Feature Channels: Cell Biology

• share
• favorite_border

Study funded by Ivy Foundation shows SGEF plays roles in how cancer cells survive and invade brain tissue.

• share
• favorite_border

For the first time, McGill researchers have been able to take a series of 3D images of a large section from one of the medicine-synthesizing enzymes in action. The researchers believe that the images they have generated will not only bring scientists closer to understanding how many antibiotics are made, but could, with further research, lead to the development of much needed next-generation antibiotics.

• share
• favorite_border

New research uses time lapse microscopy to show that bacteria use a hedging strategy to trade off varying degrees of antibiotic resistance even when they are not under threat. This new insight could explain why some infections persist in spite of antibiotic treatment and suggests that a different dosing strategy that would wait out trading off strategy could be effective.

• share
• favorite_border

An uncommon and little-studied type of cell in the lungs has been found to act like a sensor, linking the pulmonary and central nervous systems to regulate immune response in reaction to environmental cues. The cells, known as pulmonary neuroendocrine cells or PNECs, are implicated in a wide range of human lung diseases, including asthma, pulmonary hypertension, cystic fibrosis and sudden infant death syndrome, among others.

• share
• favorite_border

A new study from the Forsyth Institute is helping to shed more light on the important connections among the diverse bacteria in our microbiome.

• share
• favorite_border

Scientists at the Gladstone Institutes and the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) have successfully converted human skin cells into fully-functional pancreatic cells. The new cells produced insulin in response to changes in glucose levels, and, when transplanted into mice, the cells protected the animals from developing diabetes in a mouse model of the disease.

• share
• favorite_border

A team of investigators based in Seattle, Amsterdam, and Luxembourg, have established the cause of a rare syndrome consistent with Fanconi Anemia, a chromosome instability disorder which is clinically typified by birth defects, bone marrow failure, leukemia, and susceptibility to solid tumors. The results were reported by researchers from the Institute for Systems Biology (Seattle), the Free University Medical Center in Amsterdam, and the Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine and several other institutions in the United States and Europe in the journal Nature Communications on December 18, 2015 (DOI: 10.1038/ncomms9829).

• share
• favorite_border

Finding provides alternative explanation for the free-radical theory of aging and suggests new role for mitochondria in affecting physiology.

• share
• favorite_border

Cornell researchers have discovered potent cancer-killing proteins that can travel by white blood cells to kill tumors in the bloodstream of mice with metastatic prostate cancer.

• share
• favorite_border

A hormone that extends lifespan in mice by 40% is produced by specialized cells in the thymus gland, according to a new study by Yale School of Medicine researchers. The team also found that increasing the levels of this hormone, called FGF21, protects against the loss of immune function that comes with age.

• share
• favorite_border

A doctor treating a patient with a potentially fatal metastatic breast tumor would be very pleased to find, after administering a round of treatment, that the primary tumor had undergone a change in character – from aggressive to static, and no longer shedding cells that can colonize distant organs of the body. Indeed, most patients with breast and other forms of cancer who succumb to the illness do so because of the cancer’s unstoppable spread.

• share
• favorite_border

For HHT patients and their families in Chicago and beyond, the University of Chicago Medicine is now designated as an HHT Center of Excellence by Cure HHT, the worldwide advocacy group for the disorder. This honor recognizes UCM as the 22nd center in North America and the only facility in Illinois that specializes in the diagnosis and comprehensive care of HHT.

• share
• favorite_border

“All these complicated diseases that we don’t have a good handle on — they all have this mechanical component. Well why is that?” Brent Hoffman is an assistant professor of biomedical engineering Brent Hoffman is an assistant professor of biomedical engineering This is exactly the question Brent Hoffman, Duke biomedical engineering assistant professor, is helping answer.

• share
• favorite_border

Research suggests we do not yet have the whole story about how fertilised eggs produce the many different types of cell that make up our adult bodies.

• share
• favorite_border

In cancer, cell signaling pathways are the critical chain of events that can either quash or quicken disease progression.

• share
• favorite_border

Three scientists at the University of Washington have proposed a way to speed up common bioassays. Their solution, reminiscent of the magic behind washing machines, could reduce wait times to a fraction of what they once were. Biological assays that once took hours could instead take minutes.

