Feature Channels: Cell Biology

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A new technique that searches blood for the tiniest remnants of broken down proteins has revealed new information about how cells crank up cancer activators called proteases. The results improve researchers' understanding of the mechanics of breast cancer and point to where to look for possible indicators of early disease. Appearing this week in PLoS ONE, the research shows previously unknown contributing factors to protease activation, which helps spread cancer.

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A paper by NIST researchers may breathe new life into the use of a powerful--but tricky--diagnostic technique for cell biology.

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Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found that fluctuations in internal body temperature regulate the body’s circadian rhythm, the 24-hour cycle that controls metabolism, sleep and other bodily functions.

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Whale feces float--and strongly enhance productivity of fisheries, scientists at the University of Vermont and Harvard have found, reversing the assumption that whales accelerate loss of nutrients to the bottom. This nitrogen input in the Gulf of Maine is more than the input of all rivers combined, 23,000 metric tons annually.

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Using large-scale computer simulations, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have identified the most important factors affecting how molecules move through the crowded environment inside living cells.

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Microbes matter -- perhaps more than anyone realizes -- in basic biological development and, maybe, they could be a target for reducing cancer risks, according to University of Oregon researchers.

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By reconstructing an ancient protein and tracing how it subtly changed over vast periods of time to produce scores of modern-day descendants, scientists have shown how evolution tinkers with early forms and leaves the impression that complexity evolved many times.

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Researchers at Vanderbilt University, Pennsylvania State University and the University of Pittsburgh have discovered a fundamentally new way that DNA-repair enzymes detect and fix damage to the chemical bases that form the letters in the genetic code.

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A calcium-sensing protein, STIM1, known to activate store-operated calcium channels has been found to also inhibit voltage-operated calcium channels.

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High levels of the stress hormone cortisol play a critical role in blocking testosterone's influence on competition and domination, according to new psychology research at The University of Texas at Austin.

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Conductive polymers are plastic materials with high electrical conductivity that promise to revolutionize a wide range of products including TV displays, solar cells, and biomedical sensors. A team of McGill University researchers have now reported how to visualize and study the process of energy transport along one single conductive polymer molecule at a time, a key step towards bringing these exciting new applications to market.

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Researchers at Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah demonstrate in a study featured today in Cell the mechanism by which mutation of the APC gene affects a cellular process known as DNA methylation.

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Investigators, led by researchers at the University of California, San Diego, have mapped a huge network of protein interactions involving Mitogen Activated Protein Kinase (MAPK) pathways. Their study will be published in the advanced online edition of Nature Methods on September 19.

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Rod cells – one of three kinds of exquisitely photosensitive cells found in the retina of the eye – are surprisingly found to be the only ones responsible for “setting” our internal clocks in low light.

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Researchers have long believed that starving cancer cells of glutamine, which cancer cells require in larger quantities than normal cells, would help fight some cancers. Now, they have discovered a molecule that does the job.

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By constructing a microscope apparatus that achieves resolution never before possible in living cells, researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have illuminated the molecular interactions that occur during one of the most important “trips” in all of biology: the journey of individual messenger Ribonucleic acid (RNA) molecules from the nucleus into the cytoplasm (the area between the nucleus and cell membrane) so that proteins can be made.

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Proteins are made up of a chain of amino acids, and scientists have known since the 1980s that first one in the chain determines the lifetime of a protein. McGill researchers have finally discovered how the cell identifies this first amino acid – and caught it on camera.

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Scientists from the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have identified dendritic antigen-presenting cells in zebrafish, opening the possibility that the tiny fish could become a new model for studying the complexities of the human immune system.

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Researchers at the Buck Institute for Age Research have discovered a novel way in which insulin affects cell metabolism and cell survival. Surprisingly the insulin signaling pathway, which is involved in aging, diabetes and stress response, is active at a deeper level of cell activity than scientists expected.

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Long-sought chemical antioxidants in the world’s toughest microbe is reported in a breakthrough study.

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Researchers at the University of California, San Diego have revealed new details about how cannibalistic bacteria identify peers suitable for consumption. The work, which employed imaging mass spectrometry, is a first step toward a broader effort to map all signaling molecules between organisms

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Johns Hopkins researchers working on mice have discovered a protein that is a major target of a gene that, when mutated in humans, causes tumors to develop on nerves associated with hearing, as well as cataracts in the eyes.

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A long-held assumption about asymmetrical division of stem cells has cracked. Researchers at the University of Oregon report that the mitotic spindle does not act alone -- that cortical proteins help to position a cleavage furrow in the right location.

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Four key studies now propose a new theory about how cancer cells grow and survive, allowing researchers to design better diagnostics and therapies to target high-risk cancer patients. These studies were conducted by a large team of researchers at Thomas Jefferson University’s Kimmel Cancer Center.

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In these lean times, smart consumers refuse to pay a lot for throwaway items, but will shell out a little more for products that can be used again and again. The same is true of bacteria and other microbes, researchers at the University of Michigan have learned.

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The complex circulatory system of cephalopods teaches researchers how accessory hearts can remedy peripheral arterial disease in humans.

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In a paper published in the September issue of the Journal of Lipid Research, a team of scientists, led by researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, has mapped for the first time the actual locations of specific lipids within a single cell.

