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Tag: "mutant" at biology news

Sea coral's trick helps scientists tag proteins

... fluorescent protein, then expressed the resulting mutant proteins in bacteria until they found one that could be irreversibly converted from green to red. As with GFP, the sequence for Dendra and an accompanying short amino acid tail can be inserted into the gene encoding the protein a scientist wants to...

Tool developed to silence genes in specific tissues using RNAi

... be used in humans "to knockdown the expression of mutant or overexpressed genes that cause human diseases, including cancer," Wilkinson says. "Scientists and clinicians can use it to reduce the expression of the target gene in a single or limited numbers of cell types or tissues, thereby reducing side effe...

Common enzyme is a key player in DNA repair

...aid. "We couldn't find anything interesting in the mutant bacteria." Since then, the known DinB family has grown to include five related proteins in bacteria, 10 in yeast, and four in people. "We found it 25 years ago," said Walker about DinB, "and we're just now finding out what it does." ...

Movement of chromosome in nucleus visualized

...sin-dependent. When the researchers introduced a mutant form of myosin protein to the nucleus, the movement slowed. Introducing a mutant actin that does not form filaments stopped the movement, while the introduction of an actin mutant t...

New gene reduces retinal degeneration in fruit flies

... carrying normal copies of this gene. In fact, the mutant neurons turn off their response to light four times faster than normal neurons. Because Lazaro helps fly TRP channels work at their maximum, it is possible that a Lazaro-like gene in mammals might also play a role in how well mammalian TRP channels w...

Study shows that cells have a natural defense against HIV

...lls with normal XPB and XPD compared to cells with mutant XPB or XPD. Cells with normal XPB protein lost half their proviral DNA after 4.6 hours, while cells with low levels of the protein lost half after about 7.7 hours. Similarly, cells with normal XPD protein lost half the proviral DNA after 3.5 hours, w...

Novel method reveals how menthol discovery could point towards new or improved pain therapies

...s nature of these experiments limits the number of mutant ion channels that can be made and analyzed. Our new high-throughput screening methodology allowed us to analyze 14,000 mutants out of which we isolated five that specifically affected menthol activity. Our experiments yielded significant insights int...

Molecular mechanism may explain how fevers spark seizures

... been characterizing the functional defects of the mutant GABA-A receptors, offering insight into the mechan...lready discovered that GABA-A receptors containing mutant gamma subunits were not as good at getting to the neuronal cell surface, and Kang wondered what woul...

Worm hormone discovery may aid fight against parasitic disease

...rchers blocked that hormonal signal by engineering mutant worms that couldn't manufacture the ligand, however, the mutants' development stopped before they reached maturity. Instead, the worms went into a "resting" stage called the dauer diapause, in which they don't eat or reproduce. When the researchers p...

MIT research holds promise for Huntington's treatment

...y misfolded proteins. In Parkinson's disease, the mutant proteins destroy dopamine-producing cells in the substantia nigra. Normally, the dopamine transmits signals to the corpus striatum, allowing muscles to make smooth, controlled movements. When those dopamine-producing cells die, Parkinson's patients e...

Creation of antibiotic in test tube holds promise for better antibiotics

...y could prevent the cancerous effects, because the mutant protein would no longer be localized at the membrane, Nair said. An accompanying Perspectives article in Science, written by chemist David W. Christianson of the University of Pennsylvania, suggests that nisin's five thioether rings may turn out to ...

Scientists force viruses to evolve as better delivery vehicles for gene therapy

...he best-adapted organism - the researchers created mutant viruses by introducing small variations in the gen...be recombination technique. After reassembling the mutant viruses inside their capsids, they introduced them to blood serum pooled from rabbits immunized agai...

Evolution follows few of the possible paths to antibiotic resistance

...d University have found in a study of a gene whose mutant form increases bacterial resistance to a widely prescribed antibiotic by a factor of roughly 100,000. Their work indicates that of 120 harrowing, five-step mutational paths that theoretically could grant antibiotic resistance, only about 10 actually ...

Gene variation increases SIDS risk in African Americans

...idly close again. When the pH falls, however, the mutant sodium ion channels tended to pop back open, delaying the cells' recovery after a burst of activity. In the heart, changes like this are known to increase the risk for abnormal rhythms and sudden death. Fortunately, a drug called mexiletine, used t...

Gene thwarts some pathogens, gives access to others, could save crops

...tant professor of botany and plant pathology. "The mutant plant that doesn't have BIK1 actually shows decrea...first looked at normal plants and then at the BIK1 mutant when they began to study the effect of different hormones on plant growth and pathogen defense, Meng...

More evidence mammals, fruit flies share make-up on function of biological clocks

...c expression of clock genes in flies with either a mutant version of Cry, or with Cry produced at artificially high levels. In both cases, they found that the clock had stopped ?with high levels of clock gene expression when Cry was mutated, and low levels when Cry was over-produced. These results indicated...

Dying of excitement

...ivity in transfected rat brain cells. Whether the mutant promoter decreases EAAT2 expression in the human brain, as would be predicted, remains to be tested. ...

Salmonella bacteria use RNA to assess and adjust magnesium levels

...made. When Groisman and his colleagues created a mutant strain lacking the phoQ gene, though, they were surprised to find that production of the instructions to make the MgtA protein could still somehow respond to magnesium, producing less of its protein at high magnesium levels. Researchers used a comp...

A step forward in the fight against bacterial infections

...dministered 10 times the lethal dose of LPS to the mutant mice, without deadly consequences. This finding co...for new therapeutics for bacterial infections. The mutant mice display a combination of important characteristics: they are resistant to LPS, but they still r...

Mutation in blood stem cells provides clues to cancer development

...npoint an inhibitor that directly targets the JAK2 mutant allele, we can fight the disease without inhibiting normal stem cell differentiation. These patients could then still produce normal red blood cells, normal platelets and white blood cells," said Catriona H.M. Jamieson, M.D., Ph.D., assistant profes...

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