Feature Channels: Cell Biology

• share
• favorite_border

A team of international researchers led by Professor Lim Chwee Teck, Principal Investigator, and Dr Hiroaki Hirata, Research Fellow, at the Mechanobiology Institute at the National University of Singapore (NUS), together with Professor Masahiro Sokabe from Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine, has recently discovered that living cell migration is regulated by the engagement of a force transmitter composed of vinculin and talin, two types of cytoskeletal protein. The researchers showed that force-dependent vinculin binding to talin plays a critical role in mechanically connecting the actin cytoskeleton to the extracellular substrate to contribute towards cell migration.

• share
• favorite_border

In a paper published online this week in Nature, researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine elaborate upon a crucial signaling pathway and the role of key proteins, which may help clear the way to generate HSCs from human pluripotent precursors, similar to advances with other kinds of tissue stem cells.

• share
• favorite_border

One of the human body’s first responses to a viral infection is to make and release signaling proteins called interferons, which amplify the immune system response to viruses. Over time, many viruses have evolved to undermine interferon’s immune-boosting signal, and a paper published today in the journal Cell Host & Microbe describes a mechanism unique to the Ebola virus that defeats attempts by interferon to block viral reproduction in infected cells.

• share
• favorite_border

In infants born prematurely, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found that the population of bacteria in babies’ gastrointestinal tracts may depend more on their biological makeup and gestational age at birth than on environmental factors. The scientists discovered that bacterial communities assemble in an orderly, choreographed progression, with the pace of that assembly slowest in infants born most prematurely.

• share
• favorite_border

A decade after first identifying serum amyloid P (SAP) as a key protein in human blood that controls routine tissue-related processes from scarring to healing, two Texas A&M University scientists continue to make encouraging progress in the fight against fibrotic disease.

• share
• favorite_border

Building upon previous research, scientists at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and Veteran’s Affairs San Diego Healthcare System report that neurons derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) and grafted into rats after a spinal cord injury produced cells with tens of thousands of axons extending virtually the entire length of the animals’ central nervous system.

• share
• favorite_border

New research partly led by UC San Francisco-affiliated scientists suggests that one in 10 cancer patients would be more accurately diagnosed if their tumors were defined by cellular and molecular criteria rather than by the tissues in which they originated, and that this information, in turn, could lead to more appropriate treatments.

• share
• favorite_border

UC San Francisco researchers have identified cells’ unique features within the developing human brain, using the latest technologies for analyzing gene activity in individual cells, and have demonstrated that large-scale cell surveys can be done much more efficiently and cheaply than was previously thought possible.

• share
• favorite_border

Journalists are invited to participate in a "Newswise Live Event" this Thursday and join Nobel laureate Dan Shechtman and a distinguished panel of crystallography experts who will detail new discoveries and describe some of the international activities in 2014, a special year for this field.

• share
• favorite_border

Healthy breast cells may be able to reinvent themselves -- some have the flexibility to change after they are mature -- which leads researchers to postulate that similarities exist between this occurrence and the origins of a particularly aggressive type of breast cancer.

• share
• favorite_border

One protein with the even more out-there name of ZEB1 (zinc finger E-box binding homeobox 1), is now thought to keep breast cancer cells from being successfully treated with radiation therapy, according to a study at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

• share
• favorite_border

Crafty parasites undergo dramatic shape changes that enable them to adapt to different living conditions and thrive. Researchers show that these transformations might not be as difficult as they appear.

• share
• favorite_border

While developing an important cancer drug, Wistar scientists discovered that mice without the TRAP-1 protein live healthier longer lives, with fewer tumors and signs of aging.

• share
• favorite_border

Biologists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have identified a signaling pathway that switches on a powerful calorie-burning process in brown fat cells.

• share
• favorite_border

In a study published today in Genes & Development, Dr Christian Speck from the MRC Clinical Sciences Centre’s DNA Replication group, in collaboration with Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), New York, reveal the intricate mechanisms involved in the enzyme that governs DNA duplication during cell division.

• share
• favorite_border

Long associated with enabling the proliferation of cancer cells, the ancient cellular survival response regulated by Heat-Shock Factor 1 (HSF1) can also turn neighboring cells in their environment into co-conspirators that support malignant progression and metastasis. implications for the diagnosis, prognosis, and management of cancer patients.

• share
• favorite_border

The immune system ages and weakens with time, making the elderly prone to life-threatening infection and other maladies, and a UC San Francisco research team now has discovered a reason why.

• share
• favorite_border

A new study from UC San Francisco is the first to show that while the impact of life’s stressors accumulate overtime and accelerate cellular aging, these negative effects may be reduced by maintaining a healthy diet, exercising and sleeping well.

• share
• favorite_border

Most cells do not divide unless there is enough oxygen present to support their offspring, but certain cancer cells and other cell types circumvent this rule. Researchers have now identified a mechanism that overrides the cells’ warning signals, enabling cancers to continue to divide even without a robust blood supply.

• share
• favorite_border

Embryonic stem cell (ESC) research has been hampered by the inability to transfer research and tools from mouse ESC studies to their human counterparts, in part because human ESCs are “primed” and slightly less plastic than the mouse cells. Now researchers in the lab of Whitehead Institute Founding Member Rudolf Jaenisch have discovered how to manipulate and maintain human ESCs into a “naïve” or base pluripotent state similar to that of mouse ESCs without the use of any reprogramming factors.