switching 2 1

Tag: "switching" at biology news

Dirty snow may warm Arctic as much as greenhouse gases

...al warming. Limiting industrial soot emissions and switching to cleaner-burning fuels would leave snow brighter, he says. New snow falls each year, and if it contained fewer impurities, the ground would brighten and temperatures would cool. Carbon dioxide lives in the atmosphere for a century, so cutting back ...

Turn-ons and turn-offs for neurons

...in. Indeed, the epigenetic mechanisms in charge of switching genes “on” or “off” play an essential role when our brain learns and stores information, and when our brain reacts to injury and disease. ...

Growing nerve cells in 3-D dramatically affects gene expression

...whopping 1,766 genes responded differently, either switching on or switching off. To check their work, researchers repeated the experiments but this time produced multiple copie...

Bumblebee house warming -- it takes a village

...em shiver to transfer the heat," he said. "Task switching was previously thought to be common among bumblebee workers," said O'Donnell. "But this study indicates that there is strong specialization in labor among individuals, and body size seems to play a role in what jobs they perform. In addition, their...

Liposuctioned fat stem cells to repair bodies

...g histone proteins. Epigenetic marks contribute to switching genes on and off, and stem cells rely on them heavily as they divide and mature. The Oslo team has found that low rates of DNA methylation, for instance, boost the chances of transforming fat stem cells from one cell type into another. "Look at a cel...

Turning a cellular sentinel into a cancer killer

...ing cancers. And researchers were not sure whether switching p53 back on in tumor cells would have any therapeutic effect. "It had been demonstrated that overexpressing p53 at very high levels could arrest or kill tumors, said Lowe. "But at such high levels, p53 might not be working through a physiological m...

MIT device draws cells close -- but not too close -- together

...t four cell widths. The assembly is geared so that switching between these two settings involves a movement of two millimeters, an amount controllable by the human hand. Hui selected 80 micrometers as the gap setting because at shorter distances, cells sometimes migrate across the gap and end up touching. And ...

Salmonella survives better in stomach due to altered DNA

...haves to survive various "extreme" conditions, the switching on and off of 500 genetic characteristics was studied. This happened under different conditions such as in a hot, acid or oxygen-free environment. Almost all of the survival characteristics were found to be active under all conditions, whereas the pa...

Penn researcher shows that DNA gets kinky easily at the nanoscale

...mation of tight DNA loops also plays a key role in switching some genes off. According to Nelson, such processes were considered a minor mystery of nature, in part because researchers didn't have the tools of nanotechnology to examine molecules in such fine detail. "Common sense and physics seemed to tell...

Living view in animals shows how cells decide to make proteins

...in proteins can alter the cell’s behavior, just as switching ingredients in a favorite recipe can change the food’s flavor, according to the scientists. "Viewing these decisions is most relevant in a living animal, because cells behave differently in their natural environment versus an artificially created ...

Researchers identify a key regulator for skin stem cells

...said Fuchs, came when the researchers analyzed how switching on Tcf3 affected the differentiation of embryonic skin stem cells. They found that activating the gene in mice blocked differentiation of all three types of mature skin cells -- epidermal, sebaceous, and hair follicle. "We've known for some time that...

Detailed 3-D image catches a key regulator of neural stem cell differentiation in action

...ents the enzyme RNA polymerase II from reading and switching on neuronal genes in tissues where they shouldn't be expressed, such as skin, muscle and liver. In the nervous system Scp1 is switched off, enabling RNA polymerase II to efficiently transcribe information encoded by neuronal genes and driving the mat...

From managing sugar to managing healing

...ration into the wound tissue. The insulin works by switching on cellular signaling proteins called kinases (specifically Src, PI3K, and Akt) and a protein (SREBP) that binds elements in DNA that regulate the production of cholesterol and its relatives. Chronic or nonhealing wounds take an immense toll on Am...

Mayo discovers protein as potential tactic to prevent tumors

... high energy into another cellular protein, FOXO1, switching it on as the initial link in a signal that tells the cell to set itself up for apoptosis. CDK2 adds phosphorylation to a specific serine residue on the chain of amino acids that make up FOXO1. In case of robust errors found in the genetic code, CDK2 ...

Molecular mechanism provides intra-cellular traffic signal

...esearchers were found to be the key to coordinated switching and traffic flow through the Golgi. They have now ...to man, lead her to believe the entire coordinated switching mechanism is universal. ...

Microcapsules like it hot and salty

...lso confirmed in experiments. This continuous switching between the two states of quite different capsule sizes expands the range of possible uses for the Potsdam microcapsules enormously. As well as being used as medicine transporters, conceivable applications include using the capsules as a component of...

How nature tinkers with the cellular clock

...late the activity of cell cycle proteins directly, switching them on and off and modifying them at particular sites. A closer look at these proteins revealed that changes in the control of gene expression often go together with changes in the regulation of the corresponding protein. "To our surprise, we foun...

Schepens scientists are first to discover angiogenesis switch inside blood vessel cells

... scientists have long suspected an "intracellular" switching process, but until now have known very little about it. "Current drugs focus on suppressing angiogenesis by inhibiting a mechanism outside the vessel cells, which involves the action of growth factors such as VEGF or vascular endothelial growth facto...

Sticky surfaces turn slippery with the flip of a molecular light switch

...arity, or the chemical structure of its atoms. In switching from non-polar to polar, the material becomes less...e liquid, the researchers report. Not only is the switching mechanism uncomplicated, but so is the patented procedure required to graft spiropyran molecules to ...

A new tool against brain disease

...ronic viral infection actively inhibits T cells by switching on the cells' inhibitory PD-1 pathway. He also found that blocking the PD-1 pathway in the mice restored T cell function and reduced the amount of virus in the animals' blood, which is known as viral load. Ahmed's studies showed that blocking PD-1 re...

1 2 3