Substrate in Biological News

New high-throughput screening technique makes probing puzzling proteins possible

... progression. Most studies of enzymes rely on substrate assays, which allow researchers to visibly track ... research, though, is that developing conventional substrate assays and related tools demands knowledge of the ... says Cravatt, "And if you don't know what the substrate is, you're basically out of luck." At least ...

Killer pulses help characterize special surfaces

... Dana Dlott, have devised a method to evaluate substrate surfaces by using a series of killer laser ... and report measurements for a commonly used substrate in the July 18 issue of the journal Science . ... and create an average value across the entire substrate surface. "Looking at a spectrum, you can't tell ...

New electrostatic-based DNA microarray technique could revolutionize medical diagnostics

... assays using a DNA microarray a thumbnail-sized substrate containing thousands of microscopic spots of ... process which takes about 20 minutes. Because the substrate or background surface of the microassay is ... DNA, the microspheres will levitate above the substrate surface, stacking up in "equilibrium heights" ...

A molecular switch turns on the flame in 'nature's blowtorch'

... that is, it is not in a state to react with the substrate (or anything else, for that matter). In the other orientation, however, the substrate is held tightly in the correct orientation for ... bond, and moves the P450 from the form in which substrate binds to the active form. After the reaction is ...

Unlocking the function of enzymes

... lot more difficult since both the enzyme and the substrate are conformationally flexible. After the ... use to try to determine an enzymes function or substrate specificity include physically testing thousands ... targets for new drugs. Understanding the substrate specificity of certain enzymes could allow ...

UMass Medical School researchers receive $8.5M grant award to fight AIDS

... fit within a similar space, which they dubbed the substrate envelope. Significantly, the investigators found ... the currently used inhibitors protrude beyond the substrate envelope, and many mutations that cause drug ... synthesizing novel inhibitors to fit within the substrate envelope. This strategy should greatly retard the ...

Making a point: Picoscale stability in a room-temperature AFM

... a common reference. To hold the specimen, the team uses a transparent substrate with tiny silicon disksfiducial marksembedded in it at regular intervals. ... of the tip relative to the sample is corrected on the fly by moving the substrate in the opposite direction. This is the same idea as active noise ...

Covering the bases: Quantum effect may hold promise for low-cost DNA sequencing, sensor applications

... drop in the electrical circuit formed between the microscope probe and the substrate as the hydrogen bonds are gently pulled apart, a positive identification ... through the junction, as the microscope's electrode is moved away from the substrate and the hydrogen bonds uniting base pairs are slowly pulled apart. "What ...

New polymer coatings prevent corrosion, even when scratched

... scratching through the 100-micron-thick polymer coating and into the steel substrate using a razor blade. The samples were then immersed in a salt solution and ... within the groove of the scratched regions, but also extending across the substrate surface, the researchers report. In dramatic contrast, the self-healing ...

Argonne scientists discover possible mechanism for creating 'handedness' in biological molecules

... Advanced Photon Source to bombard chiral molecules adsorbed on a magnetic substrate and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy to track changes in the molecular ... as they traveled through the universe while adsorbed on a magnetized substrate in a dust cloud, meteor, comet or on a primitive planet. "Our study shows ...

Very cold ice films in laboratory reveal mysteries of universe

... applications involving deposits of thin films upon an underlying substrate (ie the surface, such as a rock, to which the film is attached), such as ... properties of the substrate. For example when formed on a titanium substrate at the very low temperature of 6K, ice has a characteristic cauliflower ...

Study helps clarify role of soil microbes in global warming

... after a few years of warming, but didn't explain whether the cause was substrate depletion in the warmer soils or adaptation by the microbes. In the ... control soils than in the heated soils. "That finding told us that substrate depletion played a role," Bradford said, "but it also told us that there ...

Moss protein plays role in Alzheimer's disease

... to study functions of presenilin without interference from its predominant substrate Notch. This encouraged Khandelwal to search for the PS gene in the ... clues in mammalian systems as to its primary role, independent of its substrate in mammalian cells. We were amazed to realize that genes from moss and ...

e-Smart(R) Technologies, Inc., Announces Next Generation Superthin Polyimide Flexible Circuit Biometric Super Smart Card(TM) card, the 'i am'(TM) Card.

