Biosynthetic pathway of the light-harvesting carotenoid fucoxanthin is surprisingly complex / Photoprotective pigments serve as precursors. Diatoms are microscopic unicellular algae occurring in natural waters worldwide. During photosynthesis, they take up large quantities of carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas emitted through human activities, and convert it into biomass. The carotenoid fucoxanthin enables diatoms to efficiently harvest the blue-green part of the sunlight for photosynthesis. In collaboration with an international research team, researchers of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) in…
Cow mucus provides the basis for a synthetic prophylactic gel developed at KTH Royal Institute of Technology to protect against HIV and herpes transmission. The lubricating gel proved 70 percent effective in lab tests against HIV, and 80 percent effective against herpes. The viral prophylactic tests were conducted in a lab on several types of cells. The results were reported today in the scientific journal, Advanced Science. Hongji Yan, a biomaterials researcher at KTH, says the promising results raise hope…
EMBL researchers used data from over 300 human faecal microbiota transplants to gain an ecological understanding of what happens when two gut microbiomes clash together. Faecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) – the transfer of lower intestinal fluids and microbes from one individual to another – is sometimes used to treat inflammatory gut diseases, including ulcerative colitis and bacterial infections. Although a form of it was first recorded in 4th century China, it was introduced to western medicine in the 1950s. In…
Malnutrition is a key challenge not only in African countries. As an international study led by Veronika Somoza now shows, egg powder is a food with great potential to improve the nutritional situation of children in deprived areas. Compared to pasteurized whole egg, the powder contains lower amounts of essential fatty acids, but still provides many vitamins, indispensable amino acids and important trace elements. In addition, it has a long shelf life without additional preservatives, is easy to transport over…
Research team investigates reactivity of single molecules under controlled microscopic conditions. Researchers around the world are working to develop efficient materials to convert CO2 into usable chemical substances – work that is particularly pressing in view of global warming. A team from the University of Göttingen, Germany, and the Ulsan National Institute for Science, South Korea, has discovered a new and promising approach: catalytically active molecules are nanoconfined – meaning they are put into an environment that leaves very little space…
New studies by the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology show that competition between different evolutionary developmental stages of multicellular life cycles can be important for the development of an entire population. Without direct competition, only the growth rate of a population determines which life cycle prevails. Ecological competition, on the other hand, can lead to the selection of completely different life cycles. The evolution of multicellular organisms is a central process in the course of the origin of life….
Microbial proteins around a sexually transmitted infection allow pathogen to hide undetected inside host cells. Chlamydia, the leading cause of sexually transmitted bacterial infections, evades detection and elimination inside human cells by use of a cloaking device. But Duke University researchers have grasped the hem of that invisibility cloak and now hope they can pull it apart. To enter the cell and peacefully reproduce, many pathogenic bacteria, including Chlamydia, cloak themselves in a piece of the cell’s membrane, forming an…
Gene augmentation rescues cilia defects in light-sensing cells derived from patients with blinding disease. Researchers from the National Eye Institute (NEI) have developed a gene therapy that rescues cilia defects in retinal cells affected by a type of Leber congenital amaurosis (LCA), a disease that causes blindness in early childhood. Using patient-derived retina organoids (also known as retinas-in-a-dish), the researchers discovered that a type of LCA caused by mutations in the NPHP5 (also called IQCB1) gene leads to severe defects…
A team of researchers from Evonik and the Leibniz Institute for Catalysis (LIKAT) has once again achieved a breakthrough in the field of hydroformylation. Hydroformylation is one of the most important reactions in industrial organic chemistry. Unsaturated compounds are converted with synthesis gas to aldehydes and alcohols. It has now been demonstrated for the first time that the catalyst in this reaction is stable even at low pressures. This opens up a cost-effective and environmentally friendly route to aldehydes and…
Scientists have solved the century-old mystery of a supergene that causes efficient cross-pollination in flowers. The results show that sequence length variation at the DNA level is important for the evolution of two forms of flowers that differ in the length of their sexual organs. The study is published today in Current Biology. Gardeners and botanists have known since the 1500s that some plant species have two forms of flowers that differ reciprocally in the length of their male and…
Cell membranes transition seamlessly between distinct 3D configurations. It is a remarkable feature that is essential for several biological phenomena such as cell division, cell mobility, transport of nutrients into cells, and viral infections. Researchers at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and their collaborators have recently devised an experiment that sheds light on the mechanism by which such processes might occur in real time. The researchers looked at colloidal membranes, which are micrometre-thick layers of aligned, rod-like particles. Colloidal…
… yielding insight into evolution, food security and climate change. The National Science Foundation (NSF) recently announced that it will support the efforts of a collaborative group of researchers, led by Elizabeth Vierling, Distinguished Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, who plan to spend the next four years investigating the role that mitochondria play in plant productivity. This research has immediate implications for ensuring that agriculture can meet the challenge of global warming. “One of the things…
“We put nanotubes inside of bacteria,” says Professor Ardemis Boghossian at EPFL’s School of Basic Sciences. “That doesn’t sound very exciting on the surface, but it’s actually a big deal. Researchers have been putting nanotubes in mammalian cells that use mechanisms like endocytosis, that are specific to those kinds of cells. Bacteria, on the other hand, don’t have these mechanisms and face additional challenges in getting particles through their tough exterior. Despite these barriers, we’ve managed to do it, and…
LJI scientists uncover major clue toward developing a pan-flavivirus therapy. Zika virus has a trick up its sleeve. Once inside the body, the virus likes to make a bee line for dendritic cells, the cells we rely on to launch an effective immune response. “Dendritic cells are major cells of the innate immune system,” says LJI Professor Sujan Shresta, Ph.D., a member of the LJI Center for Infectious Disease and Vaccine Research. “How is this virus so clever that it’s…
New Neuropixels technology provides evidence of mosaic-like neural connections. For the first time, neuroscientists from Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin and the Max Planck Institute for Biological Intelligence (currently in the process of being established) have revealed the precise connections between sensory neurons inside the retina and the superior colliculus, a structure in the midbrain. Neuropixels probes are a relatively recent development, representing the next generation of electrodes. Densely packed with recording points, Neuropixels probes are used to record the activity…
Researchers discover cellular protection against epigenetic changes. The liver can regenerate even in old age and remains surprisingly fit, even though the chromatin in its cells undergoes major remodeling due to epigenetic changes, as researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing in Cologne have now discovered. One possible reason why the transformation has minor consequences could be a mechanism that the researchers now describe in the journal Molecular Systems Biology. Changes in epigenetics are considered to be…
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