Feature Channels: Cell Biology

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The research of two Montana State University microbiologists into how bacteria fend off attacks from viruses is included in a new paper published in the scientific journal Nature.

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Scientists at the University of East Anglia are getting closer to solving the problem of antibiotic resistance.

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Researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have discovered that HIV infection of human immune cells triggers a massive increase in methylation, a chemical modification, to both human and viral RNA, aiding replication of the virus. The study, published February 22, 2016 in Nature Microbiology, identifies a new mechanism for controlling HIV replication and its interaction with the host immune system.

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Programming highlights from Experimental Biology 2016, April 2-6, in San Diego. Topics include anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, pathology, nutrition, and pharmacology.

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A common cause of diabetes is a deficiency of insulin-producing cells in the endocrine tissue of the pancreas. New findings suggest the exocrine tissues of the pancreas instead could make a promising target for stem cell-based diabetes treatment.

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Imagine exploring a wooded site along an Alaska stream or lake for evidence of animals. Maybe you’ll see moose prints in the soil or a bit of wolf fur in a berry bush. But some species don’t leave footprints. They still leave a clue. It’s their DNA.

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NIH-funded researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital find surprising link between the death of tumor-support cells and an increased risk of cancer metastasis in mice.

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A UCLA-led collaboration has identified a specific network of genes and a pattern of gene expression mice that promote repair in the peripheral nervous system in a mouse model. This network, the researchers found, does not exist in the central nervous system. The researchers also found a drug that can promote nerve regeneration in the central nervous system.

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SBP researchers have identified specific ways in which fetal muscle stem cells remodel their environment to support their enhanced capacity for regeneration, which could lead to targets for therapies to improve adult stem cells’ ability to replace injured or degenerated muscle.

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Caltech biologists have performed the first large-scale screening in a vertebrate animal for genes that regulate sleep, and have identified a gene that when overactivated causes severe insomnia. Expression of the gene, neuromedin U (Nmu), also seems to serve as nature's stimulant--fish lacking the gene take longer to wake up in the morning and are less active during the day.

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The organs in our body may have a sexual identity of their own, new research suggests.

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In a study of patients entering the hospital for acute stroke, researchers have increased their understanding of an association between certain types of stroke and the presence of the oral bacteria (cnm-positive Streptococcus mutans).

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Two drugs that mimic a common plant hormone effectively cause DNA damage and turn off a major DNA repair mechanism, suggesting their potential use as an anti-cancer therapy.

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Researchers at Johns Hopkins have used a precision sensor in a chicken embryo to find dramatic differences in the use of copper between developing and fully mature neurons.

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A new cellular signal discovered by a team of scientists at the University of Chicago with scientists from Tel Aviv University provides a promising new lever in the control of gene expression.

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UAB researchers have found a marker on blood cells that may help the most pressing problem in chronic myelogenous leukemia today — an inability to get patients off treatment. This marker shows heterogeneity among the leukemia stem cells and correlates with leukemic potential.

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UNC School of Medicine scientists studying one of the world’s most virulent pathogens and a separate very common bacterium have discovered a new way that some bacteria can spread rapidly throughout the body – by hitchhiking on our own immune cells.

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While working to improve a tool that measures the pushes and pulls sensed by proteins in living cells, biophysicists discovered one reason spiders’ silk is so elastic: Pieces of the silk’s protein threads act like supersprings, stretching to five times their initial length. The investigators say the tool will shed light on many biological events, including the shifting forces between cells during cancer metastasis.

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Scientists at UCLA have developed a new approach that could eventually be used to treat Duchenne muscular dystrophy. The stem cell gene therapy could be applicable for 60 percent of people with Duchenne, which affects approximately 1 in 5,000 boys in the U.S. and is the most common fatal childhood genetic disease.

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On Charles Darwin's 207th birthday, a new study of evolution in a diverse group of wild tomatoes is shedding light on the importance of genetic variation in plants.

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Bolanle Olaniran, who lost two brothers to the disease, was diagnosed in 1974.

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Living systems rely on a dizzying variety of chemical reactions essential to development and survival. Most of these involve a specialized class of protein molecules--the enzymes. In a new study, Hao Yan, director of the Center for Molecular Design and Biomimetics at ASU's Biodesign Institute presents a clever means of localizing and confining enzymes and the substrate molecules they bind with, speeding up reactions essential for life processes.

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By genetically reprogramming the most common type of cell in mammalian connective tissue, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have generated master heart cells — primitive progenitors that form the developing heart. If replicated in human cells, the feat could one day fuel drug discovery, powerful new models for heart disease and the raw material for treating diseased hearts.

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In a first large-scale systematic study, researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, and McGill University found that most sibling proteins – known as “protein isoforms” encoded by the same gene – often play radically different roles within tissues and cells, however alike they may be structurally.

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A new study in animal models, led by scientists at The Scripps Research Institute, is the first to show that oxygen sensing in the brain has a role in metabolism and sensing an organism’s internal state.

