News tips from the Journal of Neuroscience
...F expression increased soon after purified Schwann cells were cocultured with dorsal root ganglion (DRG) ne...atory synapses end up on dendritic shafts. In some cells after all, such as many interneurons, there are no dendritic spines. Synapses on shafts are predicte...Piecing together the cyanobacteria puzzle
...s, which separates the two processes into adjacent cells that share the products. LLNL researchers Peter We...ovement of carbon and nitrogen inside two types of cells in the algae: vegetative cells, which perform carbon fixation, and heterocysts, thick-walled relativ...Study provides new data about the laws governing embryo development in organisms
... Drosophila. The wings are generated from a set of cells grouped into different segments or compartments that never mix with one another, and which enable the symmetrical construction of the dorsal and ventral parts starting from a given limit or border. This process of subdivision into compartments also t...Other highlights from the July 10 JNCI
...blastoma, a cancer that develops in immature nerve cells and is prevalent in children. Drug resistance c...with drug-sensitive cells. Blocking HDAC1 made the cells more sensitive to chemotherapy drugs that treat neuroblastoma. This gene is of particular interes...Fat horses face health problems
...lances between the destruction and creation of new cells in the body. Oxidative stress is an imbalance between the production of free radicals and reactive oxygen species and the bodys anti-oxidant defense mechanisms, and that imbalance is in favor of the oxidants, said Thatcher. Those free radicals and...Neutral evolution has helped shape our genome
...mitochondria, the energy-making apparatus of human cells that has its own small genome. These mitochondrial sequences are known as numts. When they expanded their study across the whole human genome, they found more than 1200 such pieces of mitochondrial DNA of various lengths embedded into chromosomes. ...New gene mutation identified in common type of dementia
...granulin, a protein growth factor that helps brain cells survive. The mutation causes only half of the protein to be produced, because only one copy of the gene is active. Production of too much progranulin has been associated with cancer. The new gene mutation was found in nine of those family members ...Scientists follow familiar TRAIL to new cancer therapy
...ombination therapy that may sensitize human cancer cells to a promising treatment currently being used in c...ng tested in clinical trials. However, most cancer cells have defects in their ability to die via a cell death pathway called apoptosis, and unfortunately, T...Scientists gain important insights into acute promyelocytic leukemia
...ow that occurs when certain developing white blood cells get stuck at a highly proliferative and immature stage. The abnormal cells accumulate and eventually crowd out the normal, healthy blood cells. Most cases of APL are caused by...Penn researchers discover how microRNAs control protein synthesis
...ackage, and transfer proteins as determined by the cells immediate needs, miniature pieces of RNA, called microRNAs (miRNAs) regulate gene expression. Recently, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine determined how miRNAs team up with a regulatory protein to halt protein product...Tiny tweezers and yeast help St. Jude show how cancer drug works
... a camptothecin drug called topotecan kills cancer cells by preventing an enzyme, called DNA topoisomerase ...opies of the chromosomes during cell division, the cells will die. Nanotechnology studies work at a scale of about 100 nanometers or less. For comparison,...Gene's activity points to more lethal subtype of AML
...cute myeloid leukemia (AML) patients with leukemia cells that have normal-looking chromosomes, a feature th...ents. Among these patients, those with leukemia cells showing high ERG activity are almost six times more likely to relapse or die within five years than ...Double identities lie behind chromosome disorders
Chromosome disorders in sex cells cause infertility, miscarriage and irregular numbe... shows how chromosome disorders can arise when sex cells are formed. Sex cells contain a control station for monitoring the mechanism that ensures that th...Pumpkin: A fairytale end to insulin injections?
...xtract promotes regeneration of damaged pancreatic cells in diabetic rats, boosting levels of insulin-producing beta cells and insulin in the blood, reports Lisa Richards in Chemistry & Industry, the magazine of the SCI. ...Rapid evolution of defense genes in plants may produce hybrid incompatibility
... response to invasion by viruses or bacteria. The cells invaded by the pathogens are quickly marked by the plant for death so that the microbe cannot use them to replicate and spread to the rest of the plant. These types of genes have been shown to evolve rapidly, giving plants the capability to adapt t...A gene that protects from kidney disease
...at EMBL. Very early on in their lives their kidney cells start to die and the mice develop all the characte...enes the result being that large numbers of kidney cells die. The organ shrinks and changes in its architecture occur which affect normal kidney function. ...Sea anemone genome provides new view of our multi-celled ancestors
...h conversation among cells. "In the early animals, cells figured out how to talk to each other and coordina...," Putnam said. "The genes common to all complex cells are involved with critical signaling pathways inside the cell, while the new animal-specific genes s...Engineered blood vessels function like native tissue
...been tissue-engineered from bone marrow adult stem cells may in the future serve as a patient's own source ...t bone marrow is an excellent source of adult stem cells containing smooth muscle and endothelial cells, and that these stem cells can be used in regenerativ...From the corner of the eye: Paying attention to attention
...euron, the researchers report two classes of brain cells with distinct roles in visual attention, and highlight at least two mechanisms by which these cells mediate attention. This study represents a major advance in our understanding of visual cognition, b...Specific type of cell death may accelerate decompensated heart failure
DALLAS Autophagy, a normal process by which cells eat their own proteins to provide needed resources...search. The machinery of autophagy in mammalian cells is not completely understood and even less is known about its function in disease, he said. The auto...