Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Biologist Lee Ligon has found a previously unknown connection between breast cancer tumor cells and the surrounding healthy tissue. The results provide new information on the earliest stages of breast cancer metastasis.
A research team has reprogrammed skin cells to identify epigenetic signatures that regulate the expression of a protein critical for repair of non-healing wounds. Identification of these signatures holds promise for future research aimed at applying these cells for personalized tissue regeneration.
A University of Michigan cell biologist and his colleagues have identified a potential drug that speeds up trash removal from the cell's recycling center, the lysosome.
Researchers at the UCLA stem cell center and the departments of chemistry and biochemistry and pathology and laboratory medicine have identified, for the first time, a generic way to correct mutations in human mitochondrial DNA by targeting corrective RNAs, a finding with implications for treating a host of mitochondrial diseases.
The well-being of living cells requires specialized squads of proteins that maintain order. Degraders chew up worn-out proteins, recyclers wrap up damaged organelles, and-most importantly-DNA repair crews restitch anything that resembles a broken chromosome. If repair is impossible, the crew foreman calls in executioners to annihilate a cell. As unsavory as this last bunch sounds, failure to summon them is one aspect of what makes a cancer cell a cancer cell.
UCLA stem cell researchers have shown that insulin and nutrition keep blood stem cells from differentiating into mature blood cells in Drosophila, the common fruit fly, a finding that has implications for studying inflammatory response and blood development in response to dietary changes in humans.
Cedars-Sinai researchers have unlocked the mystery of how an inflammatory molecule is produced in the body, a discovery they say could lead to advances in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, Type 2 diabetes and numerous other chronic diseases that affect tens of millions of people.
The hair cells of the inner ear have a previously unknown "root" extension that may allow them to communicate with nerve cells and the brain to regulate sensitivity to sound vibrations and head position, researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine have discovered.
By engineering cells to express a modified RNA called "Spinach," researchers have imaged small-molecule metabolites in living cells and observed how their levels change over time. Metabolites are the products of individual cell metabolism. The ability to measure their rate of production could be used to recognize a cell gone metabolically awry, as in cancer, or identify the drug that can restore the cell's metabolites to normal.
In the war against obesity, one’s own fat cells may seem an unlikely ally, but new research from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) suggests ordinary fat cells can be reengineered to burn calories.
Chronic stress has a more powerful effect on the brain during adolescence than in adulthood and now there’s proof at the molecular level, according to findings published in Neuron by University at Buffalo researchers.
Researchers at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine demonstrated that nitrogen balance, the process of utilizing amino acids and disposing of their toxic byproducts, occurs with a precise 24-hour rhythm – also known as circadian rhythm – in mammals.
A small, early-phase clinical trial to test the effectiveness of treating patients with advanced melanoma using billions of clones of their own tumor-fighting cells combined with a specific type of chemotherapy has shown that the approach has promise. One patient of the 11 experienced a long-term, complete remission that has lasted more than three years, and in four others with progressive disease, the melanoma temporarily stopped growing. The results of the study are published in the Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences for the week of March 5.
Studying tiny bits of genetic material that control protein formation in the brain, Johns Hopkins scientists say they have new clues to how memories are made and how drugs might someday be used to stop disruptions in the process that lead to mental illness and brain wasting diseases.
Indiana University biologists have found that specific types of RNA polymerase enzymes, the molecular machines that convert DNA into RNA, can differ in function based on variation in the parts -- in this case protein subunits -- used to assemble those machines.
UCLA stem cell researchers have discovered a critical placental niche cell and signaling pathway that prevent blood precursors from premature differentiation in the placenta, a process necessary for ensuring proper blood supply for an individual’s lifetime.
A team of UNC researchers has explained for the first time how a long-studied protein complex affects cell migration and how external cues affect cell’s ability to migrate.
Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine have found that a molecule found at elevated levels in cancer cells seems to protect them from the "cell-suicide" that is usually triggered by chemotherapy or radiation.
Working in the emerging field of systems biology, UT Southwestern researchers mathematically predicted how bacteria that cause food poisoning hijack a cell’s sense of direction and then confirmed those predictions in living cells.
Mitochondria -- subunits inside cells that produce energy -- have long been thought to play a role in Alzheimer’s disease.
Research reveals new clues about cell function.
UT MD Anderson scientists find molecular path of protein associated with hard-to-treat cancers.
Pediatric and Developmental Pathology – Gonadal dysgenesis—defective development of the ovaries or testes— may also bring with it an increased risk of gonadal tumors. A recent discovery at the histologic level could help identify cells at risk of conversion into a tumor. For patients with XY gonadal dysgenesis, this means earlier detection and treatment of tumors.
In a standard biology textbook, cells tend to look more or less the same from all sides. But in real life cells have fronts and backs, tops and bottoms, and they orient many of their structures according to this polarity explaining, for example, why yeast cells bud at one end and not the other.
What if we could engineer a liver or kidney from a patient's own stem cells? How about helping regenerate tissue damaged by diseases such as osteoporosis and arthritis? A new UCLA study bring scientists a little closer to these possibilities by providing a better understanding how tissue is formed and organized in the body.
