regulator in Biological News

New diagnostic advance seen for head, throat cancer

... today announced the discovery of a genetic regulator that is expressed at higher levels in the most ... research has been demonstrated to be a master regulator that has important roles in many biological ... to this type of cancer." That this genetic regulator could be involved in both skin development and ...

UC Davis researchers discover a key to aggressive breast cancer

... itself is the culprit. By shutting down its own regulator gene, HER2 creates a permissive environment for ... Building on recent research showing that the regulator labeled LRIG1 and commonly called "Lig-1" ... that, when compared to healthy breast tissue, the regulator is significantly suppressed. "This suppression ...

Mayo Clinic researchers discover and manipulate molecular interplay that moves cancer cells

... cells and found that movement was blocked. PKD1 is therefore a negative regulator of directed cell migration, and if PKD1 is not expressed in tumor cells, ... and so the cell cannot move. "Now that we have identified PKD1 as key regulator in processes regulating actin-based directed tumor cell movement, we can ...

Female embryonic sexual development driven by universal factor

... into testis or ovary. This molecule, beta-catenin, is an important regulator of cell proliferation and differentiation. When it functions as a ... "That tells us very conclusively that beta-catenin is an internal regulator of this pathway," Yao said. To see how the absence of beta-catenin ...

Relationship between environmental stress and cancer elucidated

... such as oxidative stress, recruit a protein called SENP1 that cuts a regulator called SUMO1 away from the enzyme SIRT1 so its activity level drops, says ... apoptosis, becomes more active. SIRT1, found throughout the body, is a regulator of protein function through a process called acetylation. MCG researchers ...

Scientists track impact of DNA damage in the developing brain

... said those reports sparked new interest in single-strand DNA repair. This study focused on Xrcc1, a protein long recognized as the master regulator of a pathway essential for single-strand DNA repair in the nervous system. The brain is thought to be particularly susceptible to such damage because ...

Protein that promotes cancer cell growth identified

... an RXDLL amino acid motif that controls the signaling from the EGF receptor through the protein kinase Src to the master cell proliferation regulator protein, MAPK. This same signaling pathway stimulates neuroblastoma cells to migrate and invade neighboring tissues--a critical process in cancer ...

New drug may reduce heart attack damage

... researchers at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) have shown. The drug, known as Dz13, specifically targets and neutralises the master regulator c-Jun gene, which is responsible for inflammation and muscle death in the aftermath of a heart attack, trials in preclinical models have found. ...

UCLA researchers discover new molecular pathway for targeting cancer, disease

... to act as an agonist, which would stimulate LXR activity to inhibit aberrant Hh signaling. "The hedgehog Hh signaling pathway is an important regulator of tumor formation, and these findings suggest that LXR agonists may be novel treatments for a wide variety of human cancers," Matsui said. ...

The right messenger for a healthy immune response

... reaction against microbial and viral threads. Researchers from the HZI have now managed to show why this is the case: Beta-Interferon is a key regulator and of vital importance in enabling the immune system to display fragments of pathogens, so-called antigens. Immune cells present these antigens on ...

Pitt team finds molecule that regulates heart size by using zebrafish screening model

... molecule called BCI, which hyperactivated FGF signaling. They then figured out how: BCI blocked the activity of an enzyme called Dusp6, a feedback regulator that would otherwise have tamped down the enhanced FGF signal. Knowing that, BCI could then be used as a tool to find out what effect Dusp6 ...

Protein regulates movement of mitochondria in brain cells

... in regulating the movement or transport of mitochondria in neuron cells. The protein, which they dubbed hypoxia upregulated mitochondrial movement regulator (HUMMR), is produced in a state of low oxygen called hypoxia. HUMMR is induced by another protein called hypoxic inducible factor 1 alpha (HIF-1) ...

Researchers identify new risk factor gene for rheumatoid arthritis

... other autoimmune disorders. About one percent of the population will develop rheumatoid arthritis, which can be crippling. REL is a key regulator of CD40, which works through the NF-pathway. "This paper represents the latest in a series of important publications ...

Small molecules mimic natural gene regulators

... taken a step forward on that route by developing small molecules that mimic the behavior and function of a much larger and more complicated natural regulator of gene expression. The research, by associate professor of chemistry Anna Mapp and coworkers, is described in the current issue of the journal ACS ...

