University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill researchers have revealed the genetic underpinnings of cells – called Foxp3-expressing regulatory T cells or Tregs – that can prevent the immune response from turning cannibalistic.
Research suggests high dietary salt intake and obesity work together to trigger an abnormal activation of a cellular protein called Rac1.
Technique for observing how proteins work in human tissue from cystic fibrosis patients yields new insights into the cellular processes of disease.
Cystic fibrosis is caused by a genetic defect. Although scientists do not fully understand how or why the defect occurs, researchers have found that a protein called ubiquitin ligase Nedd4 may hold a promising clue
Scientists have identified a surprising new role for a new type of T cell in the immune system: some of them can be activated by nerves to make a neurotransmitter (acetylcholine) that blocks inflammation. The discovery of these T cells is novel and suggests that it may be possible to treat inflammation and autoimmune diseases by targeting the nerves and the T cells.
Making use of a new “super resolution” microscope that provides sharp images at extremely small scales, scientists have achieved unprecedented views of the immune system in action.
Gene therapy delivered directly to a particularly stubborn type of breast cancer cell causes the cells to self-destruct, lowers chance of recurrence and helps increase the effectiveness of some types of chemotherapy, researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center reported in the Sept. 13 edition of Cancer Cell.
A research team led by Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center has discovered proteins in the blood that are associated with early lung cancer development in mice and humans. The advance brings the reality of a blood test for the early detection and diagnosis of lung cancer a step closer.
Toxin proteins are genetically engineered into our food because they kill insects by perforating body cell walls, and Professor Rikard Blunck of the University of Montreal’s Group for the study of membrane proteins (GÉPROM) has detected the molecular mechanism involved.
In a study published today (Sunday, Sept. 11), researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison report the first full measurement of the proteins made by both types of stem cells. In a study that looked at four embryonic stem cells and four IPS cells, the proteins turned out to be 99 percent similar, says Joshua Coon, an associate professor of chemistry and biomolecular chemistry who directed the project.
Dana-Farber researchers successfully disrupted the function of the gene MYC by tampering with the gene's "on" switch and growth signals in multiple myeloma cells, offering promising strategy for treating myeloma and other cancers driven by the MYC gene.
A somewhat mysterious soft tissue found in the fetus during early development in the womb plays a pivotal role in the formation of mature beta cells the sole source of the body’s insulin. This discovery, made by scientists at University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and Texas A&M University, may lead to new ways of addressing Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes.
NYU School of Medicine researchers have discovered that dendritic cells in the liver have a protective role against the toxicity of acetaminophen, the widely used over-the-counter pain reliever and fever reducer for adults and children. The study’s findings are published in the September issue of the journal Hepatology.
If you think today's political rhetoric is overheated, imagine what goes on inside a vertebrate embryo. There, two armies whose agendas are poles apart, engage in a battle with consequences much more dire than whether the economy will recover---- they are battling for whether you (or frogs or chickens) will have a forebrain.
University of Virginia researchers have developed a revolutionary three-dimensional model that allows them to visualize how breast tissue grows in its earliest stages, giving them the closest look ever at the very beginnings of breast cancer. The new model represents a major scientific milestone – it’s the first time scientists have been able to successfully and accurately replicate the early growth of human breast tissue outside of the body.
DNA/histone combination, a destination for cell signals, also talks to other proteins
Nerve cells that regulate everything from heart muscle to salivary glands send out projections known as axons to their targets. By way of these axonal processes, neurons control target function and receive molecular signals from targets that return to the cell body to support cell survival. Now, Johns Hopkins researchers have revealed a molecular mechanism that allows a signal from the target to return to the cell body and fulfill its neuron-sustaining mission.
Ever since scientists first began growing human cells in lab dishes in 1952, they have focused on improving the chemical soup that feeds the cells and helps regulate their growth. But surfaces also matter, says Laura Kiessling, a professor of chemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Most cells rely on structural tethers to position chromosomes in preparation for cell division. Not so oocytes. Instead, a powerful intracellular stream pushes chromosomes far-off the center in preparation for the highly asymmetric cell division that completes oocyte maturation upon fertilization of the egg, report researchers at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research.
The same trait that makes a rare immune cell invaluable in fighting some infections also can be exploited by other diseases to cause harm, two new studies show.
The delivery system for an important class of proteins in the cell membrane can be fully replicated with a mere three components, according to a new study published in Nature.
Researchers at the Joslin Diabetes Center have shown that an enzyme found in the mitochondria of cells is decreased in the skeletal muscle of those with type 2 diabetes, a finding that could lead to the development of drugs to boost the activity of this enzyme in an effort to fight the disease.
Researchers at NYU School of Medicine have discovered the cellular mechanisms that normally generate chromosomal breaks in bacteria such as E. coli. The study’s findings are published in the August 18 issue of the journal Cell.
New findings by scientists at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and Whitehead Institute point to a decentralized society in tumors, with cancer cells able to interconvert between different types. These results have potential implications for the treatment of tumors, in particular, that attacking cancer stem cells alone may not be enough to fight cancer.
A visiting researcher from Sweden in the Indiana University College of Arts and Sciences' Biology Department has led an international team in culturing, characterizing and formally naming a new class of fungi that previously had only been identified through DNA sequencing from environmental samples.
Stem cell researchers at UCLA have discovered that three types of cells derived from human embryonic stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells are similar to each other, but are much more developmentally immature than previously thought when compared to those same cell types taken directly from human tissue.
Researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine have found a protein normally involved in blood pressure regulation in a surprising place: tucked within the little “power plants” of cells, the mitochondria. The quantity of this protein appears to decrease with age, but treating older mice with the blood pressure medication losartan can increase protein numbers to youthful levels, decreasing both blood pressure and cellular energy usage. The researchers say these findings, published online during the week of August 15, 2011, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, may lead to new treatments for mitochondrial–specific, age-related diseases, such as diabetes, hearing loss, frailty and Parkinson’s disease.
A research team led by St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital scientists has identified a potential new target for treatment of the childhood eye tumor retinoblastoma. Their work also settles a scientific debate by showing the cancer’s cellular origins are as scrambled as the developmental pathways at work in the tumor.
In a new study published in the August 16th issue of Developmental Cell, researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center identified a molecular mechanism that guarantees that new blood vessels form in the right place and with the proper abundance.
Salmonella cells have hijacked the protein-building process to maintain their ability to cause illness, new research suggests.
New research led by Derya Unutmaz, MD associate professor, the Departments of Pathology, Medicine, and Microbiology at NYU School of Medicine and Mark Sundrud, PhD, of Tempero Pharmaceuticals, Inc., has identified a novel sensory pathway that modulates the potency of Th17 cell responses. The new research is highlighted in the August 8th online edition of the Journal of Experimental Medicine.
UVA Health System researchers have made a pivotal discovery in understanding the complicated process of neurogenesis, and their findings could one day help scientists devise novel therapies to promote neurogenesis in the adult brain and re-establish its function in patients suffering from depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and other mental disorders, in which adult neurogenesis is impaired.
Our bodies are perfectly capable of renewing billions of cells every day but fail miserably when it comes to replacing damaged organs such as kidneys. Using the flatworm Schmidtea mediterranea—famous for its capacity to regrow complete animals from minuscule flecks of tissue—as an eloquent example, researchers at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research demonstrated how our distant evolutionary cousins regenerate their excretory systems from scratch.
Stem cell researchers at UCLA have uncovered for the first time why adult human cardiac myocytes have lost their ability to proliferate, perhaps explaining why the human heart has little regenerative capacity.
A person’s ability to battle viruses at the cellular level remarkably resembles the way deadly infectious agents called prions misfold and cluster native proteins to cause disease, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers report.
New findings from the Monell Center may lend insight into why some people are especially sensitive to bitter tastes. Researchers have identified a protein inside of taste cells that acts to shorten bitter taste signals. Mice lacking the gene for this taste terminator protein are more sensitive to bitter taste and also find it more aversive.
The ability to tag proteins with a green fluorescent light to watch how they behave inside cells so revolutionized the understanding of protein biology that it earned the scientific teams who developed the technique Nobel Prizes in 2008. Now, researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College have developed a similar fluorescent tool that can track the mysterious workings of the various forms of cellular RNA.
The eon-spanning clock of evolution – the millions of years that generally pass before organisms acquire new traits – belies a constant ferment in the chambers and channels of cells, as changes in genes and proteins have subtle ripple effects throughout an organism. In a study in the July 29 issue of Science, scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute’s Center for Cancer Systems Biology and an international team of colleagues capture the first evidence of the evolutionary process within networks of plant proteins.
Salk Institute and Dana Farber Cancer Institute researchers contribute to production of largest-ever map of plant protein interactions.
Using a “systems biology” approach – which focuses on understanding the complex relationships between biological systems – to look under the hood of an aggressive form of breast cancer, researchers for the first time have identified a set of proteins in the blood that change in abundance long before the cancer is clinically detectable.
Cells that were thought to be identical and responsible both for setting the body’s circadian rhythm and for the pupil’s reaction to light and darkness, are actually two different cells, each responsible for one of those tasks.
An approach developed at the Weizmann Institute could make adoptive cell transfer cancer therapy cheaper and more effective.
A regulatory T cell that expresses three specific genes shuts down the mass production of antibodies launched by the immune system to attack invaders, a team led by scientists at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center reported online in the journal Nature Medicine.
A molecular technique originally developed at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has taken one step closer to becoming a treatment for the devastating genetic disease Duchenne muscular dystrophy.
The discovery of the mechanism of action behind a novel class of anticancer drugs designed to disrupt cancer cell mitochondrial metabolism may be a major step toward furthering clinical trials of the agents.
Scientists have identified a family of proteins that close a critical gap in an enzyme that is essential to all life, allowing the enzyme to maintain its grip on DNA and start the activation of genes. The enzyme, called RNA polymerase, is responsible for setting gene expression in motion in all cells.
A simple cut to the skin unleashes a complex cascade of chemistry to stem the flow of blood. Now, scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have used evolutionary clues to reveal how a key clotting protein assembles. The finding sheds new light on common bleeding disorders.
Drug developers have long been looking for agents that will target a cell receptor that regulates stress in humans, but no small molecule drugs have successfully gone through clinical studies. Now, a team at the Salk Institute has demonstrated how a novel tool can be used to map the binding sites on this receptor, which they say could speed the design of effective therapies.
A new study describes how hyperactivation of AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) promotes neurodegeneration in Huntington’s disease (HD). The article appears online on July 18, 2011, in The Journal of Cell Biology.
Novel contrast agents that sneak into bacteria disguised as glucose food can detect bacterial infections in animals with high sensitivity and specificity. These agents -- called maltodextrin-based imaging probes -- can also distinguish a bacterial infection from other inflammatory conditions.
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