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Tag: "regulating" at biology news

An essential regulator of body weight revealed

...finitively that NPY/AgRP neurons are essential for regulating eating behavior and the regulation of body weight. "We've put these neurons back on the map as being very, very important for feeding," he said. Scientists first became interested in NPY/AgRP neurons in the early 1980s, when they found that one of t...

Researchers use brain scans to predict behavior

... frontal lobes. "The rewards system is involved in regulating behavior based on previous experiences of rewards and punishments," d'Avossa says. "It also may help us build up predictions of what the world should be like and how certain events go together. When it works well, the world makes sense to you." Sap...

Master regulatory gene found that guides fate of blood-producing stem cells

...ne families have been suggested to be important in regulating HSC fate-for example homebox, wnt, notch 1, and telomerase genes. Emerson and colleagues figured that one transcription factor, called NF-Y, was required for activating promoters of all of these genes. What's more, they found that fully assembled NF-...

Regenerating worms help elucidate stem cell biology

...o, PIWI proteins have been shown to play a role in regulating stem cells in plants and fruit flies, as well as h...lvarado said, that piwi plays a similar role in regulating the progeny of adult stem cells in humans. He cautioned that more work is needed to determine just h...

Building a better mouse model of lung cancer: FHIT counts

...) "We chose this gene because VHL is important in regulating angiogenesis, or the growth of blood vessels that tumors need to support themselves," says Huebner. "When VHL is in place and working properly, it blocks angiogenesis." Interestingly, humans whose VHL gene is lost or mutated suffer from a condition ...

Prostate cancer uses Wnt signaling proteins to promote growth of bone tumors

... evidence that Wnt proteins play a central role in regulating normal skeletal development in an embryo," says Christopher L. Hall, Ph.D., a senior research fellow in urology at U-M. "But this is the first time Wnts have been shown to be involved in abnormal bone production in adult animals with prostate cancer....

Delaware scientists make significant advance in study of small RNAs

...t 10 years" because they play an important role in regulating genes in both plants and animals. Deficiencies in small RNA production can have a profound effect on development, and small RNAs have been associated with other important biological processes, such as responses to stress. Determining the sequence o...

New study expands understanding of the role of RNA editing in gene control

...w seen as one of the body's primary strategies for regulating its genome. Now, in a new study published online in Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, a Wistar-led team of scientists details the convergence of these two post-transcriptional genetic systems. The findings show that precursor miRNAs, like m...

New study examines how sense of smell affects mating and aggression in mice

...of a species, and their detection is a key step in regulating behaviors such as mating and aggression. The new ...novel and hitherto unsuspected role for the MOE in regulating mating and aggressive behavior in mice. He adds that while it appears humans do not have an intact V...

Penn study finds direct role for glial cells in brain cross-talk

...e brain called astrocytes are directly involved in regulating communication between neurons. A central finding o...to be a support cell and to play no active role in regulating nerve impulse transmission. However, recent research by Haydon and other investigators has indicate...

Key brain regulatory gene shows evolution in humans

... prodynorphin (PDYN), that plays critical roles in regulating perception, behavior and memory. They reported that, compared to lower primates, humans possess a distinctive variant in a regulatory segment of the prodynorphin gene, which is a precursor molecule for a range of regulatory proteins called "neuropep...

The brain is broadly wired for reproduction

...females and testosterone production in males -- by regulating the release of hormones from the pituitary gland. Interestingly, GnRH neurons also appear to be involved in the control of sexual behaviors. "Consistent with the idea that GnRH neurons might have additional functions beyond controlling the pituitar...

Twin molecular scissors link creation of microRNAs with gene-silencing

One of the body's primary strategies for regulating its genome is a kind of targeted gene silencing orchestrated by small molecules called microRNAs, or miRNAs. First observed only a few years ago, these molecules appear to inactivate messenger RNA, itself responsible for translating genes into protei...

MicroRNA may have fail-safe role in limb development

...rent from hindlimbs. We now think this microRNA is regulating something important in the hindlimbs but not in the forelimbs." Scientists do not know exactly what is happening, but they think miR 196 acts as a protective mechanism in the hindlimbs in the event normal gene transcription goes awry. "A large body...

Common molecular 'signature' identified in solid tumors

...gun to understand how important microRNA may be in regulating gene expression. For years, these tiny bits of genetic material went unnoticed ?nestled within vast stretches of the genome that appeared to be non-functional. They may have been easy to overlook: miRNAs are usually only 22 or so nucleotides in lengt...

HIV accessory protein disables host immunity via receptor-protein intermediary

...ost cell. Vpr helps to usurp host-cell function by regulating cell differentiation, cell death, and suppressing host-cell immune response proteins. Weiner's group found that Vpr binds to the glucocorticoid receptor, but it remained unclear whether the GR pathway was required for Vpr to commandeer the host cell'...

Master genetic switch found for chronic pain

...--controlling specification of sensory neurons and regulating how they target their wiring--"form a genetic basis for the assembly of specific neural circuits for nociceptive information processing. "Finally, the identification of a core transcriptional control program for many of the ion channels and receptor...

Taking a bite out of a fellow worker helps wasps recruit new foragers

...ound that biting appears to be an important way of regulating the division of labor among these insects. Now, in the current issue of the journal Animal Behaviour, he describes an experiment in which he artificially removed active foragers from four wasp colonies to see how new foragers are recruited. He foun...

UCLA scientists find male gene in brain area targeted by Parkinson's

...al role not just in the male genitals, but also in regulating the brain." Vilain's lab used a rat model to study the effect of SRY on the brain. When the researchers lowered the level of SRY in the substantia nigra, they saw a corresponding drop in an enzyme called tyrosine hydroxylase (TH), which plays a key...

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

...ly 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 grasses inclu...

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