Recent patents on DNA & gene sequences最新文献

Gene therapy concept has been being overcome massive challenges from 1972 in ethical, socio-economical and developmental issues. In this review, we have attempted to go through almost all the arenas and described in a methodical way that reflects not only the initial ethical and scientific thoughts but also adorned a solid depiction of gene therapy related physico-chemical barriers, approaches and strategies till to date.

Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) is the most widely used microbial control agent. The broad spectrum of susceptible hosts, production on artificial media and ease of application has caused the widespread use of this bacterium against several pests in agriculture, forest and vectors of human diseases. B.thuringiensis toxins are highly species specific which provide economic, environmental benefits, potential for future control and spread of the technology worldwide. This makes the B. thuringiensis crystal proteins an interesting tool for the implementation in integrated pest management programs. It has gained importance over the last 100 years for its biocontrol properties which is used in this review as a case study and analysis of the patents granted on B. thuringiensis was carried out. This study categorizes a number of patents related to B.thuringiensis insecticidal crystal proteins, application of B.thuringiensis insecticidal crystal proteins and the development of patentable technologies. The analyses were done using various criteria like patenting trends over the years, assignees playing a major role, comparison of the technology used in different patents and the patenting activity across the insect orders. Patent documents related to bacterium B.thuringiensis contain a trove of technical and commercial information and thus, patent analysis is considered as a useful tool for R management and techno economical development. Patent analysis also helps identifying and evaluating new and alternate technologies, keeping abreast with latest technologies for business interests, finding solutions to technical problems and ideas for new innovative trends.

Breast cancer afflicts more than 1.3 million people worldwide and is the main cause of cancer-related deaths among women. Many efforts are underway to develop new therapeutic and biomarker strategies for the management of this disease. Hormone receptors and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) are currently the most important molecular tools in this regard. Moreover, targeted therapies including trastuzumab in particular are the primary treatment in both the adjuvant and recurrent settings. However, many studies reported that selected patients may present with resistance to trastuzumab due to the presence of p95HER2 fragments. To address this challenge, drugs such as lapatinib and others described in recent patents promise alternative therapeutic options. We discuss the most recent patents related to HER2 and p95HER2 fragments for breast cancer treatment.

Histopathological diagnosis using Formalin-Fixed Paraffin Embedded (FFPE) tissues is essential for the prognostic and therapeutic management of cancer patients. Pathologists are being confronted with increasing demands, from both clinicians and patients, to provide immunophenotypic and gene expression data from FFPE tissues to allow the planning of personalized therapeutic regimens. Recent improvements in the protocols for pre-analysis processing of pathological tissues aim to better preserve cellular details and to conserve antigens and nucleic acid sequences. These developments have been recently patented. The international protocol for the transporting of surgical specimens from the surgical theatre to the pathology department is to immerse the specimen in formalin. The alternative method of sealing the specimens into bags under a vacuum and then cooling is a well-accepted and environmentally safe procedure that overcomes the many drawbacks linked to transfer in formalin. Importantly, RNA is notoriously poorly preserved in FFPE tissue. Due to this, successful procedures for the extraction of genetic information from archival tissues have been the object of several studies and patents. Novel molecular approaches for RT-qPCR and gene array analysis on FFPE tissues are presented here. Moreover, a major advance is reported in this study, the observation that tissue fixation in cold conditions allows a much better preservation of nucleic acid sequences.

MicroRNAs (miRNAs, miRs) are a class of non-coding single-stranded RNAs, which can negatively regulate gene expression at posttranscriptional levels by miRNA-mRNA interaction. It has been demonstrated that miRNAs play important roles in a variety of biological process, including cell proliferation, differentiation, apoptosis, and tumorigenesis. Recent studies have shown crucial roles of specific miRNAs in controlling oligodendrocyte (OL) differentiation and myelination. Dysregulation of miRNAs is a vital event in the pathogenesis of demyelinating diseases. Furthermore, new patents of miRNAs also provide new strategies for gene therapy and miR-drug development for demyelinating diseases, especially multiple sclerosis. In this review, we briefly introduce the roles of miRNAs in OL differentiation and in the pathogenesis of demyelinating diseases, with emphasis on the implication of miRNAs patents in disease diagnostic and therapeutic perspective and its related technologies and challenges in clinical application.