• share
• favorite_border

he J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) policy group today released a new report titled, “DNA Synthesis and Biosecurity: Lessons Learned and Options for the Future,” which reviews how well the Department of Health and Human Services guidance for synthetic biology providers has worked since it was issued in 2010.

• share
• favorite_border

Nearly every girl and woman on Earth carries two X chromosomes in nearly every one of her cells – but one of them does (mostly) nothing. That’s because it’s been silenced, keeping most of its DNA locked up and unread like a book in a cage. Scientists thought they had figured out how cells do this, but a new piece of research from the University of Michigan Medical School shows the answer isn’t quite that clear.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers found that the inherent flexibility of the immune system is even more complex than previously understood. Study reveals more about how memory cells arise after infections.

• share
• favorite_border

A UA researcher and clinician team has discovered that genetic mutations in a protein associated with asthma can affect a person’s susceptibility to a variety of lung diseases — and could lead to new treatments.

• share
• favorite_border

A single chance mutation caused an ancient protein to evolve a new function essential for multicellularity in animals, about a billion years ago, according to research co-led by UChicago scientists.

• share
• favorite_border

New research by UC San Francisco stem cell biologists has revealed that a DNA-binding protein called Foxd3 acts like a genetic traffic signal, holding that ball of undifferentiated cells in a state of readiness for its great transformation in the third week of development.

• share
• favorite_border

In its simplest terms, weight loss occurs when the amount of energy consumed in the form of food is less than the amount of energy burned. This can be accomplished by eating less or exercising more. With either approach, the goal is to create a caloric debt that will be resolved by burning stored carbohydrate, protein, or fat. Challenges to losing the holiday weight (alternatively a beer gut, Freshman Fifteen, etc.) are simple: eating feels good and being hungry is uncomfortable.

• share
• favorite_border

Team from Rice, University of Wisconsin-Madison shows how nature handles lignin.

• share
• favorite_border

By combining sophisticated RNA sequencing technology with a new device that isolates single cells and their progeny, MIT researchers can now trace detailed family histories for several generations of cells descended from one “ancestor.”

• share
• favorite_border

Variation in egg-coat and sperm expressed genes influences fertility in diverse organisms, from sea stars to mice to humans.

• share
• favorite_border

Scientists from the Mechanobiology Institute, Singapore at the National University of Singapore have discovered the universal building blocks that cells use to form initial connections with the surrounding environment. These early adhesions have a consistent size of 100 nanometres, are made up of a cluster of around 50 integrin proteins and are the same even when the surrounding surface is hard or soft. Deciphering the universal nature of adhesion formation may reveal how tumour cells sense and migrate on surfaces of different rigidity, which is a hallmark of metastasis, the devastating ability of cancer to spread throughout the body.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers have identified a mechanism that allows cancer cells to respond and grow rapidly when levels of sugar in the blood rise. This may help to explain why people who develop conditions in which they have chronically high sugar levels in their blood, such as obesity, also have an increased risk of developing certain types of cancer.

• share
• favorite_border

Scientists from The Scripps Research Institute and the Crucell Vaccine Institute have now designed a protein fragment called mini-HA that stimulates the production of antibodies against a variety of influenza viruses. A key part of the work took place at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL), a DOE Office of Science User Facility at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, where the scientists used a technique called X-ray crystallography to look at the atomic structure of the mini-HA at each stage of its development.

• share
• favorite_border

An NSAID changed the composition and diversity of gut microbes, which in turn shaped how the drug is broken down and ultimately, cut its effectiveness, according to animal study

• share
• favorite_border

Using a new gene-editing technique, a team of scientists from UT Southwestern Medical Center stopped progression of Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) in young mice.

• share
• favorite_border

Adding to growing evidence on the possible health risks of electronic cigarettes, a lab team at the Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System tested two products and found they damaged cells in ways that could lead to cancer. The damage occurred even with nicotine-free versions of the products.

• share
• favorite_border

The human gut harbors a teeming menagerie of over 100 trillion microorganisms, and researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder have discovered that exercising early in life can alter that microbial community for the better, promoting healthier brain and metabolic activity over the course of a lifetime.

