
5. The mixture is reheated to analyse the strength of the bonds within the strands.
6. More heat needed = more energy needed = more bonds = better match

A plasmid is an accesory loop of DNA found in bacteria. Bacteria have a circular molecule of DNA containing most of their genes, as well as one or several plasmids.

1. Plasmid is extracted and cut with restriction enzymes, leaving sticky ends.
2. The desired gene (with complementary sticky ends) is mixed with the cut plasmid and recombined using DNA ligase.
3. The recombinant plasmid can either be

Taken up by a specific cell via TRANSFORMATION

• external genetic material is incorporated by a cell.
• GM DNA integrates into the chromosomal DNA.

Transferred back into the bacteria and replicated via CONJUGATION

• Bacteria replicate the plasmid and pass it on to another bacteria via a pilus.

Translocation:

-part of one chromosome moved to another (crossing over)

Inversion:

-segment of chromosome flipped

-if polypeptide still folds correctly it is unharmful`.

-if polypeptide folds differently (from other end first), changes shape and function.

Duplication:

-repeated genes

-can be unharmful

-could cause excess production, e.g. too much of a hormone.

The first breed of hybrid sharks in the world has been discovered by scientists in Australian waters and this is evidence that predators are finally adapting to climate change. This has been brought about by mating the Australian black-tip shark with its counterpart the common black-tip shark. Shark hybrids have never been heard of before and this is a newly discovered phenomenon that is bound to revolutionize the scientific world as we know it. Collin Simpfedorfer, a researcher from James Cook University said that initial studies showed that the hybrids were highly robust with various generations discovered across 57 specimens investigated.