Chaos In The Cell's Command CenterA defective operating system is never a good thing. Like computers, our cells depend on operating systems to drive normal functions. Gene expression programs comprise the software code our cells rely on, with each cell type controlled by its own program. Corrupted programs can trigger disease...
Scientists Transform Skin Cells Direct To Brain Cells, Bypassing Stem Cell StageBypassing the stem cell stage, researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine in California converted mouse skin cells directly into neural precursor cells, the cells that go on to form the three main types of cell in the brain and nervous system. They write about their findings in the 30 January early online issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences...
Metabolic Errors Affect DNACells rely on purines, which are types of molecules that make up half of the DNA and RNA building blocks, and are a key component of the chemicals that store a cell's energy in order to perform many vital functions. The purine supply is strictly controlled by the cells, with any disruption likely to cause serious potential consequences...
One Of Life's Molecular Mysteries Mapped By ScientistsAll living organisms are made up of cells, behind these intricate life forms lie complex cellular processes that allow our bodies to function. Researchers working on protein secretion - a fundamental process in biology - have revealed how protein channels in the membrane are activated by special signals contained in proteins destined for secretion...
3D Study Of Vitamins May Help Combat MalariaA three-dimensional study of how enzymes in the malaria parasite Plasmodium synthesize essential vitamins, could help develop new drugs to combat the disease. Using electron microscopy, a team of scientists from Germany and the UK studied how the enzymes synthesize Vitamin B6, which has already been proposed as a target for new drugs...
Viruses That Con Bacteria With Helping Hand Scientists studying ocean microorganisms have encountered something they have never seen before. A marine virus that cons certain photosynthetic bacteria into letting it come inside because it appears to offer a "helping hand" by bringing resources very like their own to help them acquire phosphorus, a nutrient they are desperately short of...
Solving The Mystery Of Membrane FusionThe many factors that contribute to how cells communicate and function at the most basic level are still not fully understood, but researchers at Baylor College of Medicine have uncovered a mechanism that helps explain how intracellular membranes fuse, and in the process, created a new physiological membrane fusion model. The findings appear in the current edition of the journal PLoS Biology...
How Cells Dispose Of Their WasteDefective proteins that are not disposed of by the body can cause diseases such as Alzheimer's or Parkinson's. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute (MPI) of Biochemistry recently succeeded in revealing the structure of the cellular protein degradation machinery (26S proteasome) by combining different methods of structural biology...
New Discoveries In Cell AgingA group of researchers led by the Institute of Biotechnology and Biomedicine (IBB) and Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona (UAB) can now quantify with precision the effect of protein aggregation on cell aging processes using Escherichia coli bacteria and the molecule which triggers Alzheimer's disease as models. Scientists demonstrated that the effect can be predicted before it occurs...
Tumors Continue Growing Even When Cells Get Old Based on the knowledge that cancer cells grow indefinitely, the general belief is that senescence could act as a barrier against tumor growth and has the potential of being used as a cancer treatment...
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