Nerve growth factor makes end run around leptin, a brain hormone linked to appetite regulation
Working on genetically engineered obese mice with seriously thickened hearts, a condition call cardiac hypertrophy, scientists at Johns Hopkins have used a nerve protection and growth factor on the heart to mimic the activity of the brain hormone leptin, dramatically reducing the size of the heart muscle.
Leptin is a protein hormone made by fat cells that signals the brain to
A little clutter on the way to the refrigerator might mean taking a few extra seconds to navigate your way to a late night snack. For a bat flying around in the dark searching for a meal of insects, the “clutter” of things like leaves and trees could mean missing out on a tasty morsel of dinner altogether.
A bat finds its way around with sound rather than sight. Using a sensory process called echolocation, the bat emits ultrasonic pulses that hit objects like leaves, trees, and inse
Upon hearing the blare of a siren, you would quickly home in on the source and direction of the sound and take the necessary action, or precaution, such as pulling your car over or foregoing crossing the street until the ambulance has cleared. Mammals rely on sound localization skills to communicate, escape threats, and forage, among many other tasks. All through development the adult brain retains the capacity to rewire the networks that underlie these skills but it’s not clear which tasks
So-called wobble pairs make RNA more reactive, enhancing protein production
The wealth of information contained in a strand of genetic material boils down to sequences of matched pairs of nucleotides that cellular machinery decodes to construct proteins.
Writing today in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a University of Wisconsin-Madison bacteriologist reveals that mispaired nucleotides in transfer RNA actually make the molecule more adroit, enhancin
A new subtlety in the process of how the body’s nervous system relays information may hinge on how “wet” the “kiss” is when one neuron fires a packet of neurotransmitter across a synapse to a receptive nerve cell.
A team of neuroscientists led by University of Illinois at Chicago biology professor Simon Alford report the finding in the March 14 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“Until recently, the neuroscience field was solidly behind
Australian snakes’ venom could provide the next generation of human therapeutic drugs.
A blood-clotting protein in taipan venom has been identified by Queensland University of Technology PhD researcher Liam St Pierre to rapidly stop excessive bleeding during vascular surgery and major trauma.
The genetic code for the toxin, Factor X (Factor Ten), was identified by PhD researcher Liam St Pierre from QUT’s School of Life Sciences who studied the venom of eight of
Why do some overweight people stay healthy (apart from possible musculo-skeletal disorders) while obesity in other individuals leads to complications like diabetes and cardiovascular disease? The explanation lies in the genes. Scientists at the Department of Clinical Sciences at Lund University in Malmö, Sweden , have identified a gene that exists in a special variant in most overweight people, a variant that makes fatty acids “leak” into the blood stream, where they don’t belong.
Fa
Scientists based in Palo Alto, California, have accomplished a major feat: They have produced brilliant X-ray light from a device just a fraction of the standard size. The advance could transform numerous fields of biomedical research by vastly improving access to a key resource for studying the properties of molecules.
Researchers who want to know the structures of molecules, such as proteins, use synchrotrons–facilities as big as football stadiums that produce intense X-ray beams.
Researchers report the discovery that cells used in bone marrow transplantation can develop into new cells lining the gut, according to a study by Yale School of Medicine in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The study showed that bone marrow derived cells can differentiate into functional gastrointestinal epithelial cells after bone marrow transplantation. Research was from the laboratory of Diane Krause, M.D., professor of Laboratory Medicine and senior auth
Johns Hopkins scientists report the discovery of a protein found only in cerebrospinal fluid that they say might be useful in identifying a subgroup of patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) or identifying those at risk for the debilitating autoimmune disorder.
MS strikes over 10,000 Americans each year, most of whom are women, and causes weakness, numbness, a loss of muscle coordination, and problems with vision, speech, and bladder control. It is a disorder in which the immune system de
Having a set of extra genes gave fish on separate continents the ability to evolve electric organs, report researchers from The University of Texas at Austin.
Dr. Harold Zakon and colleagues, in a paper recently published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, show that African and South American groups of fish independently evolved electric organs by modifying sodium channel proteins typically used in muscle contraction.
Mutations in sodium channel protein
Researchers at the University of Minnesota have identified key insights into how different types of infection-fighting T-cells survive and co-exist within the body’s immune system.
T-cells, or lymphocytes, are the body’s natural defense mechanism against infection, directly attacking foreign bodies such as bacteria and viruses. The body contains millions of different lymphocytes that fight specific infectious microbes. Research published in the March 3, 2006 issue of S
Genomic “tags” quickly catalog species, distinguish pathogens from harmless relatives
Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory have developed a new, high-throughput technique for identifying the many species of microorganisms living in an unknown “microbial community.” The method, described in the March 2006 issue of Applied Environmental Microbiology, has many applications — from assessing the microbes present in environmental samples and iden
Duke University theoretical chemists are investigating a new computer method that could help scientists identify the best molecules for drugs, electronic devices or an array of other uses. Their method would address the “daunting” fact that “that there aren’t enough atoms in the universe to make all the reasonable-sized molecules that could be made,” said Duke chemistry professor David Beratan.
In an article published in the Friday. Feb. 17, 2006 online issue of the Journal of the Am
Researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have discovered the underlying cause of a type of ataxia, hereditary disorders characterized by poor balance, loss of posture and difficulty performing rapid coordinated movement. Their work also led to a drug that significantly improved the motor coordination in mice with ataxia–a finding that could lead to better therapies for the disease. The study appears in the March issue of Nature Neuroscience and was featured in
A global evolutionary map reveals new insights into our last common ancestor
In 1870 the German scientist Ernst Haeckel mapped the evolutionary relationships of plants and animals in the first ’tree of life’. Since then scientists have continuously redrawn and expanded the tree adding microorganisms and using modern molecular data, yet, many parts of the tree have remained unclear. Now a group at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg has developed a c
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