Tag: "responsible" at biology news

Understanding why C. difficile causes disease -- it's hungry

... be a very difficult disease to treat. "The genes responsible for toxin production only seem to be expressed dur... and Canada. Recently, this strain was shown to be responsible for more than half of all cases in a representative sampling in Quebec. The highly virulent strain h...

How plague-causing bacteria disarm host defense

... effectors of the bacteria Yersinia – the pathogen responsible for the Middle Ages' "Black Death" and a virulent ...ans: Y. pestis is perhaps the most infamous, being responsible for the bubonic plague (also known as the Black Death), which killed more than 200 million people in...

Cytomegalovirus exacerbates atherosclerosis through an autoimmune mechanism

...lready shown that Cytomegalovirus infection can be responsible of the initial vascular lesions typical of the atherosclerotic process. The mechanism involved in the vascular lesion is of autoimmune origin: antibodies directed against particular proteins of the virus are able to bind molecules expressed on the su...

Detecting cold, feeling pain: Study reveals why menthol feels fresh

...ells of the peripheral nervous system that is most responsible for the body's ability to sense cold. The finding, reported on-line in the journal "Nature" (May 30, 2007), reveals one of the key mechanisms by which the body detects temperature sensation. But in so doing it also illuminates a mechanism that media...

Statin treatment improves spatial memory in mouse models of Alzheimer's

...tatin treated animals than in the cortex. nNOS is responsible for the release of nitric oxide, a substance that causes dilation of the blood vessels in the brain, which eventually will increase blood flow and improve circulation to the memory region of the brain. These findings suggest that increases in brain n...

Puzzling plankton yield secrets to role in evolution/global photosynthesis

...ne phytoplankton is a global-scale process that is responsible for about half of the biosphere net primary production," said collaborator and co-author Hervé Moreau of the Pierre & Marie Curie University Oceanic Observatory in Banyuls-sur-mer, France. "This active absorption of hundreds of millions of tons ...

Climate change was the cause of Neanderthal extinction in the Iberian Peninsula

...rrent scientific paradigm which makes Homo Sapiens responsible for the Neanderthal extinction. This work is a contribution to a new scientific current ?leaded by Dr. Clive Finlayson, from the Gibraltar Museum ?according to which Neanderthal isolation and, possibly, extinction were due to environmental factors. ...

Scripps research team sheds light on long-sought cold sensation gene

...ents the first demonstration that a single gene is responsible for most cool temperature sensation," says team le... C cold plates. This suggests that other genes are responsible for this facet of cold sensation. Though cold can be unpleasant or painful under certain circumst...

Anthrax paralyzes immune cells with lethal toxin, UF research shows

... exposure to anthrax. The protein turned out to be responsible for gathering the components of actin and shuttling them to the center of the cell, where they are assembled into filaments. "We've discovered that through this pathway, lethal toxin blocks the function of a protein that regulates how actin assemb...

Targeting sugar on blood vessels may inhibit cancer growth

...h of experimental carcinomas. The Ndst1 enzyme is responsible for modifying the molecular structure of a sugar called heparan sulfate. In endothelial cells, this sugar facilitates the action of several important vascular growth factors that support angiogenesis. An antibody drug called Avastin, produced by...

Molecule that destroys bone also protects it, new research shows

... cells -- TH1 and TH2 -- which were believed to be responsible for nearly all immune system activities. "This paradigm underwent a sea change in 2005 with the discovery of a new type of T cell that produces IL-17, now called TH-17," she said. "We know now that almost all autoimmune diseases, at least in the ...

Scientists identify prion's infectious secret

...te this process in mammalian prions, such as those responsible for mad cow and Cruetzfeldt-Jakob diseases, as well as in other non-prion proteins that can also form amyloid structures. ...

Warts vaccine -- 1 of many in pipeline

A clinical trial treating the papillomaviruses responsible for genital warts was on target at the halfway mark, according to Australian of the Year 2006 Professor Ian Frazer and trial manager, sexual health specialist Dr David Jardine More than 200 patients in China and Australia have taken part in the tri...

Study shows continued success for new HPV vaccine against virus responsible for cervical cancer

...st the two types of the human papillomavirus (HPV) responsible for most cases of cervical cancer. Results of a nationwide study of the vaccine will be published in the May 9 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. Cervical cancer is the second most common cause of cancer deaths in women worldwide, resulti...

Slowing the racing heart

...ine. A single cell in the upper right chamber is responsible for setting the pace of the beating heart, triggering its neighbor cells to beat. In the human heart, one cell -- the pacemaker cell -- beats faster or slower to induce a rhythmic heartbeat that varies to increase or decrease the blood flow to the bo...

100 percent of pregnant women have at least one kind of pesticide in their placenta

Human beings are directly responsible for more than 110,000 chemical substances which have been generated since the Industrial Revolution. Every year, we "invent" more than 2,000 new substances, most of them contaminants, which are emitted into the environment and which are consequently ...

Sleepless for science: Flies show link between sleep, immune system in Stanford study

...y brain that exhibits circadian gene activity, was responsible for the changes seen in the sick flies. But the behavior of the ill flies looked a lot like that of flies known to have disruptions in their genes controlling circadian rhythm. So the next step, after confirming that flies lost sleep when infected...

Thymus transplants gives hope to babies with fatal immune disease

... the lack of a functioning thymus, a gland that is responsible for "teaching" immune system cells known as T cells how to attack and fight off infections. Babies with DiGeorge anomaly also can have a range of problems including heart defects and unusual facial features. However, about 1 percent of these babies h...

Heavy multivitamin use may be linked to advanced prostate cancer

...able to identify or quantify individual components responsible for the associations that we observed,?the authors write. In an accompanying editorial, Goran Bjelakovic, M.D., of the University of Nis in Serbia, and Christian Gluud, M.D., of Copenhagen University Hospital in Denmark, discuss the positive and ...

Effect on breast tumors of DNA alternations in 3 genes described

...equence -- is one of the characteristics of tumors responsible for some of their disease properties," said Menghua Tao, Ph.D., research assistant professor of social and preventive medicine in the UB School of Public Health and Health Professions and first author on the study. "In addition, it is now becoming...

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