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When Joachim Messing discovered a way to crack the genetic code of humans and plants like rice, corn and wheat, he did not patent his work. Instead, he gave away the tools he invented – for free – to his fellow scientists around the world because he believed it was vital for future research.

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From cookies and candies to balloons and cards, heart-shaped items abound this time of year. They're even in our blood. It turns out that the most abundant protein molecule in blood plasma—serum albumin (SA)—is shaped very much like a heart.

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Building on previous studies, Mayo Clinic researchers have demonstrated significant health improvements in the vascular system of mice following repeated treatments to remove senescent cells. They say this is the first study to show that regular and continual clearance of senescent cells improves age-related vascular conditions – and that the method may be a viable approach to reduce cardiovascular disease and death. The findings appear online in Aging Cell.

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A team of scientists led by Stony Brook University biochemist Huilin Li, PhD, have proposed that DNA is unwound by a type of “pumpjack” mechanism, similar to the way one operates on an oil rig.

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In bloodhounds and neutrophils, getting the scent is not enough. Dogs and immune cells have to remember the chemoattractant they are pursuing, even when it momentarily fades out or threatens to overwhelm.

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Scientists discover that slime-forming bacteria act as optical objects.

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With fewer than 3,500 episodes a year, cardiac arrest in children is decidedly rare, but it could be a dramatic signal that the victim’s family members may be at a heightened risk for sudden cardiac death. This is why, in the aftermath of such a traumatic event, clinical evaluation of the child’s parents and siblings could lead to lifesaving diagnoses and therapies, averting further tragedy, say cardiologists at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago

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Microorganisms in the gut could play a role in reducing the severity of malaria, according to a new study co-authored by researchers at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and the University of Louisville.

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Using a model blood vessel system built on a polymer microchip, researchers have shown that the relative softness of white blood cells determines whether they remain in a dormant state along vessel walls or enter blood circulation to fight infection.

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Bioengineer Gang Bao and team explore CRISPR-Cas9 alternatives.

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Protein that gives blood vessels and skin their stretchability has its molecular properties revealed.

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BYU research shows unexpected immune system cells may help repair muscles.

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New close-up images of the proteins that copy DNA inside the nucleus of a cell have led a team of scientists to propose a brand new mechanism for how this molecular machinery works. The scientists studied proteins from yeast cells, which share many features with the cells of complex organisms such as humans, and could offer new insight into ways that DNA replication can go awry.

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A new UCLA-Stanford study has pinpointed two tiny clusters of neurons in the brain stem that are responsible for transforming normal breaths into sighs. The discovery may one day allow physicians to treat patients with breathing disorders.

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Stem cell-derived heart muscle cells may fail to effectively replace damaged cardiac tissue because they don’t contract strongly enough, according to a study in The Journal of Cell Biology. The study, “Coupling Primary and Stem Cell-Derived Cardiomyocytes in an In Vitro Model of Cardiac Cell Therapy,” by Yvonne Aratyn-Schaus and Francesco Pasqualini and colleagues, may help explain why stem cell-based therapies have so far shown limited benefits for heart attack patients in clinical trials.

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Cellular senescence -- when a cell can no longer divide -- is a programmed stage in a cell's life cycle. Sometimes, as in aging, we wish it didn't happen so much and sometimes, as in cancer, we wish it would happen more. Given its important impacts on health, biologists wish they could explain more about what's happening in cells when senescence takes hold. A new study helps by showing that chromosomes become somewhat transformed, altering their patterns of gene expression.

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Neurobiologists characterize nerve cells that detect motion by light changes.

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Scientists had thought that most synapses of a similar type and in a similar location in the brain behaved in a similar fashion with respect to how experience induces plasticity. This study found dramatic differences in the plasticity response, even between neighboring synapses.

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First demonstration of a cancer arising from a single cell.

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Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago have discovered a molecular regulator that allows salmonella bacteria to switch from actively causing disease to lurking in a chronic but asymptomatic state called a biofilm.

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Each of our cells has a time to die. Programmed cell death, or apoptosis, helps keep our bodies healthy by ensuring that excess or potentially dangerous cells self-destruct. One way cells know when to pull the plug is through signals received by so-called death receptors that stud cells’ surfaces. Researchers studying a death receptor called Fas have now found that for immune cells to hear the death knell, a largely overlooked portion of the receptor must coil into an intricate three-part formation.

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Scientists have for the first time reengineered a building block of a geometric nanocompartment that occurs naturally in bacteria. The new design provides an entirely new functionality that greatly expands the potential for these compartments to serve as custom-made chemical factories.

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Increasing the level of a naturally-produced protein, called tristetraprolin (TTP), significantly reduced or protected mice from inflammation, according to researchers at the National Institutes of Health. The results suggest that pharmaceutical compounds or other therapeutic methods that produce elevated levels of TTP in humans may offer an effective treatment for some inflammatory diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, and multiple sclerosis. The report appeared online Feb. 1 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.