Studying epithelial cells, the cell type that most commonly turns cancerous, Johns Hopkins researchers have identified a protein that causes cells to release from their neighbors and migrate away from healthy mammary, or breast, tissue in mice.
Although long recognized as an essential defense against the lung-invading fungus Asperfillus fumigatus, Neutrophils actually require a little help from fellow immune cells, according to a study by Amariliz Rivera, her colleagues at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School and scientists at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.
Cardiovascular researchers from the Cardiovascular Research Center at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute, and University of California, San Diego have identified a small, but powerful, new player in the onset and progression of heart failure. Their findings, published in the journal Nature on March 12, also show how they successfully blocked the newly discovered culprit to halt the debilitating and chronic life-threatening condition in its tracks.
The nucleoside adenosine—a tiny chemical structure made up of a simple base linked to a sugar—is critical for the regulation of bodily functions ranging from blood flow to tissue repair to sleep. Now, researchers at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School show that adenosine is essential in promoting the development of a type of immune response that helps oust gut-infecting worms.
Introducing three proteins that control the regulation of DNA in the nucleus -- called transcription factors -- into an immune-deficient mouse turned a specific group of cells in the gut lining into beta-like cells.
Discovering where a common virus hides in the body has been a long-term quest for scientists. Up to 80 percent of adults harbor the human cytomegalovirus (HCMV), which can cause severe illness and death in people with weakened immune systems. Now, researchers report that stem cells that encircle blood vessels can be a hiding place, suggesting a potential treatment target.
Biologists have believed that cancers cells spread through the body in a slow, aimless fashion, resembling a drunk who can't walk three steps in a straight line. They now know that's true in a flat petri dish, but not in the three-dimensional space of an actual body.
Kinases are proteins that play vital roles in disease, but scientists have struggled to study how they interact in real time. The lab of UNC's Klaus Hahn has developed a new technique to make these interactions occur and then watch them in real time to reveal some underlying causes of metastasis.
Springing clocks forward by an hour this Sunday is one example of an activity that can disrupt our daily rhythms. NIH-funded researchers are piecing together the molecular mechanisms of our biological clocks to better understand the intricate relationship among these clocks, daily rhythms and physiology.
Writing in the journal Molecular Cell, a team led by Mikhail Nikiforov, PhD, has identified a previously unrecognized feed-forward mechanism of reactive-oxygen-species regulation.
A new study in Cell Reports identifies a gene important to breast development and breast cancer, providing a potential new target for drug therapies to treat aggressive types of breast cancer.
An enzyme that helps maintain immune system function by “throwing away” a specific protein has a vital role in controlling symptoms of allergic asthma, new research in mice suggests. The finding suggests the enzyme could be a target for drugs used to treat allergic asthma.
Like mobsters following strict orders, newly engineered molecules called “ubiquibodies” can mark specific proteins inside a cell for destruction – a molecular kiss of death that is paving the way for new drug therapies and powerful research tools.
Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute have invented small-molecule folding probes that enable them to quantify functional, normally folded and disease-associated misfolded conformations (shapes) of a protein-of-interest in cells under different conditions.
Johns Hopkins researchers say they have identified a set of genes that appear to predict which tumors can evade detection by the body’s immune system, a step that may enable them to eventually target only the patients most likely to respond best to a new class of treatment.
In a study that began in a pair of infant siblings with a rare heart defect, Johns Hopkins researchers say they have identified a key molecular switch that regulates heart cell division and normally turns the process off around the time of birth. Their research, they report, could advance efforts to turn the process back on and regenerate heart tissue damaged by heart attacks or disease.
Scientists reported today on at least five new experimental substances — based on a tiny protein found in cone snail venom — that could someday lead to the development of safe and effective oral medications for the treatment of chronic nerve pain. They say the substances could potentially be stronger than morphine, with fewer side effects and lower risk of abuse. They presented the research at the 247th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society.
In response to drug-resistant “superbugs” that send millions of people to hospitals around the world, scientists are building tiny, “molecular drill bits” that kill bacteria by bursting through their protective cell walls. They presented some of the latest developments on these drill bits, better known to scientists as antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), at the 247th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society.
When cancer spreads, it becomes even more deadly. It moves with stealth and can go undetected for months or years. But a new technology that uses “nano-flares” has the potential to catch these tumor cells early. Today, at the 247th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, scientists presented the latest advances in nano-flare technology as it applies to the detection of metastatic breast cancer cells.
Using technologies and computational modeling that trace the destiny of single cells, researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine describe for the first time the earliest stages of fate determination among white blood cells called T lymphocytes, providing new insights that may help drug developers create more effective, longer-lasting vaccines against microbial pathogens or cancer.
University of Adelaide researchers have developed a new web-based tool to help unlock the complex genetics and biological processes behind grapevine development.
Stars, diamonds, circles. Rather than your average bowl of Lucky Charms, these are three-dimensional cell cultures generated by an exciting new digital microfluidics platform, the results of which have been published in Nature Communications
Researchers created new nerve cells in the brains and spinal cords of living mammals without the need for stem cell transplants to replenish lost cells.
Cancer cells have long been known to have higher rates of the energy-generating metabolic pathway known as glycolysis. This enhanced glycolysis is thought to allow cancer cells to survive the oxygen-deficient conditions they experience in the center of solid tumors. Researchers reveal how damaged cells normally switch off glycolysis as they shut down and show that defects in this process may contribute to the early stages of tumor development.
An ancient chemical, present for billions of years, appears to have helped proteins function properly since time immemorial.
Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified an unusual cause of the lysosomal storage disorder called mucolipidosis III, at least in a subset of patients. Unlike most genetic diseases that involve dysfunctional or missing proteins, the culprit is a normal protein that ends up in the wrong place.
