Enzyme in Biological News

Joint research into an enzyme that causes genetic diseases

This release is available in Spanish . Researchers from CIC bioGUNE's Structural Biology Unit and Columbia University (New York) have conducted a joint research project, published in the prestigious scientific journal Structure , to gain in-depth knowledge of the structure of pyruvate ca...

'Corrective genes' closer thanks to enzyme modification

Scientists from the Universit de Montral and McGill University have re-engineered a human enzyme, a protein that accelerates chemical reactions within the human body, to become highly resistant to harmful agents such as chemotherapy, according to a new study published in The Journal of Biological...

Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC scientists identify enzyme important in aging

PITTSBURGH, July 10 The secret to longevity may lie in an enzyme with the ability to promote a robust immune system into old age by maintaining the function of the thymus throughout life, according to researchers studying an "anti-aging" mouse model that lives longer than a typical mouse. The ...

Scientists uncover mode of action of enzyme linked with several types of cancer

This release is available in French . Scientists at the Institute for Research in Immunology and Cancer (IRIC) of the Universit de Montral have discovered a key mechanism used by cells to efficiently distribute chromosomes to new cells during cell multiplication. Published in the journal ...

How an enzyme tells stem cells which way to divide

Driving Miranda, a protein in fruit flies crucial to switch a stem cell's fate, is not as complex as biologists thought, according to University of Oregon biochemists. They've found that one enzyme (aPKC) stands alone and acts as a traffic cop that directs which roads daughter cells will take. ...

A missing enzyme conveys major heart protection in pre-clinical work

DURHAM, N.C. Mice born without a certain enzyme can resist the normal effects of a heart attack and retain nearly normal function in the heart's ventricles and still-oxygenated heart tissue, according to a study by researchers at Duke University Medical Center. The findings raise the possibil...

Gladstone scientists reveal key enzyme in fat absorption

Scientists at the Gladstone Institutes of Cardiovascular Disease (GICD) have found that a key enzyme involved in absorbing fat may also be a key to reducing it. The enzyme, acyl CoA: monoacylglycerol acyltransferase 2 or Mgat2 is found in the intestines and plays an important part in the uptake o...

Commercial yeasts upgraded with an enzyme for biofuel production

This release is available in German . Eckhard Boles, co-founder of the Swiss biofuel company Butalco GmbH and a professor at Goethe-University in Frankfurt, Germany, has discovered a new enzyme which teaches yeast cells to ferment xylose into ethanol. Xylose is an unused waste sugar in the...

Duke software dramatically speeds enzyme design

DURHAM, N.C. -- A Duke University-led team has brought powerful software to the never-ending arms race between antibiotics and germs. Working together, computer scientists and biochemists have developed and laboratory-tested a computer program that can show experimentalists how to change the machi...

Gladstone scientists reveal that fat synthesizing enzyme is key to healthy skin and hair

Scientists at the Gladstone Institutes of Cardiovascular Disease (GICD) have found that an enzyme associated with the synthesis of fat in the body is also an element in healthy skin and hair. The enzyme is acyl CoA:diacylglycerol acyltransferase 1 or DGAT1. Mice that lack DGAT1 have many interes...

Researchers find pathway and enzyme unique to tularemia organism

San Antonio Researchers are closer to developing therapies to combat the deadly tularemia infection, according to a study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ' online Early Edition. Karl Klose, director of the South Texas Center for Emerging Infectious Dis...

Structure of enzyme against chemical warfare agents determined

This release is available in German . The enzyme DFPase from the squid Loligo vulgaris , is able to rapidly and efficiently detoxify chemical warfare agents such as Sarin, which was used in the Tokyo subway attacks in 1995. A detailed understanding of the mechanism by which enzymes ca...

Disabling enzyme allows mice to gorge without becoming obese, new study finds

Berkeley -- Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have identified a new enzyme that plays a far more important role than expected in controlling the breakdown of fat. In a new study to be published Jan. 11 in the journal Nature Medicine , researchers report that mice that have ha...

