Is it possible that a human gene makes mice sound differently?

Evolution of a genetic change affecting spoken language in humans and in animals: the case of the NOVA1 gene swapped between humans and animals

The development of spoken language could be affected by a unique variant of a proteins. The NOVA1 protein, which is involved in brain development, differs between humans and animals by a single amino acid. To test the impact of such a small tweak, scientists used CRISPR gene-editing technology to replace the gene that expresses NOVA1 in mice with the version found in humans. The mice vocalizations were more complex as a result of the swap, which could be linked to brain changes that affect our ability to communicate.

The analysis identified subtle differences between the mice and the normal rodents, including the altered distress calls of pups with the human version of NOVA1. Male mice carrying the change made complicated courting calls when there was a female mouse in heat.

The effect of the change has been studied by a neuroscientist who used genes from the human version of NOVA1 to engineer mice.

The genetic change — which swaps an isoleucine amino acid for a valine in the encoded protein — was one of just a handful of protein-altering changes that evolved in the more than 500,000 years after the hominin groups split from a common ancestor in Africa. This suggests that the changes benefited early humans so greatly that the mutations became ubiquitous.

Robert Darnell, a neuroscientist at Rockefeller University in New York City, first encountered the NOVA1 gene 30 years ago, when his team linked it to an autoimmune disorder that caused severe movement problems in people. In the brain there are dozens of other brain-active genes, and the NOVA1Ubiquitin is usually the one that controls them.

Carl Zimmer’s Air-borne: From Ancient Greece to the present day, and how COVID-19 changed the history of aerobiology

The mice produced more complex chirps than normal rodents because they carry a genes that is present in nearly every human on Earth.

Thanks to recent progress in synthetic genomics technologies, “you can mimic and test evolutionary steps which otherwise would have taken billions of years to evolve — or wouldn’t have evolved ever”, says synthetic genomicist Akos Nyerges. But progress doesn’t always equal smooth sailing. Each tweaked or deleted gene can throw up substantial and unexpected challenges, which has laid bare how much we still don’t understand about the fundamental language of the genome. When it comes to modified genomes, we underestimated how complex biology is.

Carl Zimmer’s Air-borne “is a fascinating story of the evolution of a highly interdisciplinary field over centuries”, writes environmental engineer Linsey Marr in her review. In tracing the history of ‘aerobiology’ from ancient Greece to the modern day, Zimmer explains why the idea that microbes can spread through the air and cause disease was contentious for centuries, and how the COVID-19 pandemic finally set the record straight. The book “presents both a birds-eye and a microscopic view of life in the atmosphere and its profound effects on humans,” says Marr.

Source: Daily briefing: CAR-T-cell therapy recipient nears two decades in cancer remission

Smell of an Egyptian mummy as a new recreation of its smell to discover how CAR T cells treat nerve-cell cancers

There is a billion people that are affected by a neurological condition that causes headaches, nausea and sensitivity to light and sound. Recently approved drugs that alleviate some of the headache symptoms of migraine have redefined it as “a treatable and manageable condition”, says neuropharmacologist Diana Krause. But what makes a person’s brain prone to migraine, and why it affects people differently, is still somewhat of a mystery. New frameworks are needed to understand how the brain is activated to stop migraines, according to a neurologist.

Researchers are investigating whether the smell of an Egyptian mummy could enable them to discover what materials were used to preserve the body without disturbing it. They extracted air from the sarcophagi of nine mummies and asked expert smellers to rate the scents for contemporary odour qualities such as woodiness and sweetness. They then analysed each air sample to identify volatile compounds responsible for certain smells. They hope that their work will give curators a synthetic recreation of mummies’ smell to make exhibits more engaging.

A woman who received CAR-T-cell therapy at 4 years of age to treat a nerve-cell cancer is still cancer-free 19 years later. She received the therapy — which uses engineered immune cells called CAR T cells — in 2006. Since then, CAR-T-cell therapies have proved highly effective in some blood cancers, but researchers have struggled to repeat that success against solid tumours. The latest results are good according to Sneha Ramakrishna.