New molecular link key to cellular proteins involved in cancer progression, other diseases
...at a gene normally silenced by the complex becomes switched on in cells when one of the PcG proteins essential for the ubiquitination of H2A has been eliminated, Zhang said. "Although the mechanism by which H2A ubiquitination contributes to PcG silencing is still unknown, the identification of the responsible......cer cells are particularly hardy because they have switched off the apoptotic machinery at one point or anothe...rocess. The researchers found that Compound 3 also switched on apoptosis in cells treated with TNF alpha. Thus, said Wang, Compound 3 might also be used as an a...Engineering endurance: The future of the Olympics?
...nery to engage anaerobic metabolism, their muscles switched to aerobic pathways. During endurance tests, the mutants could swim and run uphill longer than the normal mice, but when it came to running downhill, the normal mice prevailed. Downhill running, it turns out, favors glycolytic metabolism; uphill run...Gene changes linked to increased eye pressure may have implications for glaucoma therapy
...esses, Borrs said. But unexpectedly, the genes switched on included two known from previous work to be inv...or spectrin, a protein that alters cell shape, was switched off. MGP prevents the hardening of cartilage to bone, and perlecan has been implicated in allow...Parasitic cowbirds thrive with a less ruthless strategy than cuckoos
...found 81 phoebe nests with eggs. Kilner and Madden switched eggs among the nests to test various scenarios. They added a single cowbird egg to 20 of the nests, and after the chick hatched, they removed the host eggs from 10 of those. In the other 10 nests, after the cowbird hatched they placed two phoebe hatc...'Smart gene therapy' protects against damage from heart attack
...tion from ischemic injury. The minute this gene is switched on following a loss of blood flow, levels of the therapeutic protein rise rapidly, providing near-complete protection." In patients with myocardial ischemia, the loss of blood flow causes the heart tissue to slowly or suddenly starve of oxygen and ot...Molecular traffic cop directs cellular signals
...vated ERK in the cytoplasm. The inhibitor was only switched on when the Ras/ERK MAP kinase pathway was activated. Interestingly, activated hSef works not by directly inhibiting the activity of ERK, but by preventing activated ERK from entering the nucleus. When hSef levels were experimentally reduced, stimul...In the obese, metabolic adaptations post-weight loss lead to regaining of shed pounds
...at diet for 16 weeks and then examined after being switched to a low fat diet for 10 weeks to represent an age-matched diet-matched control (low fat diet control, LFC). The last group of eight rats was fed a high fat diet for 16 weeks, as with the other groups, but examined after being continued with this reg...Basic RNA enzyme research promises single-molecule biosensors
...ectly observe and measure how quickly the ribozyme switched forms and how these rates changed when various parts of the molecule were altered. With the addition of mathematical simulations, the researchers also could investigate how changing parts of the ribozyme molecule affected its ability to catalyze che...Mutant mice lead to memory insights
...lar scaffold. The researchers found that when they switched on the "bad" CBP gene, the mice showed impaired ab...erged platform in a water tank. However, when they switched off the bad gene, the mice showed normal long-term memory formation. In experiments similar to those...Gene therapy tested to protect bone marrow during chemotherapy
...e the others had evidence of tumor growth and were switched to other therapies. In one patient, evidence of genetically altered cells was documented by molecular analysis in both the blood and marrow six weeks after the infusion. Accrual for this study continues so that different levels of cell infu...22-amino acid bacterium created by Scripps scientists
...osine. Furthermore, any codon in an mRNA that is switched to UAG will encode for the new amino acid in that place, giving Schultz and his colleagues a way to site-specifically incorporate novel amino acids into proteins expressed by the E. coli. Similarly, Schultz and his colleagues made an engineered tRN...UCLA scientists decipher how the brain retrieves and stores our oldest memories
...ntrast, the mutant mice's anterior cingulate never switched on during tests for distant memory. "This result suggests that the kinase II mutation disrupted processes in the anterior cingulate that are required for recalling distant memories," he observed. Thirdly, the UCLA team injected normal mice with a d...Insulin-producing pancreatic cells are replenished by duplication
... contained a telltale genetic marker that could be switched on by administering the drug tamoxifen to the mice. The logic behind the technique is relatively straightforward: When the researchers administer tamoxifen to the adult mice, they can easily follow the marker to determine whether it is inherited by s...Florida Tech researchers win $912,700 grant for cell studies
...l as machinery and some of the machines need to be switched on at a specific time for the cell to reproduce" Studies in the Leonard/Grimwade laboratories have led to the identification of key pieces of the switch. Understanding their role will shed new light on controlling bacterial growth and perhaps aid i...Scientists seek cause for what makes good cell go bad
...ound that they could affect how often the bacteria switched their direction of motion by altering the concentr...e population level had concluded that the bacteria switched their direction at a steady rate. "We showed that at the single-cell level it was totally the other ...Devastating parasitic weed may be felled by toxin borrowed from flies
...d's group had just identified a gene promoter that switched on specifically in response to the parasite. The two groups joined forces to maximize the impact of their strategy. Hamamouch and Aly linked the parasite-induced promoter to the sarcotoxin gene and introduced the final product into the tobacco genom...Wasps' brains enlarge as they perform more demanding jobs
... The largest increase came when the insects first switched from working inside to working outside of the nest. "What is happening is that the complexity of the tasks the insects engage in is increasing," O'Donnell said. "They are going from living in a very constrained spatial area with dim light to workin....... Each mistake is a result of one nucleotide being switched for another. PIK3CA mutations were found in 32 percent of colon cancer samples (74/234), as well as 27 percent (4/15) of glioblastomas, 25 percent (3/12) of gastric cancers, 8 percent (1/12) breast cancers and 4 percent (1/24) of lung cancers. By stu......ptured time-lapse images as the inducible gene was switched on: First, the gene's tightly coiled DNA adopted a...vealed fundamental information about how genes are switched on and off in the context of living cells. The method is likely to be used by many researchers inter...