To determine if there is a gene variant of protein serine-threonine phosphatase with EF hand (PPEF-1) in T-cell lymphoblastic lymphoma SUP-T1 cell line, both in silico and in vitro approaches were conducted. In silico, a cDNA clone showing similar sequence to PPEF-1 was isolated from the SUP-T1 cDNA library and named PPEF-1V. The full-length of the PPEF-1V cDNA clone is a 2135bp containing a 1503bp open reading frame extending from 188bp to 1690bp, which corresponds to an encoded protein of 501 amino acid residues with a predicted molecular mass of 57.8 kDa. Alignment on both PPEF-1V and PPEF-1 sequences showed that PPEF-1V is a 350bp deletion in the nucleotide sequence of PPEF-1 from 128-477bp and a 152-amino-acid N-terminal deletion in the amino acid sequence of PPEF-1. In vitro, PPEF-1V transcript fragment was only highly expressed in T-cell lymphoblastic lymphoma cell line. In conclusion, the present patent showed that PPEF-1V could be a potential target for diagnosis or treatment of T-cell lymphoblastic lymphoma.

Visual impairment and blindness impose substantial morbidity and premature mortality on the population. The direct costs for vision disorders have been shown to be more than the cost of coronary heart disease, stroke, arthritis or depression and were estimated to be $9.85 billion in 2004 in Australia. Hence it is important to identify the causes of common eye diseases and understand their aetiology which in turn would allow determination of better management strategies and treatment options. Age related Macular Degeneration, Cataract, Diabetic Retinopathy, Glaucoma and uncorrected refractive errors represent the majority of the visual impairment and blindness in Australia and various parts of the world. This article reviews the gene patents available for these eye conditions and highlights the important discoveries that have so far contributed to our understanding of these diseases and provides valuable information as to where research will be heading in the future.

Phosphorylation and dephosphorylation play an important role in the regulation of growth factor and cytokine signal transduction to modulate cell proliferation, differentiation, survival, and apoptosis. In some cellular systems, the information suggests that EGFR, somatostatin receptors, SHP-1, Akt and PI3K can regulate carcinogenesis implied process through regulated the activity of NF-κB. Current patents related to signaling pathway that includes somatostatin receptors, phosphotyrosine phosphatases, tyrosine kinases, AKT/PKB and PI3K are focusing in diagnosis, prognosis and treatment. Many recent patented techniques include inhibition, antagonism or alternative therapeutic methods. Furthermore, it is necessary to deepen understanding of the molecular mechanisms involved in cancer to develop other alternative therapies focusing not only on new inhibitors.

Storage of human biological samples and personal data associated with them is organised in Biobanks. In spite of expectation given by biobanks in medicine, their management involved some ethical questions, for example, the need for policies to regulate economic interests, potential commercial use of data (including patents), private sector financing, ownership of samples and benefit sharing. In the context of contributing to the general public interest, we can consider the act of giving biological material to biobanks as a donation, in which the donation constitutes part of a generalised form of reciprocity in which the act of donation contributes to society's common good. Starting from this perspective, we move into a different situation represented by the biobanking of umbilical cord blood for personal use. We used the example of the private biobanking of umbilical cords to demonstrate the restrictive utility of the collection and preservation of cord blood for personal use in private biobanks, in the context of society's common good. In summary, a system based on solidarity seems to be able to guarantee necessary levels of supply for the donation of biological material to biobanks.

Improved knowledge of the molecular biology of viruses, including recent gains in virus sequence data analysis, has greatly contributed to recent innovations in medical diagnostics, therapeutics, drug development and other related areas. Virus sequences have been used for the development of vaccines and antiviral agents to block the spread of viral infections, as well as to target and battle chronic diseases such as cancer. Virus sequences are now routinely employed in a wide array of RNA silencing technologies. Viruses can also be engineered into expression vectors which in turn can be used as protein production platforms as well as delivery vehicles for gene therapies. This review article outlines a number of patents that have been recently issued with respect to virus sequence data and describes some of their biotechnological applications.