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Tag: "crystal" at biology news

Nicotine rush hinges on sugar in neurons

... established. Instead, the Chen group’s study of crystal structure suggested a simple mechanical role for sugar molecules attached to the surface of the receptor. “They serve as the link between the neurotransmitter binding site and the membrane region where the gate is located,” Chen said. “The sugar ...

Bacterial walls come tumbling down

...ey then were able to repeat the feat to reveal the crystal structure of the enzyme combined with the animal antibiotic. Their findings help reveal how the enzyme prepares to assemble the bacteria's sugar-coating by plucking sugars from a fat-sugar package known as lipid II. The antibiotic, which is anothe...

Synthetic peptide targets latent papilloma virus infections

.... Botchan, Voitenleitner and Abbate obtained the crystal structure of the site where E2 binds to the chromosomal proteins, which are called Brd4. This not only allowed for the development of the peptide, but should make it easier for drug developers to design a molecule that can nudge Brd4 aside so as to b...

Common mechanisms for viral DNA replication

...hen Meinke, Andrew Bohm, and colleagues report the crystal structure of the DNA-binding domain of SV40 T-ag on a DNA fragment derived from the viral origin of replication. The structure shows that although T-ag and its functionally analogous protein, papilloma virus E1, share no detectable sequence homology...

ASU researchers test antibacterial effects of healing clays

...nerals, she went a step further and examined their crystal structure and chemical compositions. She recruited...terial activity is associated with the interlayer, crystal size and structure also seem to play a role. It is a mystery that engages both research partners:...

Nobel Laureate finds 'elegant' explanation for DNA transcribing enzyme's high fidelity

...lymerase II enzyme: the trigger loop. “Of the 14 crystal structures now reported in which the trigger loop was observed, only in two is it seen in that location, directly beneath the NTP,?Kornberg said. Those were the only two crystals in which the NTP was correctly matched to the DNA template, evidence of...

Uncovering DNA's 'sweet' secret

...ical Society, Egli and colleagues report the X-ray crystal structure of homo-DNA, an artificial analog of DNA in which the usual five-carbon sugar has been replaced with a six-carbon sugar. By exchanging the sugars that make up the DNA backbone, researchers can make and test plausible "alternatives" to DNA...

Study uncovers mutation responsible for Noonan Syndrome

.... After modeling the positions of the mutations on crystal structures of SOS1, the scientists made recombinant versions of the mutants and expressed them in mammalian cells, where it was discovered that they promoted excessive activation of RAS and its downstream target, MAP kinase, the same pathway activate...

Recycling technology

...g environmental problem caused by discarded liquid crystal displays (LCDs). LCDs are a fixture of modern li...eets, between which, a thin film of viscous liquid crystal material is deposited. The material is a mixture of anywhere between 15 to 20 different compounds. ...

Selecting life: Scientists find new way to search for origin of life

... Like amino acids, some minerals have pairs of crystal surfaces that have a mirror relationship to each other, called left and right faces. Calcite, one such mineral, is common today and was prevalent during the Archean Era when life first emerged. In 2001 Hazen and colleagues performed the first experim...

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

... postdoctoral fellow Yan Zhang, Ph.D, analyzed the crystal structure of Scp1 and RNA polymerase together and obtained a 3-dimensional image showing how Scp1 hangs onto the seven amino acid residues reiterated in the polymerase tail. "We captured Scp1 bound to a single seven amino-acid long repeat containing ...

Study illuminates how the plague bacteria causes disease

... study, the researchers solved the high-resolution crystal structure of a second YpkA domain, the "Rho-GTPase binding domain" along with the host protein, "Rac1," with which it interacts. "The Yersinia structure was doing things to Rac1 that the host proteins normally do," Stebbins said, suggesting that the...

Uniform tungsten trimers stand and deliver

...ut also their consistent alignment with the single crystal structure of the platform. "A scanning tunneling microscope must be so stable that we have to vibrationally isolate the instrument. It cannot move even a small amount because we are using a stream of electrons to measure the distance from the microsc...

A wolf in sheep's clothing: Plague bacteria reveal one of their virulence tricks

...ein on the host cell's membrane. By looking at the crystal structure of this protein-protein complex, Prehna discovered that the configuration looked just like one formed by some of the host's own signaling proteins. And it's this mimicry, he found, that leads to a signaling shutdown and deregulation of the ...

USC team reveals structure of APOBEC family protein

... team led by Xiaojiang Chen revealed the "unusual" crystal structure of the Apo2 enzyme. "This three-dime...tural biologist, Chen has produced the first x-ray crystal structures of a number of proteins important in viruses, cancer and immunity. In one sense, the A...

Bacterial protein shows promise in treating intestinal parasites

...th at Yale School of Medicine. "We believe that Bt crystal proteins not only meet, but exceed these essential... and decided to collaborate on a project to see if crystal proteins could be effective against hookworm infections. Three years ago, Aroian and his colleagues ...

Hair samples show babies can be exposed to 'crystal meth' while in the womb

... 2005. In all, 396 samples tested positive for crystal meth, accounting for 8% of the total during this p... All but 14 of the samples testing positive for crystal meth had been sent for analysis in 2005. The first positive cases dated from 2003. Wide ranging ...

Ring-like formations in drying DNA drops could affect hybridization studies

...came increasingly concentrated and formed a liquid crystal with concentric chain orientations. (Liquid crystals are materials that flow like a liquid, but can align in a preferred direction like a crystalline solid.) During the final stages of drying, stresses propagated from the rim inward through the liqui...

Scientists take 'snapshots' of enzyme action

... Pharmaceuticals, Inc., have determined the atomic crystal structure and functional mechanism of an enzyme es...tify the positions of individual atoms and produce crystal structures of the enzyme, the enzyme plus its cofactor, and the enzyme plus the cofactor plus the co...

UCSD researchers develop 'smart petri dish'

... "by putting blood samples from a patient onto the crystal and comparing them to normal blood samples." In addition, says Michael Schwartz, a postdoctoral scholar in Sailor's laboratory and the first author of the paper: "The potential of our technique for fundamental studies of cell toxicity is exciting, Si...

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