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13 May 2017

Life-long Afterglow

Scientists have long been interested in how adversity, such as a poor diet in early life, might cause lasting effects. Now researchers at the London Institute of Medical Sciences have developed a detailed visual demonstration that poor diet during pregnancy can cause biological changes that last throughout life. The team developed a new technique that allowed them to visualise genes as they were switched 'on' or 'off' in mouse embryos as they grew. They attached enzymes from fireflies and bacteria onto the gene they were studying, and watched how this produced a green glow as it was turned 'on'. Here, the gene is 'on' in the embryo on the left, and 'off' in the embryo on the right. The middle embryo was not labelled. When pregnant mice were fed a low protein diet, it interfered with the expression of genes within the embryo that are important for healthy growth.

Read more about this study here

Written by Deborah Oakley

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BPoD stands for Biomedical Picture of the Day. Managed by the MRC Laboratory of Medical Sciences until Jul 2023, it is now run independently by a dedicated team of scientists and writers. The website aims to engage everyone, young and old, in the wonders of biology, and its influence on medicine. The ever-growing archive of more than 4000 research images documents over a decade of progress. Explore the collection and see what you discover. Images are kindly provided for inclusion on this website through the generosity of scientists across the globe.

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