Brain enzyme may play key role in controlling appetite and weight gain

December 10, 2008 - (BRONX, NY) - Researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have found that overactivity of a brain enzyme may play a role in preventing weight gain and obesity. The findings were reported in Cell Metabolism . To understand what drives hunger and...

Rare disease provides clues about enzyme role in arrhythmias

A University of Iowa study provides insight into a calcium-sensing enzyme already known to play a role in irregular heartbeats and other critical functions. The researchers showed that the enzyme, calmodulin kinase II (CaM kinase II), contributes to arrhythmia in an extremely rare disease called T...

UNC scientists teach enzyme to make synthetic heparin in more varieties

CHAPEL HILL Scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have learned to customize a key human enzyme responsible for producing heparin, opening the door to a more effective synthetic anticoagulant as well as treatments for other conditions. Jian Liu, Ph.D., and colleagues at...

Atomic-resolution views suggest function of enzyme that regulates light-detecting signals in eye

An atomic-resolution view of an enzyme found only in the eye has given researchers at the University of Washington (UW) clues about how this enzyme, essential to vision, is activated. The enzyme, phosphodiesterase 6 (PDE6), is central to the way light entering the retina is converted into a cascad...

UGA researchers discover mechanism that explains how cancer enzyme winds up on ends of chromosomes

Human cancer cells divide and conquer. Unless physicians can control that division with surgery, chemotherapy or radiation, the wildly dividing cells will eventually destroy a person's life. Researchers have known for some time that an enzyme called telomerase is crucial to cancer's progress. ...

Synthetic molecules emulate enzyme behavior for the first time

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- When chemists want to produce a lot of a substance -- such as a newly designed drug -- they often turn to catalysts, molecules that speed chemical reactions. Many jobs require highly specialized catalysts, and finding one in just the right shape to connect with certain molecules ...

Disabling mouse enzyme increases fertility

St. Louis, May 16, 2008 Changing the sugars attached to a hormone produced in the pituitary gland increased fertility levels in mice nearly 50 percent, a research group at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has found. The change appears to alter a reproductive "thermostat," unv...

Team of chemists receives $5 million grant to develop enzyme mimics

EVANSTON, Ill. --- Mother Nature regulates critical cellular activities in plants and animals by using enzymes, catalysts that bring about specific biochemical reactions. Looking to learn from nature, a team of Northwestern University chemists has received a $5 million grant from the Air Force Off...

A key enzyme helps keep the synapse on track

NEW YORK (Dec. 20, 2007) -- At its core, healthy neurological function hinges on the efficient passage of information between brain cells via the synapse. Figuring out how the synapse traffics this information -- a process called neurotransmission -- is crucial to understanding the function of ...

Scientists spy enzyme that makes us unique

Have you ever wondered why you inherited your mothers smile but not your fathers height? Researchers at the Universities of Leeds and Dundee are one step closer to unravelling how nature combines both maternal and paternal DNA to create genetically unique offspring. In a world first, Leeds rese...

Scientists learn structure of enzyme in unusual virus

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. -- Biologists have determined the three-dimensional structure of an unusual viral enzyme that is required in the assembly of new viruses. The Paramecium bursaria chlorella virus infects a green alga called chlorella, transferring its DNA into host cells. Once inside the chl...

Researchers first to 'see' reactive oxygen species in vital enzyme

UPTON, NY Using two simultaneous light-based probing techniques at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory, a team of researchers has illuminated important details about a class of enzymes involved in everything from photosynthesis to the regulation of biological cloc...

HWI scientist first in world to unravel structure of key breast cancer target enzyme

The molecular details of Aromatase, the key enzyme required for the body to make estrogen, are no longer a mystery thanks to the structural biology work done by the Ghosh lab at the Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute (HWI) in Buffalo, New York. Dr. Debashis Ghosh's solution of the three...

