When retroviruses like HIV infect cells, they take over the cell’s machinery to manufacture new copies of themselves. Research published this week in the top-tier open access journal, Journal of Biology, shows that to escape from cells, retroviruses may once again hijack cellular components, in this case molecules normally used to engulf material from the cell’s surroundings in a pocket formed from cell membrane. The findings, offer new insights into how viruses propagate and cause disease,
Laser tool makes it possible to study the interior of an endothelial cell in a non-invasive way
Endothelial cells, which line the body’s blood vessels and regulate the exchange of material between the blood stream and surrounding tissue, are one of the most closely studied types of cell in the body.
The cells play an important role in cardiovascular disease. And a greater knowledge of their interior functions may help scientists develop new cancer treatments that curb o
Study provides insight into role of TGF-beta in cancer development, progression
Scientists are puzzled by the fact that the molecule known as transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-b) generally stops cells from multiplying but at other times promotes cell growth.
Dr. Hal Moses, director of the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, and his lab identified TGF-b in 1985 as both a growth stimulator and growth suppressor. Since that time, its role in colon, breast and other cancers has b
Growth hormone is known to increase lean body mass and bone density in the elderly, but it does something else, too.
It activates a gene critical for the body’s tissues to heal and regenerate, says Robert Costa, professor of biochemistry and molecular genetics at the University of Illinois at Chicago and a member of the UIC Cancer Center.
That discovery could help explain why we age.
“Growth hormone levels decline as we grow older; as a result, the Foxm1b gene st
An unusual experiment with monkeys who were switched between mothers shortly after birth has demonstrated the importance of nature over nurture in behavior.
Young monkeys reared by a mother other than their own are more likely to exhibit the aggressive or friendly behavior of their birth mothers rather than the behavior of their foster mothers, a University of Chicago researcher has shown for the first time.
The discovery of inheritability of social behavior traits among non-human
Fox Chase Cancer Center researchers and their colleagues in Japan and San Francisco have obtained new insight into the molecular structure of prion particles responsible for mad cow disease and other degenerative neurological disorders. In new research to be published in this week’s Online Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (www.pnas.org), Fox Chase biophysicist Heinrich Roder, Ph.D., and colleagues describe a computer model of the structural core of prions, bas
According to the classic rules of physics, substances melt at a lower temperature when their sizes decrease. But scientists at Indiana University Bloomington have found that at least one substance, gallium, breaks the rules, remaining stable as a solid at temperatures as much as 400 degrees Fahrenheit above the element’s normal melting point. Their report will be published in an upcoming issue of Physical Review Letters.
The discovery gives hope to some nanotechnologists and “nanocomput
Researchers led by Jason Jaworski, PhD, and Michael Kuhar, PhD, both at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center at Emory University, have shown that CART peptide, a chemical that occurs naturally in both the rodent and human brain, reduces some effects of cocaine when additional amounts are administered to the region of the brain that is associated with reward and addiction. These findings, which were presented on November 8 at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in New Orleans, appear in the De
Deleting a particular ion channel from sperm cells causes those cells to lose the power needed for fertilization, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas found while expanding studies into male infertility.
These findings, which could eventually lead to more effective forms of contraception, are currently available online and will appear in the Dec. 9 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
In studies on mice, disrupting a gene that contains a
A startling mutual-aid society is linking fungus and snails in marine ecosystems, according to a study led by a Brown University biologist. The study presents the first evidence that a species of marine snail engages in a previously undemonstrated form of food acquisition and ecological control by initiating and encouraging the growth of fungi, its preferred food, on live marsh grass. Infestation by fungi greatly slows the growth of the grass.
In surveys conducted along 2,000 kilometers of s
Discovery may have implications for stabilizing chromosomes in cancer cells
Overturning 60 years of scientific presumption, new evidence from Johns Hopkins scientists shows that enzymes nibble away at chromosomes when the chromosomes’ protective tips, called telomeres, get too short.
Much like the plastic tips on shoelaces, telomeres protect the ends of chromosomes. When telomeres get too short, cells usually die. If they don’t, the unprotected ends drag the chromo
Like junkies without drugs, mice without running wheels crave what they lack, suggesting that some animals can develop an addiction for exercise, report scientists in the Dec. 1 issue of the journal Behavioral Neuroscience.
We all know someone who can’t get enough exercise: the marathon runner who jogged 26 miles in all 50 states, the neighbor who speed walks at the crack of dawn or the cyclist who zooms by every Sunday. We might say these people are addicted to physical activity. But
Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago have successfully turned adult stem cells into bone and cartilage, forming the ball structure of a joint found in the human jaw with its characteristic shape and tissue composition.
Tested so far only in animals, the tissue-engineering procedure to create a human-shaped articular condyle could be used one day to regenerate the ball structure of joints in the jaw, knee and hip that have been lost to injury or diseases such as arthritis.
Scientists have discovered a new role for estrogen in maintaining health. Drs. Yuka Nagata and Kazuo Todokoro report in the December 1 issue of Genes & Development that the most abundant form of naturally occurring estrogen, estradiol, triggers the formation of blood platelet cells. This discovery has important clinical implications for the treatment of conditions associated with altered platelet counts, like anemia, certain leukemias, and even chemotherapy.
Blood is composed of 3 cell type
A genetic pathway whose activity was suspected to advance heart disease by increasing inflammation in the blood vessels and arteries feeding the heart may actually protect against it at least in laboratory mice, reports a team of Rockefeller University scientists led by Jan Breslow, M.D., in the Nov. 25 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The Rockefeller scientists’ findings that blocking the NFkB pathway actually contributes to heart disease in the lab animals, o
Despite widely publicized reports about the sheep, Dolly and Polly, cloning is still not considered successful in the scientific community. Only two percent of clones succeed and they are sometimes unhealthy. To understand exactly where cloning goes wrong, researchers at Temple University School of Medicine (TUSM) examined and compared the earliest stages of development in normal embryos and cloned embryos.
“First, we mapped out some of the early steps an egg and sperm take to become an embr
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