News archive

Institute of Biophysics of the CAS and ICRC deepen cooperation

19. 6. 2023

Biomedical research in Brno has taken another step towards excellence. On Friday 19 May 2023, the Director of the Institute of Biophysics of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Assoc. RNDr. Eva Bártová, Ph.D., DSc., Director of the University Hospital at St. Anne's in Brno, Ing. Vlastimil Vajdák, a contract on cooperation on joint research.

The signing of the agreement builds on the existing successful cooperation between the BFÚ AV ČR and the International Clinical Research Centre (ICRC) of FNUSA and LF MU. One of them is joint clinical research, for which FNUSA provides ideal facilities. During the meeting, we also discussed the state of instrumentation of both departments and the possibility of sharing these capacities," explained Director Vajdák.


Cooperation between the ICRC and the BFÚ AV ČR is mainly between research teams that focus on acute and chronic inflammatory processes or molecular mechanisms in the formation and development of tumours and metastases. "With the updated agreement, we strengthen the cooperation between the two research institutions and thus significantly contribute to the strengthening of excellence in biomedical research in Brno," added doc. Bártová.

There are also plans to expand the collaboration, and the possibility of using clean labs to produce products for advanced therapies, including cell therapy and tissue engineering, is being discussed. This was also confirmed by the head of the ICRC, Prof. Irena Rektorová, M.D., Ph.D. "We plan to continue to look for common topics and use grant opportunities, for example within the Jan Amos Komenský Operational Programme."

A new article on i-motif DNA formation published in Nucleic Acids Research

27. 4. 2023

Are you interested in DNA structure and have you heard that there are other DNA forms besides the well-known double helix proposed by Watson and Crick seventy years ago? If you want to know more, you can read the following lines, or directly the text of the latest paper by our colleagues from the Department of Biophysics of Nucleic Acids (DBNA), published in the prestigious journal Nucleic Acids Research: doi: 10.1093/nar/gkad119.

Among the most common alternatives to the DNA double helix are four-stranded structures arising in guanine-rich regions, which we call guanine quadruplexes, or in cytosine-rich called intercalated motifs (i-motifs). These four-stranded structures, or rather their differentiation from the double helix, are very well observed by spectroscopic methods, in which DBNA staff are real experts. The published work was focused on the investigation of the formation of DNA i-motifs in vitro, specifically on their kinetic-thermodynamic parameters. It was shown that sequences consisting of longer consecutive cytosine blocks first form shorter i-motifs, which are a kind of pre-forms to the formation of an ideal i-motif, paired by the maximum number of cytosines available in the DNA sequence. The shorter, imperfect i-motifs are formed very quickly as a result of rapid cooling, whereas the formation of the ideal i-motif requires sufficient time and elevated temperature necessary to remove all the i-motif pre-forms. Understanding the principle of gradual i-motif formation allows us to assess whether any of these alternative structures may participate in the control processes in the cell. i-motifs have been discovered in some promoters, i.e., regions of DNA that control whether genes are turned on or off, or in telomeres, the terminal regions of chromosomes that are associated with the aging process. The biological relevance of each i-motif form is determined by the fact that cellular processes occur very rapidly. Therefore, i-motifs that arise very quickly will be more interesting and important. Whether and to what extent they can play a role in biological processes should be answered by future research.

The secret of genes - from the origin of life to the human genome

22. 2. 2023