Feature Channels: Cell Biology

• share
• favorite_border

No matter how many times it’s demonstrated, it’s still hard to envision bacteria as social, communicating creatures. But by using a signaling system called “quorum sensing,” these single-celled organisms radically alter their behavior to suit their population. Helen Blackwell, a professor of chemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has been making artificial compounds that mimic the natural quorum-sensing signals.

• share
• favorite_border

NYU Langone Medical Center scientists have found a way to boost dramatically the efficiency of the process for turning adult cells into so-called pluripotent stem cells by combining three well-known compounds, including vitamin C.

• share
• favorite_border

Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have devised a new antibiotic based on vancomycin that is powerfully effective against vancomycin-resistant strains of MRSA and other disease-causing bacteria.

• share
• favorite_border

Investigating a protein known to influence human glucose levels, scientists found that this factor has a broader reach than first thought, acting on key gene pathways involved in cardiovascular, neuropsychiatric, and cancer-related diseases.

• share
• favorite_border

Deploying sophisticated high-throughput sequencing technology, dubbed ψ-seq, a team of Whitehead Institute and Broad Institute researchers collaborated on a comprehensive, high-resolution mapping of ψ sites that confirms pseudouridylation, the most common post-transcriptional modification, does indeed occur naturally in mRNA.

• share
• favorite_border

Heat shock proteins protect the molecules in all human and animal cells with factors that regulate their production and work as thermostats. In new research published Sept. 16 in the journal eLife, scientists at NYU Langone Medical Center and elsewhere report for the first time that a protein called translation elongation factor eEF1A1 orchestrates the entire process of the heart shock response.

• share
• favorite_border

Leaky intestines may cripple bacteria-fighting immune cells in patients with common variable immunodeficiency (CVID), a rare hereditary disease. The study may explain why these patients suffer from recurrent bacterial infections.

• share
• favorite_border

UNC researchers discovered how two genes – Period and Cryptochrome – keep the circadian clocks in cells in proper rhythm with the 24-hour day. The finding has implications for drug development for various diseases including cancer and conditions such as jetlag and season affective disorder.

• share
• favorite_border

Bacteria that normally live in and upon us have genetic blueprints that enable them to make thousands of molecules that act like drugs, and some of these molecules might serve as the basis for new human therapeutics, according to UC San Francisco researchers.

• share
• favorite_border

The fast and safe technique developed at the Salk Institute circumvents problems that have hindered regenerative medicine.

• share
• favorite_border

Unexpected results from an ongoing experiment in the lab of Kristi Neufeld, Ph.D., co-leader of the Cancer Biology Program, led to a potentially important discovery that could have an impact on how cancer researchers test anti-cancer therapies in mice, and possibly prevent colon cancer in people.

• share
• favorite_border

In a new study published today, Sept. 8, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team of researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison has added a new wrinkle to the cell differentiation equation, showing that the stiffness of the surfaces on which stem cells are grown can exert a profound influence on cell fate.

• share
• favorite_border

A new study finds that cyclic bursts of a STAT3 inhibitor can replenish muscle stem cells and promote their differentiation into muscle fibers. The findings are an important step toward developing and maintaining new muscle to treat muscle diseases.

• share
• favorite_border

Salk scientists identify how immune cells use two critical receptors to clear dead cells from the body, pointing the way to new autoimmune and cancer therapies.

• share
• favorite_border

Scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute and the La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology have developed a more effective method to determine how T cells differentiate into specialized cell types.

• share
• favorite_border

Scientists have shown that RNA produced within cells of a common budding yeast can serve as a template for repairing the most devastating DNA damage – a break in both strands of a DNA helix.

• share
• favorite_border

Breast cancer cells can lay the groundwork for their own spread throughout the body by coaxing cells within lymphatic vessels to send out tumor-welcoming signals, according to a new report by Johns Hopkins scientists.

• share
• favorite_border

In a new study that could lead to many new medicines, scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute have adapted a chemical approach to turn diseased cells into unique manufacturing sites for molecules that can treat a form of muscular dystrophy.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers reveal how the alteration of a single nucleotide—the basic building block of DNA—could initiate fragile X syndrome, the most common inherited form of intellectual disability.

• share
• favorite_border

A study published today in Science reports provides a detailed analysis of the microbes that live in houses and apartments.

• share
• favorite_border

New research led by Charles Shoemaker, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Infectious Disease and Global Health at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University, shows that gene therapy may offer significant advantages in prevention and treatment of botulism exposure over current methods. The findings of the National Institutes of Health funded study appear in the August 29 issue of PLOS ONE.

• share
• favorite_border

A paper from a laboratory at the Stowers Institute of Medical Research reports the first animal model created to assess the molecular effects of two different histone H3.3 mutations in the fruit fly Drosophila. The study from a team led by Investigator Ali Shilatifard, Ph.D. published in the August 29, 2014 issue of Science, strongly suggests that these mutations actually could drive cancer and identifies interacting partners and pathways that could be targeted for the treatment of cancer.

• share
• favorite_border

Scientists at Washington University in St. Louis have obtained the first experimental evidence that there are at least two fail-safe points in the bacterial cell cycle. If the fail-safes are activated, the cell is forced to exit the cell cycle forever. It then enters a zombie-like state and is unable to reproduce even under the most favorable of conditions. Drugs that trigger the fail-safes are already under development.

• share
• favorite_border

A Mayo Clinic researcher and his collaborators have developed an online analytic tool that will speed up and enhance the process of re-engineering cells for biomedical investigation. CellNet is a free-use Internet platform that uses network biology methods to aid stem cell engineering. Details of CellNet and its application to stem cell engineering are described in two back-to-back papers in the journal Cell.

• share
• favorite_border

New York University biologists have identified a mechanism that helps explain how the diversity of neurons that make up the visual system is generated.

• share
• favorite_border

The remodeling of a kitchen or bathroom changes the appearance of the room and improves its functionality. As investigators at Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey and Rutgers and Princeton Universities have demonstrated, a similar concept comes into play in remodeling proteins found within a family of cancers that does not respond well to cancer-treating drugs -- cancers driven by what is known as activated Ras.

• share
• favorite_border

The two main treatments for MPS I are bone marrow transplantation and intravenous enzyme replacement therapy, but these are only marginally effective or clinically impractical, especially when the disease strikes the central nervous system. Using an animal model, a team has proven the efficacy of a more elegant way to restore aberrant protein levels in the body through direct gene transfer.

• share
• favorite_border

The presence of Clostridia, a common class of gut bacteria, protects against food allergies, a new study in mice finds. The discovery points toward probiotic therapies for this so-far untreatable condition

• share
• favorite_border

A study in JCB provides further detail into how male fruit flies deploy exosomes to alter the mating behavior of females. The findings also identify a signaling pathway that might play a role in human cancers of tissues that secrete exosomes, such as the prostate and breast.

• share
• favorite_border

A team of scientists led by Research Associate Professor Motomi Osato and Professor Yoshiaki Ito from the Cancer Science Institute of Singapore (CSI Singapore) at the National University of Singapore (NUS) found that a drug originally designed for killing a limited type of cancer cells with DNA repair defects could potentially be used to treat leukaemia and other cancers.

• share
• favorite_border

Scientists have figured out how to pick up and transfer single cells using a pipette -- a common laboratory tool that's been tweaked slightly. They describe this engineering feat and preliminary test results in a recent issue of the Journal of the American Chemical Society