Researchers from the laboratory of Paul Trainor, Ph.D., at the Stowers Institute of Medical Research have developed an effective and reliable technique for studying high-arched palate using a mouse model. The methodology could expand research into the genetic aspects of this craniofacial abnormality.
In two new studies, researchers in the laboratory of Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator Alejandro Sánchez Alvarado, Ph.D., at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research explore the intricate processes at work when stem cells differentiate into planarian skin cells.
During the holidays, we often remember the past and create new memories. But, why do some memories fade away while others last forever? Scientists at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research have identified a possible biochemical mechanism by which the specialized brain cells known as neurons create and maintain a long-term memory from a fleeting experience.
A particular location in DNA, called the Dlk1-Gtl2 locus, plays a critical role in protecting hematopoietic, or blood-forming, stem cells—a discovery revealing a critical role of metabolic control in adult stem cells, and providing insight for potentially diagnosing and treating cancer, according to researchers from the Stowers Institute for Medical Research.
Researchers in the Workman Lab at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research have identified a link between cellular metabolism and gene expression, one with potentially far-reaching implications for cancer risk prediction and treatment.
A team of researchers from the Stowers Institute for Medical Research and the University of Colorado Boulder has devised a novel optical technique — a combination of structured illumination microscopy (SIM) and single-particle averaging (SPA) — to resolve individual components of SPB duplication in living yeast cells.
A new study in Developmental Cell, from Stowers Institute for Medical Research Associate Investigator Tatjana Piotrowski, Ph.D., zeros in on an important component in fish: the support cells that surround centrally-located hair cells in each garlic-shaped sensory organ, or neuromast.
Researchers at the Stowers Institute have shown that a molecule called elongin A assists with transcription.
Sánchez Alvarado, known for his groundbreaking work on the biology of the planaria—a flatworm model organism known for its regenerative abilities, has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Researchers at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research have developed a high-resolution method that can precisely and reliably map individual transcription factor binding sites in the genome, vastly outperforming standard techniques
Using theoretical and experimental approaches, researchers at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research have developed a two-pronged strategy that uses an evolving cell population’s adaptive nature against it.
The development of a new organism from the joining of two single cells is a carefully orchestrated endeavor. But even before sperm meets egg, an equally elaborate set of choreographed steps must occur to ensure successful sexual reproduction. Those steps, known as reproductive cell division or meiosis, split the original number of chromosomes in half so that offspring will inherit half their genetic material from one parent and half from the other.
While megakaryocytes are best known for producing platelets that heal wounds, these “mega” cells found in bone marrow also play a critical role in regulating stem cells according to new research from the Stowers Institute for Medical Research. In fact, hematopoietic stem cells differentiate to generate megakaryocytes in bone marrow. The Stowers study is the first to show that hematopoietic stem cells (the parent cells) can be directly controlled by their own progeny (megakaryocytes).
Scientists at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research have made a surprising finding about the aggregates of misfolded cellular proteins that have been linked to aging-related disorders such as Parkinson’s disease. The researchers report their results in the October 16, 2014 online issue of the journal Cell.
Investigator and Scientific Director Robb Krumlauf, Ph.D. and colleagues show that the sea lamprey Petromyzon marinus, a survivor of ancient jawless vertebrates, exhibits a pattern of gene expression that is reminiscent of its jawed cousins, who evolved much, much later.
A paper from a laboratory at the Stowers Institute of Medical Research reports the first animal model created to assess the molecular effects of two different histone H3.3 mutations in the fruit fly Drosophila. The study from a team led by Investigator Ali Shilatifard, Ph.D. published in the August 29, 2014 issue of Science, strongly suggests that these mutations actually could drive cancer and identifies interacting partners and pathways that could be targeted for the treatment of cancer.
Adult organisms ranging from fruit flies to humans harbor adult stem cells, some of which renew themselves through cell division while others differentiate into the specialized cells needed to replace worn-out or damaged organs and tissues. Understanding the molecular mechanisms that control the balance between self-renewal and differentiation in adult stem cells is an important foundation for developing therapies to regenerate diseased, injured or aged tissue.
Researchers at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research, have identified the functions of two classes of pheromone receptors, and found pheromones crucial to triggering the mating process in mice.
In the April 11, 2014 issue of Science, Associate Investigator C. Ron Yu, Ph.D. and colleagues at the Stowers Institute of Medical Research identify a developmental window during which olfactory neurons of newborn mice can form a proper wiring map. They show that if incorrect neuronal connections are maintained after this period, renewing cells will also be mis-wired.
In the April 15, 2014 issue of the online journal eLife, Stowers Institute for Medical Research Investigator Alejandro Sánchez Alvarado and colleagues report the identification of genes that worms use to rebuild an amputated pharynx.
In textbooks, the grand-finale of cell division is the tug-of-war fought inside dividing cells as duplicated pairs of chromosomes get dragged in opposite directions into daughter cells. This process, called mitosis, is visually stunning to observe under a microscope. Equally stunning to cell biologists are the preparatory steps cells take to ensure that the process occurs safely.
