A research team at The Hospital for Sick Children (Sick Kids) led by Dr. Howard Lipshitz has discovered that a protein previously linked to mammalian embryo implantation, as well as tumour metastasis, plays similar roles in fruit fly development. This research is reported in the featured article in the March 9, 2004 issue of the scientific journal Current Biology.
“We were surprised to find such high evolutionary conservation of the structure, expression and function of these proteins – cal
The anti-microbial activity of promising peptides shown in laboratory studies to kill several medically important fungi, some of which are resistant to current drugs, can be enhanced further by protecting the peptides from enzymes programmed to destroy them, University at Buffalo oral biologists have found.
A protease inhibitor cocktail containing compounds that inactivate the enzymes that normally would degrade the small pieces of protein enabled the potential treatments for oral infections
In recent years, scientists have unearthed a trove of subterranean microbial oddities, bugs that live and thrive in bizarre and extreme environments, and that accomplish remarkable feats to survive there.
Now, the flooded depths of an abandoned iron mine in southwestern Wisconsin have yielded yet another novelty: microbes that produce nanometer-scale crystals of extraordinary length. The discovery of the willowy microscopic crystals may open a broad new window to human understanding of bio
Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas have discovered a major mechanism to explain normal and abnormal smooth muscle growth, a finding that could help in the development of novel therapeutics for disorders like hypertension and asthma.
Their work appears in today’s issue of Nature.
Smooth muscle cells are essential for the formation and function of the cardiovascular system, as well as many internal organs such as the stomach, intestine, bladder and uterus. Abno
Advance could solve major challenge in tissue engineering
Researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) have successfully induced the growth of new networks of functional blood vessels in mice. In the March 11 issue of Nature, the team from the Steele Laboratory in the MGH Department of Radiation Therapy describes how their technique led to the growth of long-lasting blood vessels without the need for genetic manipulation. The accomplishment may help solve one of the primary c
Protein offers possibility of finding new cancer therapies
Researchers at New York University School of Medicine have found that a protein called APC plays a role in controlling a web of molecular interactions that can transform normal cells into cancerous ones. The finding may provide new possibilities for devising cancer therapies that target this protein.
“A tumor cell lacks the ability to limit its own growth,” says Michele Pagano, M.D., Associate Professor of Pathology,
Contrary to long-held scientific views that the number of oocytes (eggs) in the ovaries of most mammals is fixed at birth, scientists report that new oocyte-containing follicles continue to develop in the ovaries of adult mice. The research suggests that these new oocytes come from stem cells located in the ovary. The study, supported by the National Institute on Aging (NIA), one of the National Institutes of Health, was conducted by Jonathan L. Tilly, Ph.D., and colleagues at Massachusetts General H
Scientists have identified a gene in mice that is necessary for normal brain development and may contribute to the most common form of primary brain tumors in children.
Dr. Valeri Vasioukhin and colleagues at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center have discovered that a gene known as “lethal giant larvae 1” (a.k.a. Lgl1) plays a critical role in shaping cell behavior during embryonic brain development. Lgl1 was initially identified in the fruit fly Drosophila, where it regulates cell po
Scientists at the Montreal Neurological Institute and the Montreal Proteomics Network at McGill University have published the most complete picture to date of the components of the molecular machinery that controls the entry of nutrients and other molecules into cells. In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA (PNAS), Dr. Peter McPherson and colleagues used proteomics, the large-scale study of proteins, to identify the protein complement of clathrin-coat
The new technique provide support for cartilage cells as they regenerate new cartilage tissue
Duke biomedical engineers have developed a technique to use a natural polymer to fill in and protect cartilage wounds within joints, and to provide supportive scaffolding for new cartilage growth. Their advance offers a potential solution for a central problem in generating new cartilage: providing a support for cartilage cells as they regenerate cartilage tissue.
In tests on rabbit
Common scientific wisdom is that inherited disease results when a mutated protein communicates a defective message in the cell. That does not explain how similar mutations in proteins result in different severities of diseases.
The answer may be found in the messenger RNA (ribonucleic acid), said Dr. James Lupski, professor of molecular and human genetics and pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine and colleagues in a report that appears online in Nature Genetics on March 8, 2004.
OHSU researchers show brain anatomy, hormone production may be cause
Researchers in the Oregon Health & Science University School of Medicine have confirmed that a male sheep’s preference for same-sex partners has biological underpinnings.
A study published in the February issue of the journal Endocrinology demonstrates that not only are certain groups of cells different between genders in a part of the sheep brain controlling sexual behavior, but brain anatomy and horm
Ears do more than hear; they also control balance and our perception of gravity and motion. An international team of scientists including David E. Bergstrom and John C. Schimenti, at The Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor; and Rainer Paffenholz and Gabriele Stumm at Ingenium Pharmaceuticals AG in Martinsried, Germany, identified for the first time a protein whose enzymatic function is indispensable for development of this balance system.
The scientists had known that mice with the head tilt m
Viruses could become the next generation of environmentally friendly decontaminants, replacing harmful chemicals like chlorine dioxide in cleaning up areas exposed to anthrax spores, according to findings released today at the American Society for Microbiology’s Biodefense Research Meeting. Researchers from the Biological Defense Research Directorate in Rockville, Maryland, the Defense Science Technology Laboratory in the United Kingdom, and the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute pre
After successfully turning cells taken from human fat into different cell types, Duke University Medical Center researchers have now demonstrated that these specific cells are truly adult stem cells with multiple potential, instead of being a mixture of different types of cells, each with a more limited destiny.
During the past three years, the Duke researchers exposed cells taken from human liposuction procedures to different cocktails of nutrients and vitamins, and “reprogrammed” them to
Method is First to Show Three Genes at Once in Higher Animals
Using chicken embryos and colorful fluorescent dyes, University of Utah scientists have demonstrated for the first time in a higher animal that it is possible to simultaneously show three genes working within an embryo, body tissue or even a single cell.
“This method allows us to visualize how embryos develop in more detail and with greater clarity than ever before,” says physician Teri Jo Mauch, a pediatric kidney
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