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Tag: "chain" at biology news

The origin of the brain lies in a worm

...d worms like the earthworm have a rope-ladder-like chain of nerve cell clusters on their belly side. Other invertebrates on the other hand have their nerve cells distributed diffusely over their body. Yet, all these species descend from a common ancestor called Urbilateria. If this ancestor already possess...

Inflammation may play role in metastasis of prostate cancer

...s that invade advanced prostate tumors, triggers a chain reaction in which IKKa is activated, allowing it to enter the nucleus of the cancer cell, repressing Maspin. IKKa is a key linchpin in the pathway that turns off the Maspin gene and activates the metastatic program. The new results also support the...

Mystery of fossilized trees is solved

...len to the floor and decayed, providing a new food chain for the bugs living below. "This was also a significant moment in the history of the planet. The rise of the forests removed a lot of Carbon Dioxide from the atmosphere. This caused temperatures to drop and the planet became very similar to its pr...

Antarctic warming to reduce animals at base of ecosystem, shift some penguin populations southward

... of krill that are at the base of the massive food chain at the bottom of the world. "We're already seeing the marine ecosystems respond dramatically to increases in temperatures along the Antarctic Peninsula," explained Berry Lyons, professor in the School of Earth Sciences and director of the Byrd Po...

Researchers find hepatitis A and hepatitis C attack same protein to block immune defenses

...attacking the same protein ?an essential link in a chain of molecular signals that triggers antiviral responses. "With 30,000-plus proteins in the cell, it’s really remarkable that these two very different viruses have chosen to strike at the same one," said Dr. Stanley Lemon, director of UTMB’s Institu...

Researchers create artificial enzyme that mimics the body's internal engine

... is the source of the cell's energy. The transport chain is made up of a series of proteins known as electron carriers. Each carrier receives electrons from the preceding one, then transfers them down the chain. The final receptor of the electrons is a molecule of oxygen that is transformed into water and,...

'Guardian of the genome' protein found to underlie skin tanning

...produce skin-darkening pigment called melanin. The chain of events within keratinocytes that leads to alpha-MSH production, however, was a mystery. Investigators knew that alpha-MSH is created when another protein, known as pro-opiomelanocortin (or POMC), is split apart. They also knew that the amount o...

Penn researchers show how nanocylinders deliver medicine better than nanospheres

...used nanoparticles that contained one water-loving chain of a common polymer called polyethyleneglycol (PEG). PEGs are commonly found in everyday items like shampoo and some foods. Although synthetic, PEGs have already been approved as biocompatible to humans, making them ideal carriers, note the researche...

Gut research yields new anti-cancer approach

...s, alpha and beta tubulin, which pair up to form a chain and then wind into a helix. The current studies found that high-dose PPARgamma inhibitors reduced levels of alpha and beta tubulin by 60 to 70 percent. Also described in the publication are studies where PPARgamma inhibitors killed tumor cells in mic...

New success in engineering plant oils

...ntists hypothesized that if they could prevent the chain lengthening by reducing the levels of KASII, they could decrease the likelihood of desaturation and increase the level of saturated fats in the plant seeds. Their hypothesis was supported by the fact that scientists had previously identified a pla...

Risk of HIV transmission highest early in infection

...development of affordable tests such as polymerase chain reaction assays to directly monitor the presence of the virus, instead of relying on the current method of antibody screening. In addition, Dr. Pillay and Fisher asserted that more innovative and effective prevention strategies are needed to stem ...

Deconstructing brain wiring, one neuron at a time

... this, they need a tracer that can tease apart the chain of directly connecting neurons, identifying them one by one. Viruses that naturally spread between neurons have previously been used to outline the flow of nerve cell communication, but they have two drawbacks. First, once inside the brain, they k...

Cornell lab confirms deadly fish virus spreading to new species

...the virus for the first time in the Lake Winnebago chain of inland lakes about 25 miles south of Green Bay on Lake Michigan; confirmation is pending. And millions of dead freshwater drum formed windrows of carcasses along the beaches of Lake Erie in 2006, all victims of VHSV. Other species from the Great...

Study warns deep-sea mining may pose serious threat to fragile marine ecosystems

... nutrients could drift widely, disrupting the food chain and potentially damaging ecosystems that lie within other countries?economic zones or in international waters. This poses additional problems, because while a state has the right to exploit its own resources, international environmental law decrees t...

Experimental gene therapy 'abolishes' arthritis pain and lessens joint damage

...e docking changes the shape of the dock to set off chain reactions inside the cell, enabling it to respond to the signal. On nerve cells for instance, certain receptors are shaped to accept naturally occurring painkillers called opioids, which when they dock, prevent the sending of pain messages along nerv...

Progress toward an antitumor vaccine

...lycoproteins—macromolecules with a central protein chain and long side chains made of polysaccharides. The modified MUC1 would be a good target molecule (antigen) for antibodies in immunological antitumor therapy. The difficulty with this approach is that such sugar-containing compounds are completely i...

In mice, drug protects against diabetes and atherosclerosis

...otein aP2 acts as a signal in cells, setting off a chain of inflammatory and metabolic responses to consumption of fatty foods. Some of those effects make the body less sensitive to the sugar-lowering action of insulin, raising the risk of diabetes. For many decades, aP2 was believed to act only in fat cel...

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