Tuesday 11 July 2006

Sex Runs Deeper Than We Thought

This one courtesy of reader Christine, to whom many thanks.

From NineMSN :
Thousands of genes behave differently in the same organs of males and females, researchers reported, a finding that may help explain why men and women have different responses to drugs and diseases.

Their study of brain, liver, fat and muscle tissue from mice showed that gene expression - the level of activity of a gene - varied greatly according to sex.

The same is almost certainly true of humans, the team at the University of California Los Angeles reported.
...
The smallest differences were in brain tissue, they found.

"We saw striking and measurable differences in more than half of the genes' expression patterns between males and females," said Dr Thomas Drake, a professor of pathology. "We didn't expect that. No one has previously demonstrated this genetic gender gap at such high levels."

Xia Yang, a postdoctoral fellow in cardiology who led the study, said the implications are important.

"Males and females share the same genetic code, but our findings imply that gender regulates how quickly the body can convert DNA to proteins," Yang said in a statement. "This suggests that gender influences how disease develops."

How does this apply to my case? I have absolutely no idea, sorry.
And I have the flu, so <insert pithy and insightful comment here> because I'm not quite up to that at the moment.

No comments: