By combining sophisticated RNA sequencing technology with a new device that isolates single cells and their progeny, MIT researchers can now trace detailed family histories for several generations of cells descended from one “ancestor.”
Variation in egg-coat and sperm expressed genes influences fertility in diverse organisms, from sea stars to mice to humans.
Scientists from the Mechanobiology Institute, Singapore at the National University of Singapore have discovered the universal building blocks that cells use to form initial connections with the surrounding environment. These early adhesions have a consistent size of 100 nanometres, are made up of a cluster of around 50 integrin proteins and are the same even when the surrounding surface is hard or soft. Deciphering the universal nature of adhesion formation may reveal how tumour cells sense and migrate on surfaces of different rigidity, which is a hallmark of metastasis, the devastating ability of cancer to spread throughout the body.
Researchers have identified a mechanism that allows cancer cells to respond and grow rapidly when levels of sugar in the blood rise. This may help to explain why people who develop conditions in which they have chronically high sugar levels in their blood, such as obesity, also have an increased risk of developing certain types of cancer.
Scientists from The Scripps Research Institute and the Crucell Vaccine Institute have now designed a protein fragment called mini-HA that stimulates the production of antibodies against a variety of influenza viruses. A key part of the work took place at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL), a DOE Office of Science User Facility at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, where the scientists used a technique called X-ray crystallography to look at the atomic structure of the mini-HA at each stage of its development.
An NSAID changed the composition and diversity of gut microbes, which in turn shaped how the drug is broken down and ultimately, cut its effectiveness, according to animal study
Using a new gene-editing technique, a team of scientists from UT Southwestern Medical Center stopped progression of Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) in young mice.
Adding to growing evidence on the possible health risks of electronic cigarettes, a lab team at the Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System tested two products and found they damaged cells in ways that could lead to cancer. The damage occurred even with nicotine-free versions of the products.
The human gut harbors a teeming menagerie of over 100 trillion microorganisms, and researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder have discovered that exercising early in life can alter that microbial community for the better, promoting healthier brain and metabolic activity over the course of a lifetime.
Lives of soldiers and others injured in remote locations could be saved with a cell-free protein synthesis system developed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
A technique to combine the ultrasensitivity of surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) with a slippery surface invented by Penn State researchers will make it feasible to detect single molecules of a number of chemical and biological species from gaseous, liquid or solid samples.
Australian scientists have for the first time revealed how malaria parasites cause an inflammatory reaction that sabotages our body's ability to protect itself against the disease.
The back of a tiger could have been a blank canvas. Instead, nature painted the big cat with parallel stripes, evenly spaced and perpendicular to the spine. Scientists don't know exactly how stripes develop, but since the 1950s, mathematicians have been modeling possible scenarios. In Cell Systems on December 23, Harvard researchers assemble a range of these models into a single equation to identify what variables control stripe formation in living things.
A new $8.5M (CAD) grant award by the European commission via its Horizon 2020 program will be used for the treatment of hemophilia A, also called factor VIII (FVIII) deficiency, the most common form of hemophilia A. The genetic disorder is caused by missing or defective factor VIII, a blood clotting protein. The grant was awarded to the HemAcure consortium consisting of Canadian- based Sernova Corp and five European academic and private partners to advance development of a GMP clinical grade Factor VIII releasing therapeutic cell product in combination with Sernova's Cell Pouch™ for the treatment of severe hemophilia A.
A liver hormone works via the brain’s reward pathway to reduce cravings for sweets and alcohol in mammals, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have found.
Molecular biologists at UT Southwestern Medical Center have identified a gene called NORAD that helps maintain the proper number of chromosomes in cells, and that when inactivated, causes the number of chromosomes in a cell to become unstable, a key feature of cancer cells.
Sex-changing snails switch sooner when together.
This resulted in the commercial release of a new UF/IFAS grapefruit cultivar N2-28 ‘Summer Gold Grapefruit’ that can be harvested into August.
A team of researchers from the National University of Singapore has uncovered the mystery behind the potent parasite-killing effect of artemisinin, a drug that is considered to be the last line of defence against malaria. Given the emergence of artemisinin resistance, these findings could potentially lead to the design of new treatments against drug-resistant parasites.
Scientists have for the first time viewed how bacterial proteins self-assemble into thin sheets and begin to form the walls of the outer shell for nano-sized polyhedral compartments that function as specialized factories. The new insight may aid scientists who seek to tap this natural origami by designing novel compartments or using them as scaffolding for new types of nanoscale architectures, such as drug-delivery systems.
Building upon previous research, scientists at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and UC San Diego Moores Cancer report that a protein called Wnt5a acts on a pair of tumor-surface proteins, called ROR1 and ROR2, to accelerate the proliferation and spread of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) cells, the most common form of blood cancer in adults.
Teams of geneticists from nine countries, involving more than 100 scientists, analyzed the genes of more than 33,000 individuals in the hope of finding genetic variations responsible for age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the leading cause of vision loss among people age 50 or older.
Understanding how tiny molecular motors called myosins use energy to fuel biological tasks like contracting muscles could lead to therapies for muscle diseases and cancers, say a team of researchers led by Penn State College of Medicine scientists.
Researchers from the Cancer Science Institute of Singapore (CSI Singapore) at the National University of Singapore (NUS) have delineated novel molecular interactions affecting the activity of the TGF-β pathway, a key cancer pathway in humans affecting cancer progression.
St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital scientists discover a novel strategy that aggressive sarcomas use to promote drug resistance and cancer’s spread plus evidence of how to reverse the process.
A well-known ‘superbug’ which was thought to have been a static or non-motile organism has been observed showing signs of active motility by scientists at The Universities of Nottingham and Sheffield.
Scientists have shown for the first time that an enzyme crucial to keeping our immune system healthy “surfs” along the strands of DNA inside our cells.
As interdisciplinary sleuths, a Michigan Tech team recently put together clues to solve the case of the sticky protein. The new tool opens more possibilities for studying neurodegenerative diseases like ALS, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), have developed a synthetic biomaterial that fills wounds and aids in regeneration of skin cells, which ultimately improves wound healing.
UCLA researchers have found that space-mapping neurons – the GPS system in the brain - have a strong dependence on what is being looked at when triangulating location, a finding that resolves a neurological mystery that has vexed scientists for more than four decades.
A University of Utah-led study identified a long-sought “hybrid inviability gene” responsible for dead or infertile offspring when two species of fruit flies mate with each other. The discovery sheds light on the genetic and molecular process leading to formation of new species, and may provide clues to how cancer develops.
Evolutionary biologists at Fred Hutchison Cancer Research Center, University of Washington and the University of Utah may have solved a century-old evolutionary riddle: How did two related fruit fly species arise from one?
University at Buffalo scientists how levels of various sphingolipids spike inside cancer cells when the cells are undergoing a highly organized form of cellular death called apoptosis.
In two new studies, researchers in the laboratory of Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator Alejandro Sánchez Alvarado, Ph.D., at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research explore the intricate processes at work when stem cells differentiate into planarian skin cells.
new cellular structure responsible for previously unexplained rejection of organ transplants has been identified by researchers at the University of Montreal Hospital Research Centre (CRCHUM.) This discovery could one day revolutionize transplantation practice by modifying risk assessment of rejection in people who receive heart, lung, kidney, or liver transplants
A study published today finds a surprising and very recent shift away from the steady relationship among species that prevailed for more than 300 million years. The study, published in the journal Nature, offers the first long-term view of how species associated with each other for half of the existence of multicellular life on Earth.
Among adults with difficult to treat Crohn disease not amenable to surgery, hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, compared with conventional therapy, did not result in significant improvement in sustained disease remission at l year and was associated with significant toxicity, according to a study in the December 15 issue of JAMA.
In much the same way PAC-MAN gobbles through an intense maze of dots eating and destroying its aggressors, researchers have revealed for the first time how a similar mechanism in the eye lens does exactly the same thing. They have discovered that cells in close proximity to each other can sense when a cell is dying due to environmental stressors like UV light, smoke and other pollutants, and eat the cell before it becomes toxic.
Now researchers at Joslin Diabetes Center have identified a key protein produced in the liver that aids in accelerating the growth of these cells.
Multiple sclerosis (MS) may be triggered by the death of brain cells that make myelin, the insulation around nerve fibers, according to research on a novel mouse model. This can be prevented through the application of specially developed nanoparticles, even after the loss of those brain cells.
Researchers from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) and other institutions are reporting the discovery of the first broad spectrum drug that can potently kill senescent (or aging) cells in culture and effectively clear the cells in animals by specifically targeting a pathway that is critical for the survival of senescent cells.
Brain cancer is not cellular anarchy, says Pedro Lowenstein and colleagues at the University of Michigan and University of Arizona, but highly organized—self-organized. At ASCB 2015, the researchers report that glioma cells build tumors by self-organizing into streams,10-20 cells wide, that obey a mathematically predicted pattern for autonomous agents flowing together. These streams drag along slower gliomas, may block entry of immune cells, and swirl around a central axis containing glioma stem cells that feed the tumor’s growth.
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD )is the third leading cause of death in the US and cigarette smoking is the leading cause of COPD. Currently there is no cure, current treatments are largely palliative, and new treatment targets are scarce. Now Corrine Kliment and colleagues in Doug Robinson’s lab at Johns Hopkins University have found two new targets for blocking cigarette smoke-induced COPD in a surprising place—amoebas. Kliment presents the work at ASCB 2015.
Driven by accelerating advances in super-resolution imaging, fluorescent tagging, and Big Data manipulation, we’re living in the Golden Age of Cell Movies. ASCB’s Celldance Studios today releases three new exciting examples of short (4-6 minute) videos, made by cell scientists themselves who tell their own cell research stories, featuring eye-popping live cell imaging.
Further underscoring the prenatal origins of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine describe for the first time how abnormal gene activity in cell cycle networks that are known to control brain cell production may underlie abnormal early brain growth in the disorder.
By linking CRISPR/Cas9 with another cutting edge technology—human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs). Benjamin. Freedman, now at the University of Washington, and his colleagues in Joseph Bonventre’s lab at Harvard Medical School, have used CRISPR/Cas9 to guide hPSCs into becoming a human cell-based lab model system for polycystic kidney disease (PKD).
Researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and University of Colorado Boulder have discovered that unique and changing microbial communities present during decomposition of human cadavers may provide a reliable “clock” for forensic scientists. The method could be used to estimate time of death in different seasons, as well determine the original location of moved corpses and help locate buried corpses.
Meet TrCel7a (pronounced tee-are-cell-seven-a). TrCel7a is a cellulase: a special enzyme that breaks down cellulose, the most plentiful natural polymer on the planet. The enzyme works like a microscopic wood chipper. It swallows strands of tightly bound cellulose and breaks them down into simple sugars. It works very slowly but, like a truck operating at a very low gear, it is extremely difficult to stop once it gets going.
Ghosts are not your typical cell biology research subjects but scientists at the Carnegie Institution for Science and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) who developed a technique to observe muscle stem/progenitor cells migrating within injury sites in live mice, report that “ghost fibers,” remnants of the old extracellular matrix left by dying muscle fibers, guide the cells into position for healing to begin.
Whitehead Institute researchers have created a map of the DNA loops that comprise the three dimensional (3D) structure of the human genome and contribute to gene regulation in human embryonic stem cells. The location of genes and regulatory elements within this chromosomal framework will help scientists better navigate their genomic research, establishing relationships between mutations and disease development.
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