Enzyme's "Magic" May Hold Key to Anticancer and Antimicrobial Drugs
...etal rings--is accomplished by a family of enzymes called topoisomerases. Their critical role in cell division makes these enzymes prime targets for anticancer drugs. But until recently, scientists couldn't intentio...New Cancer Switch Discovered By Duke Medical Center Pharmacologists
...protein called GRB-2 to switch on a chain of other enzymes that eventually activates the cancer gene, or oncogene, called ras, which launches uncontrolled growth. In the Proceedings paper, Gishizky, Cortez and Pendergast reported discovering that a purposely "damaged" form of GRB-2 could suppress activation ...Tumor Suppressor Gene Located In Liver Cancer Cells
...de the cell as a shuttle craft, moving proteolytic enzymes to the lysosomes, a part of the cellular digestive system that breaks down proteins into simpler compounds. Because the receptor is involved both in switching on a growth inhibitor and inactivating a growth factor, the researchers hypothesized that l...New 'Twist' In Proteins Offers Possible Route To Improved Antibiotics
...ch constitutes the functioningenzyme. These folded enzymes may include roughly globular shapes, or spiralheli...enzyme contained sequences similar to severalother enzymes with similar function, although the three-dimensional structureof the enzymes had not yet been deter...Duke Researchers Show "Editing" Can Fix Faulty Genes In New Approach To Gene Therapy
...nter researchershave shown for the first time that enzymes can be used inside living cellsto repair faulty ge...ells have evolved an efficient system that usesRNA enzymes or "ribozymes" to cut junk out of mRNA and paste itback together again. Sullenger reasoned that rib...Mutate Or Die: New Polymerase Gives Desperate Yeast An Option
...special repair enzymes. But sometimes these repair enzymes can't keep up with the damage, or thedamage is so severe that even the body's internal editors can't fix it before replicationoccurs. Unrepaired damage usually stymies polymerases, whichnormally zip along a section of DNA, copying nucleotidesune......ide pills underthe skin, cells pack these suicidal enzymes away for extreme emergencies,releasing them only when neighboring cells drop out of communication. "Cellularneighborhoods seem to be more conformist than any middle-class suburb,"Raff writes. "As long as the cells reproduce and behave according to l...Surprising Protein Movement Seen In Cells
...us explanation for why, despite their movement,the enzymes are not transported out of the organelle, as othermobile proteins are. Usually, proteins moving within the organelle are eventuallypackaged in vesicles -- small sacks of membrane -- pinched offand then transported out to the rest of the cell, where t...Salvage Gene Is At The Root Of Many Mutations
... understand the function of a family of DNA repair enzymes in yeast. When they damagedthe yeast's DNA and the... they act as vast potholes, halting the polymerase enzymes that usually zipalong a strand of DNA during replication. If a cell is unable to replicate its DNA, ...... the entire carcinogenic process to develop Other enzymes may mediate the NAT2 effect Additional researchers contributing to the study were Jo L. Freudenheim, Ph.D.; Saxon Graham, Ph.D.; John E. Vena, Ph.D.; John R. Brasure; Arthur M. Michalek, Ph.D.; Rosemary Laughlin, Ph.D.; James R. Marshall, Ph.D., and ...New Finding Suggests "HATs" Are Key To Gene Activation Puzzle
...t access the DNA to do their jobs. It's the job of enzymes known as HATs, orhistoneacetyltransferases, to unwind chromatin. Now, using a unique assay developed at Rochester, Allis and his colleagues have located a new HAT that is part of atranscription complex, the group of proteins that binds to DNA an...Proteins Interacting With RNA And DNA Are Surprisingly Similar
...al in the manufacture ofproteins rangingfrom vital enzymes and hormones to hemoglobin and structuralcomponents. DNA,or deoxyribonucleic acid, contains the huge library of geneticinformationorganisms need to reproduce and to make RNA. Both RNA and DNA aremade ofmolecules called nucleotides. But RNA is a singl...Molecular Imposter Rebuts Long
...opying has muchmore to do with DNA's shape and the enzymes that copy it. This finding brings into questi...may be thechief mechanism by which DNA-replicating enzymes selectthe right bases to insert into a growing strand," Kool says. "Theenzyme might form a tight poc...Chemists Compute Answers To The Origin Of Gout
...re: A study of how nitrogen gas binds to natural enzymes and is converted to fertiliser so effortlessly when, for the same process, mankind uses industrial conditions requiring massive amounts of energy and high pressures The characterisation of new chemical compounds to help detect cancer tumours......nse called PKR, a member of an important family of enzymes called protein kinases. Katze and his team found that the NS5A protein in two strains of HCV -- one found mainly in the United States, the other in Asia -- had the ability to bind to and inactivate PKR. "This has strong implications," said Ga...Method Eases Making Amino Acids Critical In Medicinal Chemistry
...ne enantiomerof amino acids in the construction of enzymes and proteins. The metabolismof the human body has developed ways to break these down. By placing anunnatural amino acid in biologically active molecules, the stability ofa possible drug can be significantly enhanced." In addition to synthesizing ena...Newly Identified Tomato Gene Appears Key To Fruit Softening
...ken, the compounds are vulnerable to destructionby enzymes in the plant cell wall. "It might be possible to turn off the gene in any fruit such astomatoes, strawberries or bananas, which undergo rapid deterioration, sothat they would soften later during the ripening process and have a longershipping and she...Enzymes Targeted As Key To Understanding Drug Interactions
...rs are seeking systematic knowledge of how various enzymes -- biochemical catalysts produced by the body -- m...rs of drugs, we began to focus on the four or five enzymes that metabolize most drugs. If the patient is taking two drugs that are metabolized by the same enzy...Cricket And Chemistry Combine To Provide New Understanding Of How Fats Work
...ve long been aware that the application of certain enzymes to fats can change, remove or replace one or more ...o both monitor and model the effect of particular enzymes on various fats. The research team is using a novel Nuclear Magnetic Resonance approach to tag or ...... "We've been working on enzymes at Yale for 25 years or more, and it wasonlyrecently that we found some potential practical value from the research," notedProfessor Altman, who has been working on drug-resistant bacteria for the pastsix years. "You can never predict when basic inv...