... process. The new "i am"(TM) cards have a super strong adhesive substrate that secures its external surface to its internal circuitry which is anchored into a plastic substrate body in the plastic material of the card's main body. The embedded MPU ...

Silicon with afterburners: Process developed at Rice could be boon to electronics manufacturer

... law cannot be sustained indefinitely. The challenge is to get past the limits of doping, a process that has been essential to creating the silicon substrate that is at the heart of all modern integrated circuits, said James Tour, Rice's Chao Professor of Chemistry and professor of mechanical engineering ...

2000-year-old statue of an athlete sheds light on corrosion and other modern challenges

... of an ancient sculpture immersed for two millennia in the sea provided a unique opportunity to probe the long-term impact of a specific artificial substrate on biomineralizng organisms and the effects of biocorrosion," the report said. By evaluating the mineral layers and fossilized organisms on the ...

Structural biology scores with protein snapshot

... DAGK structure, Sanders said, "confirmed that this is a really strange kinase." The enzyme has a porch-like structure, with a wide opening for its substrate diacylglycerol and the active site at the top of the porch. "The active site looks nothing like any other kinase active site it's a unique ...

Zebra mussels hang on while quagga mussels take over

... time somebody actually went and systematically looked at functional differences between the two species that would explain the different kinds of substrate that they could invade," she says. "In that sense, Suzanne has produced a really elegant and clever study. It has very concrete hypotheses and ...

Aluminum-oxide nanopore beats other materials for DNA analysis

... a technique called atomic layer deposition to produce a very thin film of aluminum oxide on a silicon substrate. Next, the central portion of the substrate is etched away, leaving the film as a suspended membrane. An electron beam is then used to create a very tiny hole a nanopore in the membrane. ...

MSU discoveries upend traditional thinking about how plants make certain compounds

... Anthony Schilmiller and Rob Last were part of a research team that has found that tomato plants use a different compound, neryl diphosphate, as the substrate for making monoterpenes. The difference is subtle, but the discovery will change the way terpene (compounds that are responsible for the taste and ...

Synthetic catalyst mimics nature's 'hydrogen economy'

... a professor of chemistry and corresponding author of the paper. "We cracked that design by generating mock-ups of the catalytic site to include the substrate hydrogen atom." The researchers' model of the nickel-iron complex is the first to include a bridging hydride ligand, an essential component of the ...

How an enzyme tells stem cells which way to divide

... he said, when viewed from a biochemical perspective. "What happens is that Miranda gets phosphorylated by aPKC, turning it into an inactivated substrate and pushing it into another location in the cell." Much of the paper in Current Biology is devoted to why the more complex scenarios are not ...

April 2009 Geology and GSA Today media highlights

... species began. The previously largely uninhabited water column became thick with plankton and the predators that fed on them, while the lifeless substrate to the ocean floor suddenly teamed with burrowing fauna. It was the GOBE that provided Earth with the bulk of the fauna that were to thrive in and ...

NIST-Cornell team builds world's first nanofluidic device with complex 3-D surfaces

... process takes advantage of this characteristic, allowing the researchers to transfer a 3-D pattern for nanochannels of numerous depths into a glass substrate with nanometer precision using a single etch. The result is the "staircase" that gives the 3-D nanofluidic device its versatility. Size ...

Coffee cultivation good for diversity in agrarian settlements but not in forests

... large shade trees can be home to a great diversity of forest plants. It is shown for the first time that the coffee bush itself is an important substrate for mosses and flowering plants. "Coffee cultivation entails not only that growers preserve and nurture large trees in the cultivated landscape ...

Capillary mats labor-saving, economical alternative to hand watering

... species requiring more drainage had larger canopies with overhead irrigation, and five species were unaffected by irrigation systems. Additionally, substrate electrical conductivity was higher for some species in winter for plants on capillary mats, thus conserving fertilizer compared with overhead ...

