Double success for Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciencia scientists working on chromosome segregation

... a key cellular structure in powering and controlling chromosome segregation and accurate cell division, has just earned him a paper in Nature Cell ... provides new insights into the scaffold of proteins that ensures accurate segregation of chromosomes during cell division - a fundamental step to ensure that ...

Separating the good from the bad

... left-handed brethren, impelling the microbes in opposite directions. This finding and the possibility of quickly and cheaply implementing the segregation of two-handed objects in the laboratory could have a big impact on industries like the pharmaceutical industry, for which the separation of ...

Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation awards prestigious fellowships to 13 top young investigators

... C. Harrison, PhD, at Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, is studying the structure of kinetochores, protein complexes that mediate the segregation of chromosomes during cell division. Discrepancies in the distribution of chromosomes in divided cells occur in many cancers and diseases such as ...

February 2009 Geology and GSA Today media highlights

... have caused them to be regarded differently in geological research than older, generally more lithified strata. This has been exacerbated by the segregation of the Quaternary research community into different schools of geology and geography, producing redundant nomenclature, multiple classification ...

Dartmouth researchers find new protein function

... HANOVER, NH A group of Dartmouth researchers has found a new function for one of the proteins involved with chromosome segregation during cell division. Their finding adds to the growing knowledge about the fundamental workings of cells, and contributes to understanding how cell ...

Keeping chromosomes from cuddling up

... Sweeney and Peter J. Knepler, both at the UA, and Bosco published their paper, "Condensin II Resolves Chromosomal Associations to Enable Anaphase I segregation in Drosophila Male Meiosis," in the October 2008 issue of PLoS Genetics. Sweeney and Knepler were UA undergraduates when they conducted the research. ...

December 2008 Geology and GSA Today media highlights

... trace element data, and gold occurrence, the data demonstrate that metamorphism has gradually homogenized the early sulfur, accompanied by the segregation of quartz and the release of gold from the lattice of early pyrite and its re-precipitation as inclusions in later pyrite. The sulfur isotopic ...

Scripps research team defines new painkilling chemical pathway

... induced other effects associated with the cannabinoid receptors, namely hypothermia and decreased movement. "This really does suggest a sort of segregation of labor, if you will," says Cravatt of the differential effects of elevating AEA versus 2-AG as part of the overall function of the cannabinoid ...

Cancer signatures uncovered

... group of cancers that present as a transition phenotype between these two extremes and displays both characteristics. According to Kohane, "This segregation of tumors into three groups with distinct expression patterns is surprising. Clearly, the developmental trajectory provides a meaningful background ...

Scientists find color vision system independent of motion detection

... humans. In human vision, it had been widely believed that color and motion were processed by parallel pathways. More recently, however, the complete segregation of motion detection and color vision came into question. To explore this matter, the NYU and University of Wrzburg researchers examined the fruit ...

Academy honors 13 for major contributions to science

... Institute of Technology, Cambridge, "for groundbreaking studies that have provided insight into the mechanism of the central process of chromosome segregation and the regulation of segregation." The award is supported by Pfizer Inc and has been presented since 1962. NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES AWARD ...

Cassini on the trail of a runaway mystery

... side of Iapetus to look slightly different than the rest of the moon," said Denk. Once the leading side is even slightly dark, thermal segregation proceeds rapidly. A dark surface will absorb more sunlight and warm up, explains Spencer, so the water ice on the surface evaporates. The water ...

Gene may hold key to future cancer hope

... segregated incorrectly, for instance, leads to Downs syndrome - so the cell has a surveillance mechanism which acts as a brake to delay chromosome segregation until accuracy has been guaranteed. An important part of this intricate surveillance system is Bub 1. The team found that when the gene is ...

Key mechanism in genetic inheritance during cell division identified

... cells that are responsible for the faithful segregation of chromosomes during cell division. "In test ... Berkeley. Says Barnes, "Mistakes in chromosome segregation during mitosis contribute to cancer and birth ... called Dam1, is responsible for the faithful segregation of chromosomes during mitosis. While we don't ...

NYU biologists identify gene that coordinates two cellular processes

... tested the idea that mel-28 plays important roles in both chromosome segregation and nuclear envelope function. Part of this undertaking included examining ... embryos. Consistent with the idea that MEL-28 had function in chromosome segregation and the nuclear envelope, the MEL-28-GFP fusion was observed to shuttle ...

Regulating the nuclear architecture of the cell

... Heterochromatin also flanks the centromere in the central region of the chromosome, the chromatin structure that plays a crucial role in chromosome segregation during cell division. What other functions abundant heterochromatin may perform are still an open question. Even epigenetics ultimately has its ...

What controls stickiness of 'smart' chromosomal glue

... haploid sperm or egg cells do centromeric cohesins become cleaved. This precisely controlled centromeric "stickiness" is essential for the accurate segregation of sister chromatids into separate cells. "The key question we wanted to explore was how this step-wise loss of cohesins in meiosis was ...

How taste response is hard-wired into the brain

... avoided it. "In this paper, we demonstrate that these taste cells selectively recognize different taste modalities, such that there is functional segregation of taste qualities in the periphery and at the first relay in the brain," concluded the researchers. "Moreover, we show that activation of these ...

Touching Molecules With Your Bare Hands

... divides, the latent gamma-herpes virus episome must replicate and segregate into daughter cells along with the cell’s genome. Viral replication and segregation requires the services of a protein called the episome maintenance protein—a potentially recognizable target for immune cells. Gamma-herpesviruses, ...

How A Latent Virus Eludes Immune Defenses

... divides, the latent gamma-herpes virus episome must replicate and segregate into daughter cells along with the cell’s genome. Viral replication and segregation requires the services of a protein called the episome maintenance protein—a potentially recognizable target for immune cells. Gamma-herpesviruses, ...