A Perspective published with his postdocs, Hans-Martin Herz, Ph.D. and Deqing Hu, Ph.D., in the March 20th issue of Molecular Cell, will serve as the basis for Shilatifard’s AACR talk. In it, they summarize how aberrant enhancer activity—due either to mutations in enhancer DNA or in genes that encode proteins that interact with enhancers—may promote oncogenesis.
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.
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.
Disruptive clumps of mutated protein are often blamed for clogging cells and interfering with brain function in patients with the neurodegenerative diseases known as spinocerebellar ataxias. But a new study in fruit flies suggests that for at least one of these diseases, the defective proteins may not need to form clumps to do harm.
At a glance, DNA is a rather simple sequence of A, G, C, T bases, but once it is packaged by histone proteins into an amalgam called chromatin, a more complex picture emerges. Histones, which come in four subtypes—H2A, H2B, H3, and H4—can either coil DNA into inaccessible silent regions or untwist it to allow gene expression. To further complicate things, small chemical flags, such as methyl groups, affect whether histones silence or activate genes.
The face you critiqued in the mirror this morning was sculpted before you were born by a transient population of cells called neural crest cells. Those cells spring from neural tissue of the brain and embryonic spinal cord and travel throughout the body, where they morph into highly specialized bone structures, cartilage, connective tissue, and nerve cells.
Children born with developmental disorders called cohesinopathies can suffer severe consequences, including intellectual disabilities, limb shortening, craniofacial anomalies, and slowed growth. Researchers know which mutations underlie some cohesinopathies, but have developed little understanding of the downstream signals that are disrupted in these conditions.
When egg and sperm combine, the new embryo bustles with activity. Its cells multiply so rapidly they largely ignore their DNA, other than to copy it and to read just a few essential genes. The embryonic cells mainly rely on molecular instructions placed in the egg by its mother in the form of RNA.
A decade ago, gene expression seemed so straightforward: genes were either switched on or off. Not both. Then in 2006, a blockbuster finding reported that developmentally regulated genes in mouse embryonic stem cells can have marks associated with both active and repressed genes, and that such genes, which were referred to as “bivalently marked genes”, can be committed to one way or another during development and differentiation.
A little-studied factor known as the Little Elongation Complex (LEC) plays a critical and previously unknown role in the transcription of small nuclear RNAs (snRNA), according to a new study led by scientists at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research and published in the Aug. 22, 2013, issue of the journal Molecular Cell.
Stowers investigators use genetics and live cell imaging to illuminate molecular mechanisms that position the cell division machinery in growing tissues.
Genomic imprinting maintains a reserve pool of blood-forming stem cells in mouse bone marrow
Stowers investigators discover how an unusual interplay of signaling pathways shapes a critical eye structure
Stowers Institute Investigator Peter Baumann, Ph.D., has been appointed to the prestigious position of Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigator.
Study of tentacle-formation in a sea anemone shows how epithelial cells form elongated structures and puts the spotlight on a new model organism.
A better “mousetrap” discovered in fruit flies might stop a human cancer-driving kinase in its tracks.
Genetic analysis by Stowers investigators has implications for a genetic disorder known as Hirschsprung Syndrome.
Unlike less versatile muscle or nerve cells, embryonic stem cells are by definition equipped to assume any cellular role. Scientists call this flexibility “pluripotency,” meaning that as an organism develops, stem cells must be ready at a moment’s notice to activate highly diverse gene expression programs used to turn them into blood, brain, or kidney cells.
New paper in Cell Reports finds that one key mechanism in development involves ‘paused’ RNA polymerase.
Chromatin remodeling—the packaging and unpackaging of genomic DNA and its associated proteins—regulates a host of fundamental cellular processes including gene transcription, DNA repair, programmed cell death as well as cell fate. In their latest study, scientists at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research are continuing to unravel the finicky details of how these architectural alterations are controlled.
Changes in how DNA interacts with histones—the proteins that package DNA—regulate many fundamental cell activities from stem cells maturing into a specific body cell type or blood cells becoming leukemic. These interactions are governed by a biochemical tug of war between repressors and activators, which chemically modify histones signaling them to clamp down tighter on DNA or move aside and allow a gene to be expressed.
Stowers scientists show how pluripotent stem cells mobilize in wounded planarian worms, to better understand stem cell behavior in regeneration and disease.
Stowers investigators define factors that regulate size of cellular fat pools.
Researchers show how repressor proteins ensure accurate gene expression by thwarting histone exchange.
Stowers scientists manipulate the Set2 pathway to show how genes are faithfully copied.
Stowers scientists make a surprising find in study of sex- and aggression-triggering vomeronasal organ.
Non-canonical Wnt-signaling maintains a quiescent pool of blood-forming stem cells in mouse bone marrow.
Stowers team reconciles puzzling findings relating to centromere structure.
“Paper of the week” shows that a master regulator protein brings plethora of coactivators to gene expression sites.
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