The biologists in my lab study the effects of ethanol (alcohol) on the brain. To do this they have to come up with animal based experiments to model various alcohol based conditions. One of these models is known as the alcohol deprivation effect (ADE). What it models is the possible increase in alcohol craving or consumption after a period of withdrawal (deprivation).
One such experiment may expose mice to a volunteer intake of ethanol. Then after a measured amount of time (i.e. two weeks) the ethanol is taken away (i.e. another two weeks); this is known as the deprivation period. Once the deprivation period is over the mouse is reintroduced to choice bottle drinking of ethanol versus a plain solution. This gives the researcher a variety of things to study (i.e. average amount of ethanol consumed, ratio of ethanol versus plain solution consumed, etc).
My “bridging the gap” posts were intended to help teach other computer scientists biology jargon. If you’ve been here for a while you know I haven’t really been followed through (only two posts) with this concept, but starting today I’ll to give it another run.
Today I attended a seminar and found myself looking up various terms related to stem cell research. I’m sure you all have heard all the buzz going on about stem cell research the past couple of years. But I’m sure you didn’t know that there were two kinds branches of stem cells. More specifically there if a cell can differentiate into a mutre type then it is classified as either a pluripotent stem cells and multipotent stem cells [Stem Cell Research Foundation].
As I have very little knowledge in this field, does anyone care to share what they know about stem cells and the research?
The definition of quantitative trait locus (QTL) is exactly what you would expect if you break down the term. A trait is something that distinguishes people from one another. Traits can be as simple as eye color or fairly complicated, such as how anxious a person is in their every day life. Lets think about this for a moment. Eye color has discrete values such as blue, brown, green, etc. but defining anxiety is a little more complicated. What if we define anxiety numerically, for example with a one to ten scale. One being that cool cousin that never worries about anything and ten being that crazy aunt that frantically runs around the house every holiday. Obviously there are all kinds of varitions in anxiety of people in between. Do you see how anxiety can be a quantitative trait? It is continuous and is not managed by a pool of discrete values.
Now what about the locus aspect of QTL. We know that locus is plural for loci and refers to some sort of position. Loci actually refers to the position of a single gene on the chromosome. So theoretically if the trait eye color was due to a single gene and we were interested in its position on a chromosme we would call this a trait loci.
Now if we go back Since we are talking about a quantitative trait, several genes may be involved and located on several spots on the chromosome, hence locus.
When people think about steroids they usually think of the “juice” that athletes use to get that home run record. This is actually a misconception as steroids describe a more general cell function. They actually exist in all of us. Their main function as hormones is to serve as a messenger between our cells.
The steroids used in sports refer to anabolic steroids. These steroids deliver a messege to cells promoting cell growth and division. The basic concept is that once the anabolic steroid is introduced to the body, the body has more steroids than usual and therefore faster muscle or bone growth occurs.
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