Enzyme's "Magic" May Hold Key to Anticancer and Antimicrobial Drugs
...ggressive combination chemotherapy. "For unknown reasons, there are higher levels of topoisomerases in some cancer cells than in normal cells," Dr. Wang said. Many topoisomerase-targeting drugs "freeze" the enzyme while it is clutching two ends of a severed DNA stran...New Cancer Switch Discovered By Duke Medical Center Pharmacologists
...d Pendergast. The Abi proteins may be a previously unknown mechanism for producing cancer, said Pendergast, not by direct damage to a cancer gene, but by damage to a "safety key" that is its partner....Duke Researchers Discover Candidate Susceptibility Gene For Autoimmune Disease
...ry while trying to understand therole of a gene of unknown function that seemed to be involved in the actionof insulin, a hormone involved in diabetes. Instead, they found they hadactually located what may be a key gene involved in autoimmune diseasessuch as arthritis and dermatitis. "This research is a p......you can get a complete identification of a totally unknown molecule. Just knowing the molecular weight at our accuracy level is a big help," said Fred W. McLafferty, Cornell professor emeritus of chemistry who led the work. Their accuracy provides less than 0.01 percent error. "With this, you can also mea...Scientists Urge Further Study Of Alarming Coral Reef Decline
...world is referred to as "coral reef bleaching."For unknown reasons, the algae have been evacuating corals at analarming rate. Without the pigmented algae, the white calcium carbonateskeletons show through the clear polyps; the normally coloredcorals appear bleached. They then die, usually within a week ...NIH Team Discovers Endocrine Tumor Gene
... of unexpected cancers. There is, for example, an unknown gene implicated in some forms of breast cancer also located at 11q13, which NCI researchers plan to explore, according to Dr. Liotta. A tumor suppressor gene acts like a set of brakes on abnormal cell growth. When a mutation in the gene occurs...E. Coli Genome Reported: Milestone Of Modern Biology Emerges From Wisconsin Lab
...consin team. Of these, one-third are of completely unknown function. E. coli holds a unique place in modern biology. It is arguably thesingle most studied cell in all of science. Humans have about 25 times as many genes as E. coli, but in the future a similar complete analysis will be possible for human DNA...Stress Lowers Sperm Count By Overwhelming Cells That Make Testosterone
...s data suggest the presence of a third, previously unknown form of theenzyme. "We don't know exactly what this enzyme is, though it is very similar to11ßHSD-1. And we can see what it is doing. This enzyme is the one that maintainstestosterone production in the Leydig cell," he explains. The current rep...UF Researcher Designs Pill To Control Mosquitoes
... to their own reproductive hormone that could have unknown adverse consequences for them as well. "We have to stay a step ahead of them or outsmart them all over again," Borovsky said. In the decade since he began work on the pill, Borovsky has made believers out of even the most ardent doubters. "Ten years ......hree lakes in southwestern Arkansas, along with an unknown number of coots. No other birds or mammals have been found to be affected. Despite the exhaustive efforts of federal, state and private-sector scientists, the cause or source of the disease remains a mystery, said Dr. Kimberli Miller, a wi...Increased Amount Of Enzyme In Brain May Be Marker Of Alzheimer's Disease
...relatively inert to a disease-causing state remain unknown and mayinvolve interactions with additional plaque constituents, he said. Among these constituents are a number of "companion" molecules, e.g.,apolipoprotein E, complement factors, acetylcholinesterase, BChE and others.Mesulam and colleagues...USGS Scientists Implicate Exotic Parasite In Wisconsin Lake Bird Deaths
...of snail inShawano Lake carries the parasite. Also unknown is how easily the parasite canspread. Many coots migrate to Florida and other Southern states for the winter.The coot migration may enable the parasite to spread to other regions of thecountry. So far, wildlife managers in the are...When To Reproduce? It's All In The Timing
...ms. Their work demonstrates a heretofore unknown biochemical mechanism whichmakes organisms "exquisitely sensitive" to environmental cues such as watermotion and salinity, according to a 1996 paper co-authored by Brawley and herresearch team. Brawley gave a presentation today about her team...Hormone Control Of Rare Leukemia Sheds Light On Molecular Basis Of Cancer
... fusionbetween the RAR and a gene for a protein of unknown function called PLZF. "The involvement of the retinoic acid receptor in both forms of APL iskey to understanding the complex genetics of this disease," says Lazar. Thereceptor is regulated by vitamin A, which is converted to the gene-con...Uterine Environment Boosts Learning Ability In Mouse Offspring
...han others? The researchers note intheir paper the unknown influences of non-autoimmunity and hybrid vigor in theCB6F1 mothers. But those influences are considered unlikely to account for sucha large difference in cognitive behavior. "We've raised a question," says Dr.Mobraaten. "The answer lies in further e......he sample will be sent to Forsyth. "Ifthere's some unknown organism--we are the ones who are going to identif...mainder of the fragment floats freely, able tobind unknown bacterial DNA from a clinical sample applied to the support. If thebacterial DNA is a perfect match ...Tiny Worm Reveals Workings Of Suspected Tumor Protein
... asnippet of p300 into the eggs of the mother. For unknown reasons, her offspringthen fail to make the protein, offering researchers a cheap and simplealternative to a genetic knockout mouse. While establishing strains of knockoutmice takes months, the RNAi worm offspring can be analyzed a few days after the...Eating Less Fat At One Meal May Lead To Higher Fat Intake Later
... “There seem to be biochemical signals that, unknown to you, regulatecalorie, carbohydrate and fat intake,” Allred said. “It saysto me that our bodies are much more in control of our food choices thanwe think they are.” Allred was surprised at two aspects of the findings. First, he h......e gene carries coding instructions for apreviously unknown myosin enzyme, which we've named Myo15," Camper said. Myosin enzymes are common in animal cells--especially in muscle cells wherethey convert stored energy into motion making it possible for muscles tocontract and move. "We think Myo15 is a differen......use, the cause is usually unknown. Idiopathic (of unknown cause) dilated cardiomyopathy (IDC), affects an estimated 36 out of every 100,000 people. Recent studies have shown that as many as 40 percent of those patients have a family history of the disorder, suggesting a genetic predisposition to the dise...