Structure of enzyme against chemical warfare agents determined

... Rueterjans. " Based on the results of this study, we can now create targeted changes to DFPase to augment the activity, as well as diversify the substrate range of the enzyme." ...

'Fishy' clue helps establish how proteins evolve

... Health's National Institute of General Medical Sciences, which partially supported the work. "The unique way in which the synthetase binds its tRNA substrate is a testament to the ancient roots of this remarkable enzyme." ...

GEN reports on growing reliance on microfluidics technology

... to interrogate druggable enzymes. It combines the advantages of capillary electrophoresis with microfluidics technology for the direct measurement of substrate and product. Biosite has developed protein array technologies that contain microcapillaries for controlling the flow of fluids in immunoassay ...

Chemist receives NIH funding to unravel tricks of neuronal wiring

... development, neurons from the right eye cross the midline of the brain to make a connection in the left hemisphere. "Our goal is to build a substrate that looks like what a growing neuron would encounter in the brain as it goes from the eye to where it has to make its final connection in order to ...

Caltech scientists develop 'barcode chip' for cheap, fast blood tests

... described in a paper in the advance online edition of Nature Biotechnology , is about the size of a microscope slide and is made out of a glass substrate covered with silicone rubber. The chip's surface is molded to contain a microfluidics circuit--a system of microscopic channels through which the ...

Putting a green cap on garbage dumps

... in the phytocap to determine which species are most effective at reducing water percolation and methane emissions. The root system acts as a good substrate to methanogens, which oxidizes methane thereby reducing methane emission into the atmosphere. The benefits of phytocapping include, cutting in ...

Nanoscale coating protect products -- and the economy

... "target," made of a particular element, sending energetic atoms from it scattering like billiard balls in a game of pool. Those atoms then coat the substrate in ultra-thin layers. A career of leadership Aita has accomplished many "firsts" since arriving at UWM in 1981. She was the first woman hired ...

As sticky as a gecko... but 10 times stronger!

... they have maximum contact with the substrate, thereby maximizing the Van der Waals force. Pulling the adhesive off in a motion perpendicular to the substrate is much easier--at this angle the sticking force is ten times weaker. In this way, the adhesive has strong shear adhesion for firm attachment and ...

Older people who diet without exercising lose valuable muscle mass

... with activities of daily living. The study, "Separate and combined effects of exercise training and weight loss on exercise efficiency and substrate oxidation," appears in the current issue of the Journal of Applied Physiology, published by The American Physiological Society. Francesca Amati, ...

Slicing solar power costs

... and gallium-indium-phosphide. The layers work together to capture different wavelengths of sunlight, and the germanium also serves as the substrate upon which the solar cell is "grown." When sunlight hits a solar cell, the energy is converted to a flow of electrons in the cell, namely, ...

Atomic structure of the mammalian 'fatty acid factory' determined

... acid synthases two years ago. That was followed last year by two papers on the atomic structures of fungal fatty acid synthases and the mechanism of substrate shuttling and delivery in these multi-enzymes. Now this latest publication describes the atomic structure of the mammalian fatty acid synthase. These ...

Energy-saving bacteria resist antibiotics

... as cholera, anthrax, gonorrhoea, meningitis, E. coli and MRSA. The researchers found that when MurI binds to DNA gyrase, it takes gyrase away from substrate DNA. Because of this, antibiotics cannot bind and stop it from working, so the bacteria become resistant to treatment. "Our findings suggest that ...

Model for angelman syndrome developed by University of Texas at Austin biologists

... specifics of the process," she says. "Now that we know that the fly gene works pretty much the way that the human one does, we can look for the key substrate in flies, and eventually test likely candidates in mice and see if they're really associated with the disease." ...

MIT probe may help untangle cells' signaling pathways

... interact inside a cell. The probes are derived from an enzyme and its peptide substrate. If the probe-linked proteins interact, the enzyme and substrate also interact, which can be easily detected. To create the probes, the researchers used the enzyme biotin ligase and its target, a 12-amino-acid ...