Why do amyloid diseases strike different tissues?
...herent instabilities might make them more prone to degradation by the cell's quality control mechanism than the normal TTR proteins. However, the mutants were not all degraded by the cell. "Most of the mutant proteins that cause the disease are secreted with wild-type efficiency," says Kelly. However, he adds, s...Research shows overfishing of sharks key factor in coral reef decline
...everal fish species and contributes to the overall degradation of the reef ecosystem. Overfishing species randomly, the study shows, is not likely to cause these cascading effects. "It appears that ecosystems such as Caribbean coral reefs need sharks to ensure the stability of the entire system," said Sala, depu...Putting ecology back into river restoration
...rsity of Maryland: "Given the rapid rate of global degradation of fresh waters, and the fact that river and stream restoration has become a booming enterprise, it is time to agree on what constitutes successful river and stream restoration." Palmer and her colleagues say that the success of river restoration sho...Biomarkers isolated from saliva successfully predict oral and breast cancer
...ubjects. New techniques were developed to halt RNA degradation so the scientists could recover as much mRNA as possible for their samples. In all, the new techniques allowed the scientists to harvest up to 10,000 types of human mRNA from saliva, setting up a comparison test between cancer patients and the normal...Novel gene-silencing nanoparticles shown to inhibit Ewing's sarcoma
... system we're developing can shield the drugs from degradation before reaching the target sites, while delivering siRNA for more specificity and potency so as to lower the required dose for efficacy." The study was a collaborative effort between the laboratory of Timothy J. Triche, at Children's Hospital of Los ......with the right combination of antibodies, receptor degradation is accelerated: it's more than three times as effe...g HER2 signaling. "Understanding how HER receptor degradation works could enhance weak therapeutic efficacy, as well as provide ways to sensitize patients to over...UCSD medical researchers show protein's role in stopping bacterial-induced inflammation
...initiates the inflammatory response by causing the degradation of inhibitory proteins called IkBs, IKKa interacts with two additional proteins RelA and C-Rel which move into the nucleus of the cell after the IkBs are degraded. After being "tagged" by IKKa in the cytoplasm of the cell, RelA and c-Rel bind to g...New research presents reserve selection using nonlinear species distribution models
...oups of populations may be hurt by habitat loss or degradation from between individual populations....Innovative coating could give medical implants a longer life
...do not last long in-vivo, falling prey to chemical degradation or to the body's enzymes. In contrast, the molecular compound developed at Northwestern, which sticks securely to a surface and prevents cell and protein buildup, works for a long period of time. In laboratory studies, the new coating provided effe...MMP inhibitors may offer hope in the fight against prostate cancer-induced bone disease
...substantially reduced prostate cancer-induced bone degradation compared to control mice expressing MMP-7. The researchers conclude that MMP-7 plays a major role in prostate cancer-driven osteolysis and that the mechanism of MMP-7 action involves cleavage of RANKL to a soluble form that promotes osteoclast activa...A hope for oil spill bioremediation
...h, CSIC) in Granada investigated in situ crude oil degradation after the Prestige oil spill in November 2002. Af...ter the spill and to detect evidences of crude oil degradation taking place at the contaminated sites. They used stable isotopes (13C/12C) to determine the origin ...Ancient immune defense mechanism is no match for HIV-1
...ural immune defense in which sequence-specific RNA degradation follows the recognition of double-stranded RNA (dsRNA). The dsRNA is processed by a protein called Dicer, which chops the long strands of RNA into smaller pieces, resulting in the production of an RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC). RISC can spec...Ecosystems, economic choices and human well-being
...l as human suffering. For example, the removal and degradation of mangroves and other coastal ecosystems for deve...of species, accelerated loss of resources, and the degradation of our quality of life." --Peter Seligmann, chairman and CEO of Conservation International. "The ME...K-State professor studies how landscape dynamics affect extinction risk for migratory songbirds
...tant to understand how the widespread destruction, degradation and fragmentation of that habitat -- which involves not just losing habitat, but isolating the remaining habitat fragments -- affects the breeding success of these species. The researchers used computer-generated songbirds that possessed characterist...DOE JGI sequences DNA from extinct cave bear
... skeletons were found may have accelerated the DNA degradation process. The Flores Man is believed to have derived from a more ancient hominid lineage, Homo erectus, which diverged from modern humans some two million years ago, as compared to Neandertal, which diverged 500,000 years ago. The notion would be t...NRL develops self-cleaning 'smart' fabrics
...ly neutralizes the molecules on contact during the degradation process, it solves the problem of potentially dang...ctively degrade chemical toxins. Compared to other degradation methods, the enzymes have shown longer active times and greater stability. The enzymes are also vers...Traditional models underestimate extinction rates
...pecies is loss of habitat. And as habitat loss and degradation proceed nearly unabated, the need to accurately predict the population dynamics and extinction risk of potentially endangered species has never been greater. In a new study, John Drake tests models traditionally used to estimate the likelihood of ext...Millennium Ecosystem Assessment: Many of 2 billion dryland dwellers at risk as land degrades
...ountries. The authors rank desertification land degradation in drylands as a result of climatic factors and hu...nd productivity and a downward spiral of worsening degradation and poverty," says Prof. Safriel. An Environmental Danger of Unknown Scope Desertification diminis...Could better mangrove habitats have spared lives in the 2004 tsunami?
...phasizes that an early-warning system for mangrove degradation should be seen as being as important for future protection as are early-warning systems for tsunami arrivals; the authors contend that if put in place, such ecological warning systems, along with the restoration of mangroves and other natural defense...'Vicious cycle' of protein formation involved in Parkinson's disease
... of the intermediate forms that appears during the degradation process, he said. Future research may involve uncovering methods to inhibit just the malicious form of the enzyme, while leaving the functions of the normal enzyme unaffected, Dr. Thomas said. Inhibiting only one form is vital, because the normal en...