How novel therapeutics provide insight into bacteria membranes. Whether bacteria are resistant to antibiotics is often decided at the cell membrane. This is where antibiotics can be blocked on their way into the cell interior or catapulted from the inside to the outside. Macrocyclic peptides, a novel class of antibiotics, bioactive cytotoxins and inhibitors, shed light on how this transport process occurs at the membrane, how it is influenced and how it can be used to circumvent the resistance of…
A new technology developed by UZH researchers enables the body to produce therapeutic agents on demand at the exact location where they are needed. The innovation could re-duce the side effects of cancer therapy and may hold the solution to better delivery of Covid-related therapies directly to the lungs. Scientists at the University of Zurich have modified a common respiratory virus, called adenovirus, to act like a Trojan horse to deliver genes for cancer therapeutics directly into tumor cells. Unlike…
New model reveals that a network of cellulose is key to this unique combination. A plant cell wall’s unique ability to expand without weakening or breaking–a quality required for plant growth–is due to the movement of its cellulose skeleton, according to new research that models the cell wall. The new model, created by Penn State researchers, reveals that chains of cellulose bundle together within the cell wall, providing strength, and slide against each other when the cell is stretched, providing…
On an expedition to Peru in November 2019, shortly before the outbreak of the Corona pandemic, a group of researchers including Jörn Köhler, zoologist at the Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt, discovered a new species of ‘beaked toad’. The new species from the Cordillera Azul is characterised, as the name implies, by a particularly long ‘nose’. Although most toads are brown, these animals are predominantly green in colour, but it were mainly genetic studies that aided in their identification, Köhler reports. The…
The human brain is a vast network of billions of biological cells called Neurons which fires electrical signals that process information, resulting in our sense and thoughts. The ion channels of atomic scale in each neuron cell membrane plays a key role in such firings that opens and closes the ion flow in an individual cell by the electrical voltage applied across the cell membrane, acting as a “biological transistor” similar to electronic transistors in computers. For decades, scientists have…
Platinum-free biocatalyst for fuel cells and water electrolysis … An enzyme could make a dream come true for the energy industry: It can efficiently produce hydrogen using electricity and can also generate electricity from hydrogen. The enzyme is protected by embedding it in a polymer. An international research team with significant participation of scientists from Technical University of Munich (TUM) has presented the system in the renowned science journal Nature Catalysis. Fuel cells turn hydrogen into electricity, while electrolysers use…
Research team from the Kiel Evolution Center at Kiel University investigates the diversity of immune functions of closely related C-type lectin-like domain genes in the nematode C. elegans. Humans, like all other living beings, have a so-called innate immune system. The structure of the proteins involved is already genetically fixed and therefore cannot be changed. In addition to the innate immune system, vertebrates, including humans, have a so-called adaptive immune system. The repertoire of defence proteins of the adaptive immune…
Platinum-free biocatalyst for fuel cells and water electrolysis … An enzyme could make a dream come true for the energy industry: It can efficiently produce hydrogen using electricity and can also generate electricity from hydrogen. The enzyme is protected by embedding it in a polymer. An international research team with significant participation of scientists from Technical University of Munich (TUM) has presented the system in the renowned science journal Nature Catalysis. Fuel cells turn hydrogen into electricity, while electrolysers use…
Controlling, and mitigating the effects of ice growth is crucial to protect infrastructure, help preserve frozen cells and to enhance texture of frozen foods. An international collaboration of Warwick Scientists working with researchers from Switzerland have used a phage display platform to discover new, small, peptides which function like larger antifreeze proteins. This presents a route to new, easier to synthesise, cryoprotectants.Caption: Using viruses (phage display) to identify the one molecule in a billion (peptide8) that controls the formation of…
The process of combining maternal and paternal genetic information is surprisingly error-prone. Only one in three fertilizations leads to a successful pregnancy. Many embryos fail to progress beyond early development. Cell biologists at the Max Planck Institute (MPI) for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen (Germany), together with researchers at the Institute of Farm Animal Genetics in Mariensee and other international colleagues, have now developed a new model system for studying early embryonic development. With the help of this system, they discovered…
Probiotic approaches could protect corals against heat stress. Corals are the backbone of marine ecosystems in the tropics. They are threatened by rising water temperatures caused by global warming and they are among the first ecosystems worldwide that are on the verge of ecological collapse. Coral bleaching, which is becoming stronger and more frequent due to heat stress, has already wiped out corals at many locations globally. With the help of a microbiome-targeting strategy developed by an international team led…
Worldwide network headed by Goethe University develops protocols for laboratories. For the development of drugs or vaccines against COVID-19, research needs virus proteins of high purity. For most of the SARS-CoV-2 proteins, scientists at Goethe University Frankfurt and a total of 36 partner laboratories have now developed protocols that enable the production of several milligrams of each of these proteins with high purity, and allow the determination of the three-dimensional protein structures. The laboratory protocols and the required genetic tools…
The inner workings of a “self-destruct switch” present on human cells that can be activated during an immune response have been revealed. In unprecedented detail, KAUST scientists with collaborators in China report the 3D atomic structure of the human PANX1 protein, which may help underpin new therapies that target the immune system. When cells become infected with a pathogen, the body’s immune system works to destroy the infected cells before they become a threat to surrounding tissues. This form of…
– how T cells detect invaders. T cells use their antigen receptors like sticky fingers — a team from TU Wien and MedUni Vienna was able to observe them doing so. T-cells play a central role in our immune system: by means of their so-called T-cell receptors (TCR) they make out dangerous invaders or cancer cells in the body and then trigger an immune reaction. On a molecular level, this recognition process is still not sufficiently understood. Intriguing observations have…
Clothing, from tank tops to parkas, helps people adapt to temperatures outdoors. But you can only put on or take off so much of it, and fluctuations in weather can render what you are wearing entirely inadequate. In a new study in ACS’ Nano Letters, researchers describe a high-tech alternative: a reversible textile they designed to trap warmth in the cold and reflect it during hot weather, all while generating small amounts of electricity. Previous attempts to develop such sophisticated…
Coded messages in invisible ink sound like something only found in espionage books, but in real life, they can have important security purposes. Yet, they can be cracked if their encryption is predictable. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces have printed complexly encoded data with normal ink and a carbon nanoparticle-based invisible ink, requiring both UV light and a computer that has been taught the code to reveal the correct messages. Even as electronic records advance, paper…
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