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Tag: "functions" at biology news

Activation of a protein solidifies fear memory in the brain

... by studies suggesting that disruption of cellular functions known to be required for memory storage after retrieval of a memory can cause a specific loss of that memory," she said. Taylor and her colleagues found that within the amygdala, a brain region known to be critically involved in the creation and sto...

New compound stops brain cell degeneration in Alzheimer's disease

...ssion, the researchers said. Decline of cognitive functions linked to the part of the brain called the hippocampus is a clinical hallmark of Alzheimer's disease. The report demonstrates that targeting excessive glial activation can suppress brain inflammation and neuron dysfunction in the hippocampus and prot...

The evolution of food plants: Genetic control of grass flower architecture

...tion. The early expression of ra2 suggests that it functions in regulating the patterning of stem cells in axillary meristems. Said Dr. Hake, "we think that ra2 is critical for shaping the initial steps of inflorescence architecture in the grass family, because the ra2 expression pattern is conserved in other...

Mayo Clinic collaboration discovers protein amplifies DNA injury signals

...elf so the instructions it gives to operate bodily functions are correct. In earlier work, the Mayo Clinic researchers determined that MDC1 is important to the repair process -- but they didn't know its role. DNA is easily and often damaged by environmental and chemical sources such as ultraviolet radiation, ...

Discovery of new molecular tools for biosynthesis could lead to advances in use of pectin

...tance, and may have a role in important biological functions including plant growth and development and defense against disease. Despite the importance of pectin as a major component in the primary walls of plants, scientists have known relatively little about how this family of complex polysaccharides is mad...

Waking a sleeping virus

...ost cells. Those have to be switched on, and ZEBRA functions as the switch which turns the cell into a factory to manufacture thousands of copies of the virus." One result is the disease infectious mononucleosis ?called the "kissing disease" because EBV is transmitted in saliva ?whose symptoms resemble that ...

Protein translation in sperm

...rotein translation in sperm is essential for sperm functions that directly contribute to fertilization. Dr. Breitbart is confident that "The new findings would give us better understanding for treatment of male infertility and developing new male or female contraceptives." ...

New cellular flaw found in some virulent breast cancers

...e precisely which of cyclin D1's several different functions was responsible for causing breast cancer. By creating laboratory mice with different combinations of genes present or missing, the researchers were able to isolate the various cyclin D1 activities. They demonstrated that cyclin D1's ability to a...

Study in Science holds promise for a new approach to drug therapy

...lammation and heart disease, while leaving healthy functions in place. "We believe we have discovered a new c...ny new drug would need to be able to block certain functions of the hotspot, while leaving the others in place. It would also have to be small enough to cross th...

New possibilities to fight pests with biological means

...in Neuchatel and Jena showed that indirect defence functions not only above ground, but also below the earth's surface [1]. To understand the biochemistry behind this plant defence, biologists of the Max Planck institute studied corn plants, caterpillars of the species Spodoptera littoralis (Egyptian cotton l...

Earth Rx: A microbial biotechnology prescription for global environmental health

...that can detect specific genes and their metabolic functions with great precision and detail. Other methods can now reconstruct entire genomes of what were once "unculturable" microbes. Rittmann refers to this early period as a "profitable stamp collecting" approach ?"absolutely vital in providing a cathedr...

Less is more, gene study shows

... is that some of our genes have taken on different functions through mutation. It's also possible that we hum...her database called Gene Ontology, which lists the functions of all genes for which such information is known. That's when things got interesting. Instead of a r...

A new focus for the mechanism of nerve growth

...echanism of nerve cell growth by identifying novel functions for a molecular "motor" protein, myosin-II, accord...skeletal muscles. Myosin II motors are involved in functions such as directed cell movement, cell division and wound closure. While skeletal myosins have been st...

Scientists discover basic defect in cystic fibrosis airway glands

... In fact, it has been proposed that one of CFTR's functions is to inhibit the activity of a channel called the epithelial Na+ channel (ENaC). Nam Soo Joo and colleagues at Stanford University attempted to determine which hypothesis was correct by measuring the secretion from glands from patients with cystic ...

Tool developed to silence genes in specific tissues using RNAi

...t particular tissue without blocking its essential functions in other tissues." In their study, Wilkinson and his research team demonstrated how well their tool worked by silencing the WT1 tumor suppressor gene in the testes of mice. They found this gene is important in the production of healthy sperm by enco...

Single microRNA causes cancer in transgenic mouse

... MiRNAs normally help control important biological functions by switching "on" and "off" at different times during cell growth, death, development and differentiation. They can be harmful, though, if they are activated at the wrong time in the wrong place, and that appears to be what happens in some forms of c...

Basic research leads to a novel cancer therapy

...he war on cancer. They attack critical cancer cell functions in multiple ways and are well tolerated by patients." This is the second time that Ullrich has played a leading role in the development of a successful cancer therapy. Seven years ago, his research led the breast-cancer therapy Herceptin® to be brou...

Scientists discover a genetic switch that links animal growth and cancer

...covered that a tumor suppressor known as PTEN also functions to keep the animal in a waiting state by blocking ...," said Rothman. The research team found that PTEN functions with two other proteins –?known as protein kinases –?that are also involved in cancer progression. ...

Movement of chromosome in nucleus visualized

...ly organized, with specialized areas for different functions and molecular motors shuttling components around. Researchers from the University of Illinois' Chicago and Urbana-Champaign campuses now offer the first imaging evidence from live cells of ongoing organization and transport within the cell nucleus. ...

New brain hormone puts brakes on reproduction

...nd emotional inputs. "It's likely serving lots of functions relating to motivated behaviors, such as reproduction or feeding," Kriegsfeld said. Kriegsfeld and Bentley plan to continue their investigation of the role of GnIH in birds and mammals, with the assistance of postdoctoral fellow Takayoshi Ubuka, for...

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