Newly published research from biochemists at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine describes how a protein that is required for DNA replication, Cdt1, also plays an important role in mitosis. Chapel Hill, North Carolina – The foundation of biological inheritance is DNA replication – a tightly coordinated process in which DNA is simultaneously [...]

Researchers have been able to remotely activate genes inside mice, proving the concept that one day, there will be medical procedures in which patients’ genes are triggered from afar. The team led by Jeffrey Friedman, a molecular geneticist at the Rockefeller University in New York, states that in the short term, these results will lead [...]

A newly published research study from the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center describes how the absence of the protein NLRP12 significantly increases susceptibility to colitis-associated colon cancer in pre-clinical models. CHAPEL HILL, North Carolina – A family of proteins is yielding new information about how it contributes to the development of gastrointestinal disease and cancer. [...]

Researchers now have a better understanding of how dendritic cells address specific types of infections. By using a protein called NOD2, the scientists were able to identify a potent infection-fighting pathway with dendritic cells, which is important in fighting disease. UCLA researchers have pinpointed a new mechanism that potently activates T cells, the group of [...]

The flu can be lethal in some patients, but benign in others. The reason that this is the way that flu infections work might be the cause of a protein, which might be mutated in patients who are more easily affected by the flu than others. The new study was published in the journal Nature, [...]

By building on a technology known as two-dimensional infrared spectroscopy, scientists at MIT have developed a way to analyze proteins that doesn’t require any pre-treatment. The technique allows scientists to see how a protein changes its shape over picoseconds, which in turn allows them to study how proteins fold and unfold when denatured by heat. [...]

By first uncovering how CFPs store incoming energy and retransmit it as fluorescent light, scientists were able to understand the function of individual atoms within CFPs and pinpoint the part of the molecule that needed to be modified to increase the fluorescence yield, resulting a new CFP called mTurquoise2 that has a fluorescence efficiency of [...]

Scientists continue to improve upon nanotechnology and find new uses for it. By designing a custom integrated circuit using commercial semiconductor technology, researchers have developed a device that can measure nanopores with less error than commercial instruments and can see single molecules passing through the pore in only one microsecond. As nanotechnology becomes ever more [...]

Experiments show that scouting bees, much like novelty-seeking humans, have differences in brain activity in genes related to dopamine and glutamate signaling between neurons. Genomic analysis of the bees revealed significant differences between scouts and non-scouts in the abundance of specific mRNAs and researchers were able to increase and decrease the bees scouting tendencies by [...]

New research at SLAC’s Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) has shown a promising new way to collect data on membrane proteins in the human body. The method involves embedding tiny protein crystals in an oily paste and then hitting them with a powerful X-ray laser to determine the protein’s structure. Many membrane proteins serve as [...]

For the first time, scientists have been able to identify a way to correct mutations in human mitochondrial DNA by targeting corrective RNAs. The published report describes the role polynucleotide phosphorylase (PNPASE) plays in regulating the import of RNA into mitochondria and with reduced PNPASE, unprocessed mitochondrial-encoded RNAs accumulated, protein translation was inhibited and energy [...]

A new published report from the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry shows how different chaperones cooperate during the folding process. The scientists found that the Hsp70 protein DnaK binds to about 700 different protein chains as they are synthesized and mediates the folding of most of these protein chains. Proteins are the molecular building blocks [...]