The largest clinical study ever conducted to date of patients with advanced leukemia found that 88 percent achieved complete remissions after being treated with genetically modified versions of their own immune cells.
Vanderbilt researchers report that they have taken an important step toward the goal of growing replacement heart valves from a patient’s own cells by determining that the mechanical forces generated by the rhythmic expansion and contraction of cardiac muscle cells play an active role in the initial stage of heart valve formation.
Plop living, swimming bacteria into a novel water-based, nontoxic liquid crystal and a new physics takes over. The dynamic interaction of the bacteria with the liquid crystal creates a novel form of soft matter: living liquid crystal. Researchers, based at Kent State University and Argonne National Laboratory, will present their findings on this new type of active material, which holds promise for improving the early detection of diseases, at the 58th annual Biophysical Society Meeting.
The Immune Tolerance Network’s (ITN) HALT-MS study, 24 patients with relapsing, remitting multiple sclerosis received high-dose immunosuppression followed by a transplant of their own stem cells. Data published today quantified and characterized T cell populations following this aggressive regimen.
The idea that sex sells is generally accepted as fact. The idea that the sex of cells is important to biomedical research is not as well-known, but an article co-written by a researcher at UAB suggests that the sex of individual cells matters.
Prions can be notoriously destructive, spurring proteins to misfold and interfere with cellular function as they spread without control. New research, published in the open access journal PLOS Biology on February 11 2014, from scientists at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research reveals that certain prion-like proteins, however, can be precisely controlled so that they are generated only in a specific time and place. These prion-like proteins are not involved in disease processes; rather, they are essential for creating and maintaining long-term memories.
The elusive progenitor cells that give rise to innate lymphoid cells—a recently discovered group of infection-fighting white blood cells—have been identified in fetal liver and adult bone marrow of mice.
Studying a cycle of protein interactions needed to make fat, Johns Hopkins researchers say they have discovered a biological switch that regulates a protein that causes fatty liver disease in mice. Their findings, they report, may help develop drugs to decrease excessive fat production and its associated conditions in people, including fatty liver disease and diabetes.
Researchers at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research have glimpsed two proteins working together inside living cells to facilitate communication between the cell's nucleus and its exterior compartment, the cytoplasm. The research provides new clues into how a crucial protein that is found in organisms from yeast to humans does its work.
A team led by scientists at The Scripps Research Institute has discovered an unusual bacterial protein that attaches to virtually any antibody and prevents it from binding to its target.
An international team of researchers, led by scientists from the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and Indiana University, have identified a protein that broadly regulates how genetic information transcribed from DNA to messenger RNA (mRNA) is processed and ultimately translated into the myriad of proteins necessary for life.
In most cases of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or Lou Gehrig’s disease, a toxin released by cells that normally nurture neurons in the brain and spinal cord can trigger loss of the nerve cells affected in the disease, Columbia researchers reported today in the online edition of the journal Neuron.
Molecular biologists from Indiana University are part of a team that has identified a protein that regulates the information present in a large number of messenger ribonucleic acid molecules that are important for carrying genetic information from DNA to protein synthesis.
That fruit fly appearing moments after you poured that first glass of cabernet, has just used a poppy-seed-sized brain to conduct a finely-choreographed search and arrive in time for happy hour.
All creatures great and small, including fruitflies, need sleep. The timing of when we sleep versus are awake is controlled by cells in tune with circadian rhythms of light and dark. Most of the molecular components of that internal clock have been worked out. On the other hand, what drives how much we sleep is less well understood. Researchers report a new protein involved in the homeostatic regulation of sleep in the fruitfly.
A new study published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry by George Washington University researcher Michael Bukrinsky, M.D., Ph.D., shows similarities in the pathogenesis of prion disease — misfolded proteins that can lead to neurological diseases — and the HIV virus.
Biologists from MIT's Koch Institute identify a drug that can help wipe out reservoirs of cancer cells in bone marrow.
New research from HHMI scientists reveals how a foreign-DNA-destroying system, known as CRISPR, efficiently locates its DNA targets within a bacterial genome.
The development of DNA-based vaccines with cytokine adjuvants has emerged as particularly promising for inducing antiviral and anti-tumor, cell-mediated immune responses. The protein IL-33 boosts the immune system of a human papilloma virus animal model of cancer.
In studying the impact of DNA damage on the Golgi, a research team from the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research have discovered a novel pathway activated by DNA damage, with important consequences for the body’s cellular response to chemotherapy.
Whitehead Institute researchers have determined that poly(A) tails on messenger RNAs (mRNAs) shift their role in the regulation of protein production during early embryogenesis. This finding about the regulation of mRNA translation also provides insight into how microRNAs control protein production.
Aside from the 2013 Nobel Prize in Medicine going to the discoverers of this highly organized transport system, scientific interest in a particular group of vesicles called exosomes has accelerated over the last several years. Andrew K. Godwin, Ph.D., professor and director of molecular oncology at the University of Kansas Medical Center, is among the researchers studying the potential clinical applications of these specialized structures.
Kinesins are motor proteins that “walk” along microtubules and transport various cargoes throughout the cell. Researchers uncover an unexpected role for one kinesin in the pathway that regulates cholesterol levels in the blood.
Investigators at Johns Hopkins report they have developed human induced-pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) capable of repairing damaged retinal vascular tissue in mice. The stem cells, derived from human umbilical cord-blood and coaxed into an embryonic-like state, were grown without the conventional use of viruses, which can mutate genes and initiate cancers, according to the scientists. Their safer method of growing the cells has drawn increased support among scientists, they say, and paves the way for a stem cell bank of cord-blood derived iPSCs to advance regenerative medicine research.
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