Disabling a sensory organ prompts female mice to act like male mice
...er-based behavior. The sensory-controlled neural switch that governs the circuit is most likely different in male and female mice, Dulac noted, but that may be the extent of gender differences in the brain. The work of Dulac and her colleagues promises to open a new window to the neural mechanisms that u...A sensory organ, not the brain, differentiates male and female behavior in some mammals
...he vomeronasal pathway itself -- which serves as a switch that represses male behavior while promoting female behavior -- is dimorphic. While male and female bodies are strikingly different physiologically, it appears the same cannot be said for the brain." Dulac and colleagues are now studying the behavi...Identified mechanism in the malaria parasite to help it adapt to infected individuals
...ve discovered that the parasite has the ability to switch on and off the expression of some of the proteins it uses to enter its victims red blood cells. The researchers believe that this ability makes the parasite more adaptable when attempting to invade the cells. The study is published in Fridays issue o...U-M researchers find family of 'on switches' that cause prostate cancer
...ancer Center have discovered how genes turn on the switch that leads to prostate cancer. The team discover...se together. The fused genes then override the off switch that keeps cells from growing uncontrollably, causing prostate cancer to develop. By testing thes...Boston Univeristy bioengineers devise 'dimmer swith' to regulate gene expression in mammal cells
...biomedical engineers have created a genetic dimmer switch that can be used to turn on, shut off, or partiall...lls, appears in the July 27 issue of Cell. This switch helps advance the field of synthetic biology, which rests on the premise that complex biological sys...UCLA study links air pollution to clogged arteries
...ir pollution conspire with artery-clogging fats to switch on the genes that cause blood vessel inflammation and lead to cardiovascular disease. When you add one plus one, it normally totals two, said principal investigator Dr. Andr Nel, chief of nanomedicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA ...... with a rolled-up newspaper. How these animals can switch off and on adhesion is not yet understood in detail. But the scientists led by Mark Geoghegan reveal the secret of their intelligent adhesion in the journal Angewandte Chemie. One of the surfaces involved consists of a polyacid gel, a three-dimensi...New clue into how diet and exercise enhance longevity
...ated when insulin and insulin-like growth factor-1 switch on proteins inside the cell called insulin receptor substrates (Irs). Other researchers had shown that reducing the activity of the pathway in roundworms and fruitflies extends lifespan. Despite those tantalizing clues, White said, The idea that ins...News tips from the Journal of Neuroscience
...tex) of the nondominant left hemisphere. Thus, the switch in handedness resulted in a reorganization of the executive motor system controlling even simple hand movements. However, higher-order sensorimotor areas were not affected by retraining. So is it better to fight than switch" The Benefits of Slee...A walking robot goes mountaineering
...nly a few trials. The robots ability to abruptly switch from one gait to the other is due to the hierarchical organization of the movement control. In this respect, it resembles that of a human and can hold as a human model. On the lower hierarchical levels, movement is based on reflexes driven by periphe...Cells take risks with their identities
... Biologists have long thought that a simple on/off switch controls most genes in human cells. Flip the switch and a cell starts or stops producing a particular protein. But new evidence suggests that this model...Scientists find brown fat master switch
... of Cell Metabolism that turning up the equivalent switch in people might be a new strategy for treating overweight and obesity. The investigators said their next step is to rev up the control in mice and overfeed them to see if they are resistant to becoming obese. "Brown fat is present in mice and in hu...Internal clock, external light regulate plant growth
... are "switched on" to make protein during the day, switch off after dark but then turn on again late in the night. But the proteins made by PIF 4 and PIF 5 break down when exposed to light. So while the internal clock drives transcription of the genes to produce proteins, external light removes the protein....Tracing Parkinson's lethal mechanism
...idence that calpains, in turn, activate a cellular switch called Cdk5. The question, however, was how this a... that treating neurons with MPTP activates Cdk5 to switch off Prx2. Whats more, they found that activating Prx2 in MPTP-treated mice prevented the loss of dop...Marine worm opens new window on early cell development
...ion of beta-catenin accumulation forms a molecular switch between two new daughter cells, causing the cells to be different from one another. This universal mechanism operates in embryos as a binary decision-maker, creating an organism with a diversity of cell types. Beta-catenin has been the focus of res...Regulating alternative splicing during neural development
...usive. Dr. Black and colleagues now show that a switch in expression between PTB and nPTB induces changes...evelopment. "This reprogramming of splicing by the switch in PTB proteins adds a new layer of genetic change determining the function of a post-mitotic neuron...Researchers find gene that spurs development of the epididymis
...the evidence that while testosterone is the master switch that triggers the development of male reproductive structures, it doesnt work alone, Yao said. Other studies had shown that testosterone works with other regionally specific factors to spur the development of structures such as the prostate gland or ...St. Jude study shows genes play an unexpected role in their own activation
...Hospital have discovered how a single molecular on switch triggers gene activity that might cause effects ranging from learning and memory capabilities to glucose production in the liver. The on switch, a protein called CREB, is a transcription factora molecule that binds to a section of DNA near a gene ...St. Jude shows gene test not needed if cancer drug given in low doses
...is area, called the promoter region, acts as an on switch that triggers the reading of the gene. The normal UGT1A1 has six copies of TA in front of it, while UGT1A1*28 has seven. Previous studies had shown that when adults who carry two copies of the UGT1A1*28 gene variation received a single high dose o...