Trojan-horse therapy blocks buildup of Alzheimer's plaque
...oteins are difficult drug targets because they can mutate rapidly to render small-molecule inhibitors inefficient," he said. "Such drugs typically bind only to a few amino acids in the protein, which the virus can easily alter by mutation. But in our approach, we could distribute the binding over a large pr...Economics and ecology combine at UGA in NSF-funded study of evolutionary game theory
...uch as AIDS. While not outwardly rational, viruses mutate and reproduce with alarming speed," he said. "By using an explicitly game theoretic framework, we can simultaneously capture how humans respond to the virility of a disease, and how viruses respond to treating a disease." "We are then in a position t...UCSD discovery opens new avenues for design of anti-tumor medications
...s rather than the tumor cells. "Cancer cells mutate frequently," says Nan Tang, a graduate student working with Johnson and the first author on the paper. "This means that it is common for these cells to develop resistance to drugs. On the other hand, the endothelial cells are normal cells and would...Draft sequence of chicken genome completed
...regulatory motifs, have been under pressure not to mutate because changes to the sequence would have detrimental consequences. By contrast, areas of the genome with no function bona fide 'junk' DNA have been under no such pressure, and sufficient time has lapsed for these regions to become quite distinct ...Research points to new theory driving evolutionary changes
...ic regions in their genetic code that are prone to mutate often. These genetic regions, called tandem repeat sequences, consist of the same series of letters repeated many times over, for example, A-C-T-A-C-T-A-C-T. Mutations happen in these regions when such units - the A-C-T in the above example - are mi...Immune system contributes to evolution of a new fluorescent protein
...e, say, one Shakespearean play and see if we could mutate it into a whole different story. It was unknown wh...carried out 23 cycles in which they allowed SHM to mutate the gene. In each cycle they isolated cells that fluoresced at longer wavelengths. They then allowed...The death of a very special chimpanzee
...the perfect way to preserve a genome, because they mutate and change. They can also die, which is what happened to a few cell lines created during the publicly funded Human Genome Project. The anonymity of the donors meant new lines could not be established, and the lack of back-up cell lines caused trouble...Blocking cell signaling can stymie viral infections, study shows
...e. The problem with this approach is that viruses mutate rapidly, changing their genetic makeup in a way th...t send and receive signals, are far less likely to mutate than viruses themselves, making it improbable that drugs will lose their potency," Reinherz explains...HHMI professor, 138 undergraduates identify essential genes in eye formation
... only way a geneticist can ask that question is to mutate that gene and see what happens to the eye," Banerjee explained. "The problem is, if you mutate that gene, the fly is dead as an embryo. What has to be done, he said, is to "make the eye mutant wi...Tips from the Journals of the American Society for Microbiology
...ue to the potential that the vaccine viruses could mutate and reacquire the ability to cause disease. DNA vaccines offer a new possibility for treatment. The have the advantages of safety, low cost of production, and ease of use in field conditions due to their minimal need for refrigeration. In the study...Two UCSF scientists receive top funding honor from medical institute
...dy. Shokat uses genetic engineering to essentially mutate an individual kinase to make it a unique target for a chemical that can control its activity, but not that of the other hundreds of kinases in a cell. In this way, he can isolate the function of individual kinases. The approach is now used by more th...An (ecological) origin of species for tropical reef fish
...species. Over evolutionary time, these populations mutate independently until individuals from distinct populations can no longer interbreed and become new species. What explains the evolution of a huge number of closely related fish species on reefs in an open undersea world where currents constantly sti...Yale scientists 'see' basis of antibiotic resistance
...tibiotics in several different ways. When bacteria mutate to become resistant to one of these antibiotics, they usually are resistant to all antibiotics in the group. Studies led by Sterling Professors Thomas A. Steitz and Peter B. Moore in the departments of molecular biophysics and biochemistry a...Molecular models advance the fight against malaria
...new drugs that could suppress malaria's ability to mutate against current therapy. "This is the first quantitative explanation for malaria's drug resistance," said Dr. Bernard Trumpower, professor of biochemistry at Dartmouth Medical School and head of the study. "In addition to confirming the belief that ...Mosaic mouse technique offers a powerful new tool to study diseases and genetics
...een fluorescent protein," Luo says. "So now if you mutate a gene, you'll know in which cell the normal gene is lost. For example, if you delete a tumor suppressor gene, the green cells will proliferate, and you can actually study the tumor's progression. If you can image these cells in a live animal, you ca...To stop evolution: New way of fighting antibiotic resistance demonstrated by Scripps scientists
...s also significant for cancer because cancer cells mutate readily and often acquire resistance to common chemotherapies. Romesberg hopes that if he and his colleagues can identify the molecules that human cancer cells use to drive evolution, they can find ways of intervening and preventing the evolution of ...Super predators and mass extinctions; extreme NMR; and the world's smallest solenoids
...es that survive the predatory apocalypse gradually mutate to fill the existing ecological niches - and the cycle begins again. The period of the cycle depends on mutation rates in the model. The lower the mutation rate, the longer the periods between super predators. For a sufficiently low mutation rate, t...Rodent social behavior encoded in junk DNA
...epetitive DNA sequences, which are highly prone to mutate rapidly, may ultimately exert their influence through complex interactions with other genes to produce individual differences and social diversity, according to Young....UIC researchers show protein routes messages in nerve cells
...ike synapses in human brain cells. "We can quickly mutate the flies," said Featherstone. "We looked among thousands of them for those without the glutamate receptors in the right place at the right time. Then we knew that the gene we mutated codes for a protein that is critical for getting those receptors t...Variation in HIV's ability to disable host defenses contributes to rapid evolution
... is vital. Host cells produce two proteins that mutate HIV DNA and interfere with the virus's ability to replicate. But HIV produces a protein, called Vif, that can disable the two defensive proteins. Vif is full of variation, both in sequence and in function, according to a new study in PLoS Pathoge...