MicroRNAs grease the cell's circadian clockwork

... of the National Centre of Competence in Research Frontiers in Genetics, based at the University of Geneva, Switzerland, reveals that an important regulator of this molecular oscillator is a specific microRNA. The latter belongs to a class of small RNA molecules that regulate the production of proteins in ...

Key protein regulating inflammation may prove relevant to controlling sepsis

... condition caused by bacterial infection that afflicts many patients in intensive care units (ICU). In their paper, "WIP1 phosphatase is a negative regulator of NFκB signaling," published in the May 2009 issue of Nature Cell Biology (NCB), the IMCB scientists described their results showing the ...

MIT reels in RNA surprise with microbial ocean catch

... samples, she found that much of the novel RNA they expected to be protein-coding was actually small RNA (or sRNA), which can serve as a catalyst or regulator for metabolic pathways in microbes. "What's surprising to me is the abundance of novel sRNA candidates in our data sets," said Shi. "When I looked ...

KINAXOs Cellular Target Profiling reveals mTOR as a new target of Celebrex

... to a better understanding of the drug’s mode of action and efficacy in cancer patients. mTOR (mammalian target of rapamycin) acts as a central regulator of cell proliferation, cell survival, angiogenesis and cell metabolism. Moreover, mTOR is a key intracellular convergence point for a number of ...

Regulation of cell proliferation by the OGF-OGFr axis is dependent on nuclear localization signals

... , provides new insights into the mechanism of an important endogenous system that serves as a tonically active, constitutively expressed, inhibitory regulator of DNA synthesis. This valuable information not only may contribute to understanding the etiology and pathogenesis of diseases related to this ...

Learning how the pieces responsible for interpreting the human genome work

... explains that one of the greatest challenges is elucidating the combination of transcription factors that regulate sets of genes, or the so called regulator code. Thousands of transcription factors work together in distinct combinations to regulate thousands of genes. "This combination is only beginning ...

'First aid' for brain cells comes from blood

... have shown that certain immune cells in the blood inhibit inflammation after a stroke. These cells are known as regulatory T lymphocytes (Treg). The regulator cytokine Interleukin 10 plays an important role in this protection, perhaps offering a new approach to stroke therapy. The study has now been ...

CSHL-led team identifies key decision-point at which cells with broken DNA repair themselves or die

... its role as a tyrosine phosphatase, or remover of phosphate molecules -- is related to its role, in other contexts, as a transcription factor (a regulator of gene expression). It is certainly a curiosity that a protein that can regulate genes in certain contexts can act in others as the fulcrum in a ...

Getting down to cancer basics

... organising subunit component of chromatin, called a histone. The protein is likely to be involved in both turning genes on and off, making it a key regulator of the yin-yang of gene control. In the massive DNA sequencing study, the team found rare mutations of the UTX gene in clear cell renal cancer - a ...

Plant biologists discover gene that switches on 'essence of male'

... regulatory network that evolved even before pollen and flowers appeared on the scene. Interestingly, DUO1 is also related to a super class of Myb regulator proteins also present in animals that have an important role in controlling cell proliferation and that are implicated in certain human cancers such ...

Regulatory molecule for tumor formation or suppression identified by Singapore, US researchers

... One of the small regulatory molecules, named microRNA-125b, is a novel regulator of p53, an important protein that safeguards cells against cancers, Singapore and U.S. scientists report in the March 17, 2009 issue of the journal ...

Tuning in on cellular communication in the fruit fly

... morphogenetic protein (BMP) pathway, in the fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster) and reported their findings in the paper "Kekkon5 is an extracellular regulator of BMP signaling," published in the Feb. 1, 2009, edition of the journal Developmental Biology . (Dev Biol. 2009 Feb 1; 326(1):36-46.) "The BMP ...

Gladstone scientists reveal that fat synthesizing enzyme is key to healthy skin and hair

... make triglycerides," said Robert V. Farese, Jr., senior investigator and senior author on the study. "We found that one of these enzymes is a major regulator of retinoic acid actions in the skin." RA, which comes from vitamin A (retinol) has been used to treat skin disorders, such as acne and psoriasis, ...

