Physicist cracks women's random but always lucky choice of X chromosome
...chers believe that this suicide gene can be itself blocked by a plug of proteins forming on top of its specific location on the chromosome but they had little idea as to why this should happen randomly to one X chromosomes gene and not the other. Scientists are extremely uncomfortable with this randomness ...Super fruit fly may lead to healthier humans
...erts and his team manufactured short proteins that blocked areceptor involved in fruit fly aging, as previous...o-author Seymour Benzer of Caltech. Flies with a blocked receptor saw their lives extended by a third, with noapparent side effects. The same blocking stra...Blocking beta1-integrin to treat cancer
...tastasize in pancreas lymph nodes. When theauthors blocked beta1-integrin function in these mice, tumour cells started disseminating intolymphatic blood vessels because they were not attached to anything any more. However, thecells did not elicit metastasis and were unable to form tumours they stopped growi...Cancer drug enhances long-term memory
...DAC inhibitors did not improve memory. When CBP is blocked in humans, it can lead to neurodegeneration associated with Huntingtons disease and cognitive deficits in Rubenstein-Taybi syndrome. HDAC inhibitors may help overcome that blockage and lead to better neural function in people with those disorders an...Genomic signatures identify targeted therapies for lung cancer
...the laboratory tumors with drugs that specifically blocked one of the three different pathways. In all cases, the cancer responded to treatment with the appropriate targeted therapy. Targeted therapeutics such as this could be "smart bombs" in comparison to the standard chemotherapy that obliterates all t...JCI table of contents -- June 1, 2007
...tes to the blood vessel wall. This effect could be blocked and reversed by the addition of the recombinant globular adiponectin domain (gAd). Importantly, prior administration of gAd was also shown to protect healthy mice against the induction of leukocyte-endothelium interactions. The study demonstrates a c...Cells re-energize to come back from the brink of death
...nts that triggered apoptosis. The researchers then blocked apoptosis in order to study CICD. The GAPDH response appears to represent a basic, reproducible event. But in order to verify that hypothesis, well need to study it in the body, especially as we try to develop ways to force cancer cells without caspa...News tips from the Journal of Neuroscience
...12-2, although at a slightly higher dose. MLA also blocked THC-induced elevations of dopamine in the shell of the nucleus accumbens, a molecular indicator of the rewarding effects of THC. Of relevance to potential clinical use, the doses used in rats did not cause depressant or toxic side effects. 4. A Mo...Repair of DNA by Brca2 gene prevents medulloblastoma
...h the cerebellum during development. When the team blocked cell suicide by eliminating both copies of p53, a gene needed to trigger apoptosis, the brain developed its normal size, but most of the mice developed medulloblastoma. The study also gave the St. Jude researchers insights into a childhood disease...'Insulator' helps silence genes in dormant herpes virus
... Further studies showed that the insulator element blocked enhancer activities in the eye tissue of fruit flies and in human cells in culture. "Based on these findings, we were able to identify this element as a kind of chromatin insulator that helps HSV-1 maintain a balance in its life cycle." The study...News tips from the Journal of Neuroscience
...ere exacerbated by coinjection of morpholinos that blocked expression of sema3A1 or sema3A2. Sema3A1 in particular appeared to contribute to excess branching, whereas sema3A2 appeared to regulate the increase in exit points. 3. Financial Gain and Financial Pain Ben Seymour, Nathaniel Daw, Peter Dayan, T...Short chromosomes put cancer cells in forced rest
...pped developing lymphomas. When the researchers blocked the suicide machinery in these fifth-generation mice, they were very surprised to find that the mice still remained cancer free. "We were confused as to what was going on; we thought for sure that blocking the cells ability to commit suicide would...Study of planarians offers insight into germ cell development
... and testes to disappear. And when the researchers blocked nanos expression in planarians that had had their bodies and reproductive organs detached from their brains, the planarians regenerated new bodies, but with no reproductive cells. "This is the first time that nanos gene function has been studied in...New understanding of schizophrenia could lead to new treatment approaches
...cts, he adds. Working with mice, the researchers blocked NRG1-erbB signaling in oligodendrocytes the cells ...as. Finally, mice whose NRG1-erbB signaling was blocked showed behavioral changes that appeared to be consistent with mental illness. They explored their en...News tips from the Journal of Biological Chemistry
...s and investigated its role in fertilization. They blocked PAWP from functioning in sperm cells and then inje...owed that one of these compounds, 6-thioguanosine, blocked the spores germination inside mammalian cells, thus blocking anthrax infection. The scientists are n...Link found between immune system and high plasma lipid levels
...t, high-cholesterol diet. However, if researchers blocked the LIGHT signaling, using an engineered protein (LTbR-Ig), lipid levels were lowered again. Two organs believed to regulate lipid levels are the liver and the intestine. Researchers looked at the mouse livers particularly at the enzyme, hepatic ...JCI table of contents: April 12, 2007
...ukemic cells to mature and die, rather than remain blocked at a highly proliferative immature stage of development. Researchers from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle have now shown that a protein complex known as CaMKII inhibits RAR activity and that CaMKII inhibitors drive leukemic cell...Massive gene screening points way to more effective chemotherapy
...ter to identify the genes. When the researchers blocked the action of some of the 87 genes inside isolated lung-cancer cells, they found that those cells were up to 10,000 times more sensitive to the chemotherapy drug paclitaxel (Taxol). The results are important because the ability to lower the dose o...Jefferson scientists identify protein key to breast cancer spread, potential new drug target
...te. They also showed that deleting Akt1 completely blocked breast cancer metastasis to the lungs, while mice that expressed Akt1 died from lung metastasis. While scientists have looked at Akt as a drug target, notes Arthur Pardee, Ph.D., professor emeritus of medical oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Inst......etastases. Treatment with an inhibitor of TGF-beta blocked the increased lung metastases. Furthermore, mice whose tumors did not express the receptor for TGF-beta did not develop increased incidence of lung metastases after treatment with radiation, indicating that TGF-beta affects the cancer cells directly,...