Additionally, the effect of the gene silencers on cell morphology was investigated.
To evaluate functional consequence of selected target gene, we performed siRNA-mediated knockdown assay in prostate cancer cell lines and determined the effect of the gene knockdown on cancer cell proliferation.
A Chinese member of the team, Sijia Wang, then tested people in China and discovered that they, too, had more numerous sweat glands, evidently another effect of the gene.
In a breed of dog, for example, in which the gene for black coat colour is dominant over (suppresses the effect of) the gene for red coat colour, a dog with a black-coloured coat may be either pure breeding, with two genes for black coat colour, or hybrid, with one gene for black coat colour and one for red coat colour.
While that still leaves 70 percent of the potentially fat-encouraging effect of the gene intact, she adds, the consequences of physical activity on the workings of this single gene seem to be substantial enough to perhaps allow someone who otherwise would become seriously overweight to maintain a normal waistline.
People with a version of the gene that produces less of the enzyme tend to be significantly more impulsive and aggressive, but, as Ms. Moffitt and her colleague (and husband) Avshalom Caspi discovered, the effect of the gene is triggered by stressful experiences.
"Soon after FTO was discovered in 2007, studies showed that physical activity attenuates" the effect of the gene on body weight gain, said Ruth Loos, a program leader at the Institute of Metabolic Science in Cambridge, England, and senior author of the study.
We further tested enzyme activities to confirm the effect of the gene expression.
According to the inner-product property of a biplot (Yan and Kang 2002), the projection of a module vector on a condition vector represents the magnitude of the effect of the gene module on the condition, or vice versa.
Researchers also looked at the effect of the gene on people between ages 52 and 85 to determine the role it plays in the human mind.
However, the people who exercised the most in the study had a lowered effect of the gene, at just 0.08 kilograms per meter squared, compared to the 0.13 kilograms per meter squared, according to the research.