A pocketful of uranium

... protein's side-groups in the manner it prefers. As a template, the scientists used the protein NikR (nickel-responsive repressor) from E. coli, a regulator that reacts to nickel ions. When NikR is loaded with nickel ions, it binds to a special DNA sequence. This represses transcription of the neighboring ...

DREAM: 1 gene regulates pain, learning and memory

... they dubbed DREAM (downstream regulatory element antagonistic modulator). The gene's function was highly interesting: it obviously served as a key regulator in the perception of pain. Mice who lacked the gene showed clear signs of markedly reduced sensitivity to all kinds of pain, whether chronic or ....

Disabling enzyme allows mice to gorge without becoming obese, new study finds

... lean despite eating a high-fat diet and losing a hormone that suppresses appetite. "We have discovered a new enzyme within fat cells that is a key regulator of fat metabolism and body weight, making it a promising target in the search for a treatment for human obesity," said Hei Sook Sul, UC Berkeley ...

Apolipoprotein(a): A natural regulator of inflammation

... R. Goodman, Editor-in-Chief of Experimental Biology and Medicine , said "Hoover-Plow and colleagues have demonstrated a novel role for apo(a) as a regulator of inflammation. This represents an important contribution to our understanding of the regulation of neutrophil recruitment during the inflammatory ...

CSHL scientists discover new way in which ubiquitin modifies transcriptional machinery

... genes, while at the same time ignoring otherwise similar enzymes that remain idle. This fact, according to Tansey, suggests that Asr1 is a "negative" regulator of gene transcription. He hypothesizes that Asr1 might selectively glom on to RNA pol II molecules that are making mistakes in copying or copying ...

The Burnham buzz

... oxygen deprivation due to insufficient blood flow to the tumor. Dr. Ronai's laboratory has demonstrated proof of this concept by inhibiting PHD3, a regulator of HIF-1a. Binding of short protein fragments to PHD3 results in HIF-1a degradation and halts growth of metastatic tumors in mice. Dr. Ronai's team ...

Master gene plays key role in blood sugar levels

... When mice that lack steroid receptor-2 (SRC-2) a master regulator gene called a coactivator fast for a day, their blood sugar levels plummet. If they go another day without food, they will die. The severity of ...

December 2008 highlights from Biology of Reproduction

... importance for both oogenic and folliculogenic processes. Youngsok Choi, Daniel Yuan, and Aleksandar Rajkovic. Germ Cell-Specific Transcriptional regulator Sohlh2 Is Essential for Early Mouse Folliculogenesis and Oocyte-Specific Gene Expression. Biol Reprod 2008; 79:1176�. Published in ...

New molecular insight into vertebrate brain development

... the nucleus and activating pro-growth genes. Drs. Xinwei Cao, Samuel Pfaff and Fred Gage now report that Hippo signaling is a critical master regulator of bran size in vertebrates that functions by restricting instructing the survival, proliferation and differentiation of neural precursor cells. In ...

LSUHSC research identifies key contributor to Alzheimer's disease process

... student in the lab, demonstrated in human brain cells in primary culture that MiRNA-146a targets the messenger RNA of an important anti-inflammatory regulator called complement factor H (CFH). Testing both control cells and Alzheimer's disease-affected tissues, they found that miRNA-164a appears to reduce ...

Apelin hormone injections powerfully lower blood sugar

... obesity and insulin resistance in the longer term. " In conclusion," the researchers wrote, "the present study reveals apelin as a new endocrine regulator of AMPK and strengthens the crosstalk between [fat] and skeletal muscle. The involvement of AMPK in apelin-mediated glucose uptake represents an ...

Fructose sets table for weight gain without warning

... American Journal of Physiology Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology , published by The American Physiological Society. Leptin as regulator Leptin is a hormone that plays a role in helping the body to balance food intake with energy expenditure. When leptin isn't working -- that is, ...

Forsyth scientists trigger cancer-like response from embryonic stem cells

... that key properties of embryonic stem cells can be controlled through bioelectrical signals, identify transmembrane voltage potential as a novel regulator of neural crest function in embryonic development, and demonstrate that potassium flows can be an important aspect of cellular environment, which is ...