Tag: "fruit" at biology news

A new mechanism of regulating RNA degradation

...ng protein and some of its functions in the common fruit fly Drosophila are understood. "But no one knew what Staufen1 did in human cells," said Maquat, even though its presence in mammalian cells has been recognized for several years. "We were surprised to find that Staufen1 interacts with Upf1," she add...

FDA Approves Human Hookworm Vaccine for Phase I Safety Trials

...ng protein and some of its functions in the common fruit fly Drosophila are understood. "But no one knew what Staufen1 did in human cells," said Maquat, even though its presence in mammalian cells has been recognized for several years. "We were surprised to find that Staufen1 interacts with Upf1," she add...

Neuronal 'traffic jam' marks early Alzheimer's disease

...ransports proteins within neurons. In studies with fruit flies, Goldstein and others had observed that over...with Alzheimer's disease. "With the findings from fruit flies as our guide, we decided to look at mouse models of Alzheimer's disease early in their life, b...

Ancient olfaction protein is shared by many bugs, offering new pest control target

...ied a key gene essential for the sense of smell in fruit flies now shows that this gene's function appears ... that of 62 odorant-receptor proteins expressed by fruit flies, 61 are exclusively expressed in non-overlapping sub-populations of neurons, indicating that t...

Bound for destruction: Ubiquitination protects against improper Notch signaling

...theidentification of a mutant strain of Drosophila fruit flies with“notched?wings in Thomas Hunt Morgan’s lab in 1910. Later studiesrevealed that the Notch gene encodes a receptor protein that extendsthrough both sides of the cell membrane and which is capable ofinteracting with a ligand partner, such as t...

Researchers identify target for cancer drugs

... in human cells but in other organisms such as the fruit fly. Finding this complex conserved in species as diverse as flies and humans supports the claim that the mTOR/rictor complex is indeed a missing piece of the puzzle. According to Sarbassov, "If we find a molecule that can block the mTOR/rictor comp...

Why do insects stop 'breathing'? To avoid damage from too much oxygen, say researchers

...as grasshoppers, moths, butterflies, some types of fruit flies, beetles and bugs close off their respirator...ygen in the air we breathe is toxic to us. Indeed, fruit flies, which have been studied closely for decades, die sooner from aging in a high-oxygen environme...

Scientists document complex genomic events leading to the birth of new genes

...from a broad range of taxa (mouse, rat, roundworm, fruit fly, mosquito, and pufferfish) for single-copy genes that had evolved more than one copy in humans. "Gene duplication is known to play a leading role in evolution for the creation of new genes," explained Francesca Ciccarelli, Ph.D., lead author on t...

The Shapes Of Life: NIGMS Project Yields More Than 1,000 Protein Structures

...of new technology: “As we reach for higher-hanging fruit ?protein structures that are more complex and harder to solve ?we will need to develop additional tools and methods.?/p> As part of the PSI effort, all the structures determined by the centers are collected, stored, and made publicly available by...

PANTHER Protein Classification System Database 5.0

...urce.?The PANTHER system functional annotations of fruit fly genes have beenavailable for two years as part of an ongoing collaboration withFlyBase. “The task of performing functional annotation of genomes ischallenging. Too often we rely simply on transitive annotation based ona BLAST match. The PANTHER s...

Examination of internal 'wiring' of yeast, worm, and fly reveals conserved circuits

...ly related species ?baker's yeast, a worm, and the fruit fly ?and reported that protein "wiring" connections in one species are often conserved in all three. This first-of-its-kind analysis of three higher level organisms published in the February 8 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ...

X-Ray Beams And Fruit Fly 'Flight Simulator' Aid Scientists' View Of Muscle Power

...inson of Caltech, to probe the muscles in a flying fruit fly and examine how it generates the extraordinary...e muscles work. Now we have taken advantage of the fruit fly’s small size and shone light right through the whole animal, illuminating the working muscles du...

Children's taste sensitivity and food choices influenced by taste gene

...allowing us to devise better strategies to enhance fruit and vegetable acceptance in children who are sensitive to bitter taste," comments Mennella. "It may be that childhood represents a time of heightened bitter taste sensitivity in some children, which lessens with age. Such a scenario would account for...

Molecular Motors Cooperate In Moving Cellular Cargo, Study Shows

...k down toxic substances) inside specially cultured fruit fly cells. This was the first time the imaging technique had been used inside a living cell. "Our measurements show that both dynein and kinesin carry the peroxisomes in a step-by-step fashion, moving about 8 nanometers per step," said Selvin, who a...

Programmable cells: Engineer turns bacteria into living computers

...me the various body parts of a mature organism. In fruit fly embryos, for example, the first cells are thought to differentiate into the head, abdomen and other parts based on the concentration of chemical signals that are emitted from the ends of the embryo. In addition to conducting laboratory experimen...

Wisconsin researchers identify sleep gene

...n that has a powerful effect on the amount of time fruit flies sleep. In its normal state, the Drosophila ...e-clock search, researchers screened 9,000 mutated fruit flies, many of them supplied by Ganetsky's lab, and found one line of them that slept one-third the ...

50-year-old Mystery Solved: Protein Tags Regulate Key Ion Channel

...) potassium channels in yeast cells in 1995 and in fruit flies in 1996. Although potassium leak was first described in the 1950s when it was recognized to control excitation of nerves, the reason for leak had not previously been understood. The first human clone of this channel, K2P1, generated a good dea...

Stem cells from brain transformed to produce insulin at Stanford

...steps toward producing insulin. In insects such as fruit flies, the cells that produce insulin and regulate blood sugar are, in fact, neurons. Taken together, this evidence suggested to Kim that neural stem cells may be able to produce insulin. Despite Kim's informed hunch, the fact that it worked is a bi...

UCSD-Salk Team Show Protein’s Gene-Silencing Role In Development of Nervous System

...velopment of the nervous system, has been shown in fruit flies and mice by researchers at the University of...ronal genes. In their investigations with mice and fruit flies, the scientists found that REST/NRSF recruits SCPs only to neuronal genes. “These findings s...

Scientists identify molecule that regulates well-known tumor suppressor

... and colleagues used a genetic screening method in fruit flies and identified the molecule DJ-1 as a PTEN suppressor. In studies with mammalian cells, low levels of DJ-1 correlated with decreased PKB/Akt activity, while increased DJ-1 led to activation of PKB/Akt and enhanced cell survival. In cancer cell...

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