Drugs targeting an enzyme involved in inflammation might offer a new avenue for treating certain lung cancers, according to a new study by scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.
A team of scientists from Whitehead Institute and other institutions has shown for the first time how two long intergenic noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs) in brewer’s yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) contribute to a location-dependent switch for the yeast FLO11 gene to toggle between active and inactive states. The mechanism of the FLO11 switch is one of only a handful that have been characterized in detail, and will serve as a model for how other ncRNAs operate.
Although the process of mitotic cell division has been studied intensely for more than 50 years, Whitehead Institute researchers have only now solved the mystery of how cells correctly align their chromosomes during symmetric mitosis.
Researchers at the Salk Institute have discovered a startling feature of early brain development that helps to explain how complex neuron wiring patterns are programmed using just a handful of critical genes. The findings, published February 3 in Cell, may help scientists develop new therapies for neurological disorders, such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and provide insight into certain cancers.
Obstacles in an organism’s path can help it to move faster, not slower, researchers from New York University’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences have found through a series of experiments and computer simulations. Their findings have implications for a better understanding of basic locomotion strategies found in biology, and the survival and propagation of the parasite that causes malaria.
University of Utah biologists found new evidence why mice, people and other vertebrate animals carry thousands of varieties of genes to make immune-system proteins named MHCs – even though some of those genes make us sick.
One of the big mysteries in biology is why cells age. Now scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies report that they have discovered a weakness in a component of brain cells that may explain how the aging process occurs in the brain.
Hormones shape our bodies, make us fertile, excite our most basic urges, and as scientists have known for years, they govern the behaviors that separate men from women. But how?
Cell biologists at Johns Hopkins have identified key steps in how certain molecules alter a cell’s skeletal shape and drive the cell’s movement.
Whitehead Institute researchers have determined the critical role one enzyme, lysine-specific demethylase 1 (LSD1), plays as mouse embryonic stem cells (ESCs) differentiate. This research may provide targets for developing drugs to push cells with dysfunctional gene expression programs back to a more normal, healthier state.
A new affinity capture device provides a platform for viewing cancer cells and other macromolecules in dynamic, life-sustaining liquid environments.
Studying self-replicating genetic units, called plasmids, found in one of the world's widest-ranging pathogenic soil bacteria -- the crown-gall-disease-causing microorganism Agrobacterium tumefaciens -- Indiana University biologists are showing how freeloading, mutant derivatives of these plasmids benefit while the virulent, disease-causing plasmids do the heavy-lifting of initiating infection in plant hosts. The research confirms that the ability of bacteria to cause disease comes at a significant cost that is only counterbalanced by the benefits they experience from infected host organisms.
Researchers from UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center have identified a cell-permeable peptide that inhibits a hepatitis C virus protein and blocks viral replication, which can lead to liver cancer and cirrhosis.
Stress-induced genomic instability facilitates rapid cellular adaption in yeast.
When SUMO grips STAT5, a protein that activates genes, it blocks the healthy embryonic development of immune B cells and T cells unless its nemesis breaks the hold, a research team led by scientists at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center reports today in Molecular Cell.
Using a combination of evolutionary biology and virology, scientists at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center have traced the birth of the ability of some HIV-related viruses to defeat a newly discovered cellular-defense system in primates.
The health benefits of exercise on blood sugar metabolism may come from the body’s ability to devour itself, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers report in the journal Nature.
UW-Madison researchers have discovered that a gene called distal-less is critical to the fly’s ability to receive, process and respond to smells.
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute researchers have mapped out a mechanism by which micronuclei could potentially disrupt the chromosomes within them and produce cancer-causing gene mutations. The findings may point to a vulnerability in cancer cells that could be attacked by new therapies.
Quirky evolution yields clues to fatal condition.
Cancers rarely are deadly unless they evolve the ability to grow beyond the tissues in which they first arise. Normally, cells — even early-stage tumor cells — are tethered to scaffolding that helps to restrain any destructive tendencies. But scientists from the University of Helsinki, Finland, and from UCSF have identified a cleaver-wielding protein that frees some tumor cells, allowing them to further misbehave.
An international team of microbiologists led by Indiana University researchers has identified a new bacterial growth process -- one that occurs at a single end or pole of the cell instead of uniform, dispersed growth along the long axis of the cell -- that could have implications in the development of new antibacterial strategies.
Whitehead Institute scientists report that the growing fruit fly brain instructs glia cells that form the blood-brain barrier to enlarge by creating multiple copies of their genomes in a process known as polyploidization. Cell layers in other organs such as the human placenta and skin may employ a similar strategy.
As tissue slides are more routinely digitized to aid interpretation, a software program whose design was led by U-M is proving its utility.
A new study published in the journal Nature Medicine by NYU Cancer Institute researchers, shows how the cancer causing gene Notch, in combination with a mutated Polycomb Repressive Complex 2 (PRC2) protein complex, work together to cause T- cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL).
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