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A common form of dwarfism is caused by a single genetic mutation. If a scientist could figure out precisely how this errant protein causes trouble, then a way to prevent the condition might be found. Sounds like a job for a biologist. But what about an engineer?

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Researchers from Mount Sinai School of Medicine have enhanced our understanding of the mechanism by which cells achieve energy conversion, the process in which food is converted into the energy required by cells. This groundbreaking research helps scientists gain atomic-level insight into how organisms synthesize their major form of chemical energy.

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Just what causes the birth of a human fat cell is a mystery, but scientists using mathematics to tackle the question have come up with a few predictions about the proteins that influence this process.

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Short pieces of RNA, called microRNAs, control protein production primarily by causing the proteins’ RNA templates (known as messenger RNA or mRNA) to be disabled by the cell, according to Whitehead Institute scientists.

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Researchers have uncovered a mechanism that regulates the processing of microRNAs (miRNAs), molecules that regulate cell growth, development, and stress response. The discovery helps researchers understand the links between miRNA expression and chronic disease.

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Researchers at UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center and the departments of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Pathology and Laboratory Medicine have uncovered a role for an essential cell protein in shuttling RNA into the mitochondria, the energy-producing “power plant” of the cell.

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The true power of genomic research lies in its ability to help scientists understand biological processes, particularly those that – when altered – can lead to disease. This power is demonstrated dramatically in a pair of papers published today in the journal Nature. In the first, a global team of researchers describes 95 different variations across the genome that contribute in different degrees to alterations in blood cholesterol and triglyceride levels in multiple human populations. In the second report, close examination of just one of these common variants not only reveals the involvement of an unexpected genetic pathway in lipid metabolism but also provides a blueprint for using genomic findings to unravel biological connections between lipid levels and coronary heart disease.

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UNC researchers have identified an enzyme that blocks chronic pain by robbing a major pain pathway of a key ingredient. The enzyme could prevent lasting pain after surgery.

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A research team led by University of Illinois at Chicago chemist Lawrence Miller has developed a new technique to tag and image proteins within living mammalian cells, providing the clearest, most dynamic microscopic protein-protein interaction in cells ever viewed.

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Like a scout that runs ahead to spot signs of damage or danger, a protein in yeast safeguards the yeast cells' genome during replication -- a process vulnerable to errors when DNA is copied -- according to new Cornell research.

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Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have identified a new way to regulate the uncontrolled growth of blood vessels, a major problem in a broad range of diseases and conditions.

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Researchers have found that an enzyme in the bacteria that causes cholera uses a previously unknown mechanism in providing the bacteria with energy. Because the enzyme is not found in most other organisms, including humans, the finding offers insights into how drugs might be created to kill the bacteria without harming humans.

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Investigators have described a previously unknown biological mechanism in cells that prevents them from cannibalizing themselves for fuel. The mechanism involves the fuel used by cells under normal conditions and relies on an ongoing transfer of calcium between two cell components via an ion channel. Without this transfer, cells start consuming themselves as a way of to get enough energy.

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Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have uncovered the biological rationale for why large doses of corticosteroids given repeatedly over several weeks may help individuals with lupus, a chronic inflammatory disease that affects more than 1 million people in the U.S.

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Apoptosis, programmed cell death, is essential to normal development, healthy immune system function, and cancer prevention. The process dramatically transforms cellular structures but the limitations of conventional microscopy methods have kept much about this structural reorganization a mystery.

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A new study by Johns Hopkins researchers has found that insulin, the sugar-regulating hormone, is required for normal bone development and that it may provide a link between bone health and metabolic disease, such as diabetes.

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Virginia Tech engineers and Tufts biologists have discovered internal soft-tissue movements of freely crawling caterpillars are massively out of sync with the external body movements.

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New research, published in the journal Development, by Dr. Anthony-Samuel LaMantia, professor of Pharmacology & Physiology and director of the newly formed GW Institute for Neuroscience, and his colleagues have identified the stem cells that generate three critical classes of nerve cells – olfactory receptors (ORNs), vomeronasal (VRNs) and gonadotropin releasing hormone (GnRH) neurons – that are responsible for enabling animals and humans, to eat, interact socially and reproduce.

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New research at the University of Haifa has made a breakthrough in identifying chemical substances released by mosquitoes' natural predators that function as warning signals for egg laying mosquitoes.

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The Association for Molecular Pathology (AMP) participated in the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH) public meeting on the oversight of laboratory developed tests (LDTs). Dr. Karen Mann, President of AMP, served on the second panel of the meeting titled, Clinical Laboratory Challenges. Additionally, Dr. Elaine Lyon, Chair of the AMP Professional Relations Committee, presented public comments.

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A major discovery, led by researchers from The George Washington University Medical Center, promises to revolutionize the way scientists think about key aspects of cellular lifecycle and offers a new avenue for cancer researchers to explore in their quest to one day slow down the progression of cancer.

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Research finds that mice without working rods and cones can still see -- and not just light, but also patterns and images -- thanks to other photosensitive cells in the retina.

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In cells, as in cities, disposing of garbage and recycling anything that can be reused is an essential service. In both city and cell, health problems can arise when the process breaks down.