Research on the genome of the virus that causes severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) has revealed an unusual molecular structure that looks like a promising target for antiviral drugs. A team of scientists at the University of California, Santa Cruz, has determined the three-dimensional shape of this structure, an intricately twisted and folded segment of RNA. Their findings suggest that it may help the virus hijack the protein-building machinery of infected cells.
The SAR
Mice missing a specific protein from their brains react to stress differently. The genetically engineered mice develop an imbalance in a hormone involved in stress responses, and during stressful situations, they behave as if they are depressed. Genetic variations in the same protein may be a significant cause of human depression, according to researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
Their report will be published in the Proceedings of the National Aca
Findings could shed new light on malignant melanoma
Few things about growing older are as inevitable and obvious as “going gray,” yet scientists have been unable to explain the precise cause of this usually unwelcome transformation.
In a report posted today on the Web site of the journal Science, researchers from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Children’s Hospital Boston say they have found the cellular cause of graying hair while investigating the origins of maligna
New research by investigators at Duke University Medical Center has provided insight into a fundamental cellular control mechanism that governs tissue regeneration, stem cell renewal and cancer growth. In humans, malfunctions in the pathway have been implicated in skin and brain cancers, as well as certain developmental defects, according to the researchers.
The team found that the protein beta-arrestin2, earlier linked to a variety of inhibitory functions, also plays a critical
Scientists link gene ’switches’ to specific brain locations
Researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have compiled the first atlas showing the locations of crucial gene regulators, or switches that determine how different parts of the brain develop – and, in some cases, develop abnormally or malfunction. The scientists say the map will accelerate research on brain tumors and neurological diseases that result from mutations in these switch genes – called “transcrip
For the first time, scientists have found that bacteria can use a Sonar-like system to spot other cells (either normal body cells or other bacteria) and target them for destruction. Reported in the December 24 issue of Science, this finding explains how some bacteria know when to produce a toxin that makes infection more severe. It may lead to the design of new toxin inhibitors. “Blocking or interfering with a bacterium’s “detection” mechanism, should prevent toxin production and limit the s
In a study published in the December 24, 2004 issue of the journal Science, Michael Moore and Greg Early at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have documented bone lesions in the rib and chevron bones of sperm whales, most likely caused by tissue damage from nitrogen bubbles that form when the animals rise to the surface.
The WHOI biologists found that the lesions grow in severity with age, and are found in animals from the Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans. The lesions w
Biologists at the University of California, San Diego have found a fundamental mechanism used by embryonic stem cells to assure that genetically damaged stem cells do not divide and pass along the damage to daughter stem cells.
Their discovery, detailed in an advance online publication of the journal Nature Cell Biology, solves the longstanding mystery of how embryonic stem cells, which have the potential to divide an unlimited number of times and differentiate to make all of the ce
A team led by Johns Hopkins scientists has found the first clear evidence that the process behind the human immune system’s remarkable ability to recognize and respond to a million different proteins might have originated from a family of genes whose only apparent function is to jump around in genetic material.
“Jumping genes” essentially cut themselves out of the genetic material, and scientists have suspected that this ability might have been borrowed by cells needing to build
The U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (JGI), culminating a 16-year effort, has completed its share of the Human Genome Project with the publication of the DNA sequence and analysis of chromosome 16 in the Dec. 23 issue of Nature.
“The Department of Energy is very proud of its historic role in the sequencing of the human genome–and very excited by the advances our pioneering discovery-class science now is making possible in the fields of both medicine and energy,”
By impaling individual chromosomes with glass needles one thousandth the diameter of a human hair, a Duke University graduate student has tested their “stickiness” to one another during cell division. Her uncanny surgical skills have added a piece to the large and intricate puzzle of how one cell divides into two — a process fundamental to all organisms.
In the Dec. 14, 2004, issue of Current Biology, Leocadia Paliulis and Bruce Nicklas report their progress in understanding how
Researchers at The Molecular Sciences Institute revealed means for sensitive detection and precise quantification of arbitrarily designated molecules. The work is published in the current issue of Nature Methods.
The Cover Article, entitled “Using protein-DNA chimeras to detect and count small numbers of molecules,” describes “tadpole” molecules, and their use to detect and count small numbers of proteins and other molecules.
Detection and quantification methods based o
Professor Xiaolian Gao’s research unlocks potential for new medications, vaccines and diagnostics
Devices the size of a pager now have greater capabilities than computers that once occupied an entire room. Similar advances are being made in the emerging field of synthetic biology at the University of Houston, now allowing researchers to inexpensively program the chemical synthesis of entire genes on a single microchip.
Xiaolian Gao, a professor in the department of b
Fascinated by the efficient way the human immune system generates a rapid response to create a near-infinite variety of antibodies, researchers have “hijacked” that machinery and used it to evolve a new type of fluorescent protein.
The mutation process, called somatic hypermutation (SHM), normally acts on immunoglobulin genes, producing a large array of antibodies necessary to attack microbes and other foreign substances that the immune system may never have encountered before. Th
The latest holiday gifts being offered to the scientific community this season by scientists in the laboratory of Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator Roger Y. Tsien come in a dazzling variety of hues — cherry, strawberry, tangerine, tomato, orange, banana and honeydew. The color spectrum would make Pantone proud.
No, Tsien’s group is not giving out fruit baskets; the names describe vibrant new varieties of fluorescent protein that the researchers have created to tag
Researchers knew that prions, the misfolded proteins that cause mad cow disease and other brain disorders, were killing off a class of important brain cells in a transgenic mouse model. But when they found a way to rescue those cells, they were astonished to discover the mice still became sick.
Now they believe previous efforts to find the beginnings of the mouse disorder may have been focused on the wrong part of the brain cell and are plotting new directions for research.
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