Tag: "tandem" at biology news

Cellular message movement captured on video

...ssage-carrying protein called paxillin (orange) in tandem with actin filaments (green). Credit: UC San Diego Scientists have captured on video the intracellular version of a postal delivery service. Reporting in the journal Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications (BBRC), bioengineering research...

Baumann Lab defines proteins that distinguish chromosome ends from DNA double-strand breaks

...f telomeric ends," said Dr. Bae. "Instead, a short tandem array of telomeric repeats bound by a Rap1/Trf2 complex is sufficient to impede non-homologous end joining in a highly directional manner." It has long been understood that chromosome ends are distinct from DNA double-strand breaks and that the ce...

Protein fragments sequenced in 68 million-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex

...their amino acid sequence. Using this two-step, or tandem (MS/MS), procedure, Asara netted seven separate strings of amino acid. He now faced his second challenge, namely, to interpret the amino acid sequences. Normally, when a sequence comes out of a mass spectrometer, it is compared to a database of ex...

Statin plus cancer drug deliver combo punch to brain cancer cells

...ed that Bcl-2 and hedgehog expression increased in tandem in medulloblastoma cells, they tried adding hedgehog-blocking cyclopamine to the cells and found that Bcl-2 production dwindled and tumor cells died off. Lead author and pathology fellow Eli E. Bar, Ph.D., said he was "surprised by the degree to ...

Speeding 'fingertip' discovery -- 20 years of protein info in 1 place

...y’s team used electron transfer dissociation (ETD) tandem mass spectrometry, a technology that breaks apart proteins into small fragments, separates them by size and identifies the fragments based on their mass - their size and weight. The process improves on previous techniques by breaking up proteins more...

New clues to how sex evolves

...s full set of six. The him and zim genes appear in tandem on a single chromosome, which raises the question ...ly." Evolution under the microscope The tandem arrangement and structural similarities of the him and zim genes suggest they all arose from a commo...

Diabetes research takes wing thanks to long-lived fruit fly

...naling system that responds to stress and works in tandem with the insulin receptor that is central to diabe... and the insulin receptor together seem to work in tandem to affect life span. "We're learning that an organism's life span may not be limited by design," sa...

Tandem transcripts team together

...chers identified six TIC events (involving 3.6% of tandem gene pairs), only one of which was identified during the whole-genome survey. This indicates that future investigations of specific regions may reveal a greater prevalence of TIC events genome-wide. Sorek's team unraveled an interesting gene fusion...

World Trade Center identifications pushed forensic DNA technology

...labs across the country generally used STRs ?short tandem repeats ?in forensics work. STRs are biological markers in nuclear DNA that are inherited from both parents and vary widely among people. The Combined DNA Index System ?CODIS ?used by the FBI, uses 13 of these markers for identification purposes. ...

First demonstration of 'teaching' in non-human animals

...and thus qualifies as teaching. At the start of a tandem run, the leader finds a naïve individual who is willing to follow her. But tandem runs are rather slow because the follower frequently pauses to look round for landmarks so that it c...

Protein 'nanosprings' most resilient found in nature

...al Science Foundation. Ankyrin repeats consist of tandem modules of about 33 amino acids, the researchers said. Found in a large number of functionally diverse proteins in organisms ranging from plants to humans, ankyrin repeats are one of the most common protein-protein interaction motifs in nature. Anky...

Curry and cauliflower could halt prostate cancer

...h of cancerous tumors. Using PEITC and curcumin in tandem produced even stronger effects. The group went on to evaluate the therapeutic potential of curcumin and PEITC in mice with well-established tumors, and the results showed that PEITC or curcumin alone had little effect, whereas the combination of cur...

New DNA 'fingerprinting' technique separates hemp from marijuana

...rs have found that genetic markers known as "short tandem repeats," which are used to identify individuals in paternity and criminal cases, lack the power to distinguish Cannabis cultivars unequivocally. In tests with three different cultivars of hemp and one of marijuana, the DNA fingerprints of all the...

Plants give pests sock in the gut

...ording to researchers. The enzyme could be used in tandem with other biological pesticides such as the Bt toxin to prevent the pests from developing resistance and making the toxin more effective. "The enzyme is found in insect-resistant strains of corn, and it breaks down proteins and peptides in the inse...

Wild birds help to create human flu vaccine

...rbor viruses with pandemic potential." Working in tandem with national and international health agencies, congressional leaders have introduced legislation aimed at filling existing gaps in US pandemic preparedness by establishing a global network to monitor wild bird diseases and distributing real-time su...

Membrane research opens window to benefits for plants, humans

...ular publication by the journal Nature, involved a tandem of basic-science firsts that offer immediate real world applications, the scientists say. First, Swedish plant biochemists and crystallographers at Lund University and Chalmers University of Technology, studying membrane proteins of spinach, solved ...

Pair of cancer genes found to drive both cell migration and division

...movement." In normal cells, the two genes work in tandem to regulate a molecule called PIP3, which helps the cell decide where to push outward - PI3K makes PIP3 on the membrane on one side of a cell while PTEN breaks it down on the other side. But when both enzymes are missing, levels of PIP3 remain consta...

World's largest rainforest drying experiment completes first phase

...le resistance to fire, it is clear that drought in tandem with fire can swiftly push the tall, dense rainforests of the region towards savanna scrub. The amount of carbon that could be released to the atmosphere by this savannization process is significant --equivalent to several years of worldwide carbon e...

Found: Missing sequence of the human Y chromosome

...e of repetitiveelements, including transposons and tandem arrays of satellitesequences. This highly repetitive, transcriptionally dormant genomiclandscape, termed "heterochromatin," defines approximately two-thirdsof the Y chromosome, including a section spanning the centromere. Suchrepetitive sequences, al...

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