How HIV 'exhausts' killer T cells
...ronic viral infection actively inhibits T cells by switching on the cells' inhibitory PD-1 pathway. He also found that blocking the PD-1 pathway in the mice restored T cell function and reduced the amount of virus in the animals' blood, which is known as viral load. Ahmed's studies showed that blocking PD-1 re...Scientists discover age-regulated cellular activities that protect against protein aggregation
...onset of proteotoxicity was also postponed. "In switching this pathway on and off, we also found that we altered the high molecular weight aggregates-the plaque buildup in the animals," explains Dillin. But the researchers also noticed an unexpected phenomenon. "Curiously," Dillin continues, "some animal...Rewiring the mammalian brain -- neurons make fickle friends
...his finding indicates that the brain is constantly switching alliances and linking with new circles of "friends" to better process information." In their samples, the rewiring process was occurring continuously at a slow pace. By exciting the sample with glutamate, they found that the rate increased markedl...When biology gets 'Quirky,' scientists turn to math
...t might be what they call "quirky" -- prone to the switching behavior that occasionally produces strange results. They created a theorem that lays out mathematical rules that researchers can use to make the same judgment. As it turns out, many of the graphs that describe biological reactions are quirky. "S...Effects of nutrition on learning
... and those with the most accelerated growth (after switching diets) fell into different groups, allowing the re... Undernourished birds that had grown fastest after switching to the normal diet performed poorest on the learning task compared to their control siblings. Since ...... the quantum bits active all the time, rather than switching them off and on as in most quantum computer designs. Typical computers store and manipulate information as bits - that is 0's and 1's. Quantum computers are made of quantum bits, or qubits, that are encoded as a superposition of the values 0 and 1 at...Schepens scientists are first to discover angiogenesis switch inside blood vessel cells
... scientists have long suspected an "intracellular" switching process, but until now have known very little about it. "Current drugs focus on suppressing angiogenesis by inhibiting a mechanism outside the vessel cells, which involves the action of growth factors such as VEGF or vascular endothelial growth facto...Novel enzyme offers new look at male hormone regulation
...H3K9 methylation level and led to upregulation, or switching on, of androgen receptor target genes. In contrast, when methylation was increased, the gene was silenced switched off. It remains unclear for how many different human genes JHDM2A is a primary regulator. According to Zhang, the new findings indicat...News Tips from The Journal of Neuroscience
... facilitate visual detection and discrimination by switching visual LGN neurons from tonic to burst firing, or ... facilitate visual detection and discrimination by switching visual LGN neurons from tonic to burst firing, or by surround inhibition of nonvisual LGN neurons. ...Single microRNA causes cancer in transgenic mouse
...lly help control important biological functions by switching "on" and "off" at different times during cell growth, death, development and differentiation. They can be harmful, though, if they are activated at the wrong time in the wrong place, and that appears to be what happens in some forms of cancer. The s...People prefer belonging to groups in which members can punish freeloaders
...mory University in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. "What if switching institutions is costly, or information about the payoffs in the other institutions is poor? What happens if individuals cannot migrate between institutions, but instead can vote on adopting alternative institutional modifications?" Henrich wrote....Enzyme crystal structure reveals 'unexpected' genome repair functions
...h the DNA lesion suggests that XPB plays a role in switching TFIIH from transcription mode to NER," Tainer says. "The structural biochemistry of XPB that we discovered shows an unexpected molecular mechanism by which XPB plays a key role in determining exactly how TFIIH functions, whether in transcription or r...Minor mutations in avian flu virus increase chances of human infection
...owed that relatively small mutations can result in switching the binding site preference of the avian virus from receptors in the intestinal tract of birds to the respiratory tract of humans. These mutations, the study noted, were already "known in [some human influenza] viruses to increase binding for these r......s play a similar role. They will also seek ways of switching off or counteracting NKT cells, which could be developed into new drugs. Corticosteroids, which target Th2 cells and other inflammatory cells, reduce inflammation but appear to have little effect on NKT cells, Umetsu says. This perhaps explains why t...NHGRI announces new sequencing targets
...sequence occurring near a gene that is involved in switching the gene on or off. Sequencing efforts will be carried out by the NHGRI-supported, Large-Scale Sequencing Research Network, which consists of five centers: Agencourt Bioscience Corp., Beverly, Mass.; Baylor College of Medicine, Houston; the Broad Ins...New route to stroke therapy could protect vulnerable neurons
... protect them from ischemic injury. Conversely, by switching it off in injury-resistant neurons, they could render those neurons vulnerable to ischemic damage. They also traced the injury pathway further upstream, finding that an "executive" enzyme called CREB was responsible for regulating the editing machine......g as it infects human cells. ZEBRA is essential to switching the virus from its latent to its active state. "During an infection, EBV inserts its own DNA into the nucleus of human cells. This information contains the codes for about 100 genes," says Christoph Mller, head of an EMBL research lab in Grenoble. "L...New brain hormone puts brakes on reproduction
...s role in turning down production of GnRH and thus switching off the gonads. While Bentley collaborated with Tsutsui to determine how GnIH works in birds, the two also teamed up with Kriegsfeld to explore the implications in mammals. Kriegsfeld began collaborating with the group as a postdoctoral fellow workin...Molecular force field helps cancer cells defend against attack
... to evade enemy attack, tumor cells are capable of switching on a molecular force field of their own to fend off treatments aimed at killing them. Now University of Florida researchers have found a chink in their armor. The cells churn out an enzyme that bonds with a protein, creating a protective barrier that...DNA-wrapped carbon nanotubes serve as sensors in living cells
.... "We found that the thermodynamics that drive the switching back and forth between these two forms of DNA structure would modulate the electronic structure and optical emission of the carbon nanotube," said Strano, who is also a researcher at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology and at th...