• share
• favorite_border

Lives of soldiers and others injured in remote locations could be saved with a cell-free protein synthesis system developed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

• share
• favorite_border

A technique to combine the ultrasensitivity of surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) with a slippery surface invented by Penn State researchers will make it feasible to detect single molecules of a number of chemical and biological species from gaseous, liquid or solid samples.

• share
• favorite_border

Australian scientists have for the first time revealed how malaria parasites cause an inflammatory reaction that sabotages our body's ability to protect itself against the disease.

• share
• favorite_border

The back of a tiger could have been a blank canvas. Instead, nature painted the big cat with parallel stripes, evenly spaced and perpendicular to the spine. Scientists don't know exactly how stripes develop, but since the 1950s, mathematicians have been modeling possible scenarios. In Cell Systems on December 23, Harvard researchers assemble a range of these models into a single equation to identify what variables control stripe formation in living things.

• share
• favorite_border

A new $8.5M (CAD) grant award by the European commission via its Horizon 2020 program will be used for the treatment of hemophilia A, also called factor VIII (FVIII) deficiency, the most common form of hemophilia A. The genetic disorder is caused by missing or defective factor VIII, a blood clotting protein. The grant was awarded to the HemAcure consortium consisting of Canadian- based Sernova Corp and five European academic and private partners to advance development of a GMP clinical grade Factor VIII releasing therapeutic cell product in combination with Sernova's Cell Pouch™ for the treatment of severe hemophilia A.

• share
• favorite_border

A liver hormone works via the brain’s reward pathway to reduce cravings for sweets and alcohol in mammals, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have found.

• share
• favorite_border

Molecular biologists at UT Southwestern Medical Center have identified a gene called NORAD that helps maintain the proper number of chromosomes in cells, and that when inactivated, causes the number of chromosomes in a cell to become unstable, a key feature of cancer cells.

• share
• favorite_border

Sex-changing snails switch sooner when together.

• share
• favorite_border

This resulted in the commercial release of a new UF/IFAS grapefruit cultivar N2-28 ‘Summer Gold Grapefruit’ that can be harvested into August.

• share
• favorite_border

A team of researchers from the National University of Singapore has uncovered the mystery behind the potent parasite-killing effect of artemisinin, a drug that is considered to be the last line of defence against malaria. Given the emergence of artemisinin resistance, these findings could potentially lead to the design of new treatments against drug-resistant parasites.

• share
• favorite_border

Scientists have for the first time viewed how bacterial proteins self-assemble into thin sheets and begin to form the walls of the outer shell for nano-sized polyhedral compartments that function as specialized factories. The new insight may aid scientists who seek to tap this natural origami by designing novel compartments or using them as scaffolding for new types of nanoscale architectures, such as drug-delivery systems.

• share
• favorite_border

Building upon previous research, scientists at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and UC San Diego Moores Cancer report that a protein called Wnt5a acts on a pair of tumor-surface proteins, called ROR1 and ROR2, to accelerate the proliferation and spread of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) cells, the most common form of blood cancer in adults.

• share
• favorite_border

Teams of geneticists from nine countries, involving more than 100 scientists, analyzed the genes of more than 33,000 individuals in the hope of finding genetic variations responsible for age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the leading cause of vision loss among people age 50 or older.

• share
• favorite_border

Understanding how tiny molecular motors called myosins use energy to fuel biological tasks like contracting muscles could lead to therapies for muscle diseases and cancers, say a team of researchers led by Penn State College of Medicine scientists.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers from the Cancer Science Institute of Singapore (CSI Singapore) at the National University of Singapore (NUS) have delineated novel molecular interactions affecting the activity of the TGF-β pathway, a key cancer pathway in humans affecting cancer progression.

• share
• favorite_border

St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital scientists discover a novel strategy that aggressive sarcomas use to promote drug resistance and cancer’s spread plus evidence of how to reverse the process.

• share
• favorite_border

A well-known ‘superbug’ which was thought to have been a static or non-motile organism has been observed showing signs of active motility by scientists at The Universities of Nottingham and Sheffield.