Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster called the changes "significant" and said it would help the company solidify its lead in the market.
Changes in this gene, which codes for a protein that facilitates nerve cell communication, have been linked to autism in various studies.
In the past 2, 000-3, 000 years, for example, Europeans have undergone changes in the gene for a protein that moves potassium ions in and out of nerve cells and taste buds.
Jef Boeke and his team at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland, designed the synthetic segments using genome-editing software, which allowed them to introduce changes in the gene sequences.
And the fact that no changes in the receptor gene itself were noticed by Dr Morley does not mean this gene is not involved.
The mice the two independent labs used were several generations distant from the original strain or grown from preserved embryos, and in that interval, any number of changes could have happened in gene sequences or to affect how the animal uses the gene.
Instead of today's crude tools, the new gene-derived tests will help doctors spot tiny biochemical changes deep inside the body that presage the onset of myriad cancers, heart failure and other ills before symptoms appear.
Exposure to light changes the shape of the phytochrome, which allows it to turn a gene on, so the gene will produce its particular protein.
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The scientists believe the gene makes a protein that helps to release the hormones that are responsible for the physical changes around puberty.
For example, a lot of changes in genes do not actually affect the composition of the protein for which that gene is a recipe.
Most cancers are the result of unusual changes in your DNA. Chromosomes break and leak into each other, for example, changing a gene's basic essence and sometimes triggering abnormal growth.
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