New insight into the controls on a go-to enzyme

Scientists at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital have gained new insights into regulation of one of the body's enzyme workhorses called calpains. As the cell's molecular overachievers, calpains function in many cellular processes, including the movement of cells in tissues, the death of dam...

Fox Chase researchers discover a method for clamping down on a cancer-promoting enzyme

There are many pathways that allow an errant gene to turn a cell cancerous, and a number of these pathways go through a single enzyme called the p21-activated kinase 1, or PAK1. Researchers at Fox Chase Cancer Center have now identified a molecule capable of shutting down PAK1 before the enzym...

Birth of an enzyme

Mankind triumphed in a recent 'competition' against nature when scientists succeeded in creating a new type of enzyme for a reaction for which no naturally occurring enzyme has evolved. This achievement opens the door to the development of a variety of potential applications in medicine and indust...

Researchers probe a DNA repair enzyme

Researchers have taken the first steps toward understanding how an enzyme repairs DNA. Enzymes called helicases play a key role in human health, according to Maria Spies, a University of Illinois biochemistry professor. DNA helicases act as critical components in many molecular machineries o...

Destructive enzyme shows a benevolent side

New research shows that a recently discovered enzyme that destroys the messenger RNA (mRNA) for some proteins can also help to protect the mRNA during times of stress. The response might help cancer cells survive chemotherapy and radiation therapy. The study examined a recently discovered enzyme...

Researchers create artificial enzyme that mimics the body's internal engine

The protein cytochrome c oxidase (CcO) is the ultimate enzyme responsible for all aerobic life on Earth, from bacteria to people. It is also a crucial component of the cellular machinery that generates energy in our body. With such impressive credentials, you might expect that scientists would have...

RNA enzyme structure offers a glimpse into the origins of life

Researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, have determined the three-dimensional structure of an RNA enzyme, or "ribozyme," that carries out a fundamental reaction required to make new RNA molecules. Their results provide insight into what may have been the first self-replicating mole...

Penn study on lung-infecting bacterial enzyme suggests new approach to cystic fibrosis treatment

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have discovered that an enzyme produced by lung-infecting bacteria further shuts down a protein that is defective in cystic fibrosis patients. The disruption to this protein that conveys ions from lung cells to airways causes thick mu...

Moonlighting enzyme linked to neurodegenerative disease

Friedreich's ataxia is one of those diseases few have heard of unless you know someone with the condition. For that individual -- usually a child or teenager -- it is devastating. Symptoms are mild at first: muscle weakness in the arms and legs, vision impairment and slurred speech, but eventually ...

'Super' enzyme may lead way to better tumor vaccines

A "super" form of the enzyme Akt1 could provide the key to boosting the effect of tumor vaccines by extending the lives of dendritic cells, the immune-system master switches that promote the response of T-cells, which attack tumors, said researchers at Baylor College of Medicine in a report that ap...

Natural anti-viral enzyme helps keep cancer cells alive, researchers find

A molecule that cells normally use to fight viruses is also involved in keeping cancer cells alive, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have discovered. The anti-viral molecule, called TBK-1, was found to be essential for cancer cells to live, so blocking it might point to a treatment ...

Study shows enzyme builds neurotransmitters via newly discovered pathway

The study, which was directed by Scripps Research Professor Benjamin Cravatt, Ph.D., is being published in the September 8 issue of The Journal of Biological Chemistry. The new study describes a pathway-different than the one previously suggested-for the biosynthesis of neurotransmitter lipids, N...

Study offers innovative profile of enzyme that aids tumor growth

"Using a combination of enzyme activity and metabolite profiling, we determined that this protein-whose function was previously unknown-serves as a key regulator of a lipid signaling network that contributes to cancer," said Benjamin F. Cravatt, a Scripps Research professor and a member of its Skag...

Eat less, weigh more? Enzyme makes lean mice 'susceptible' to dietary fat

Working with genetically engineered mice, Johns Hopkins scientists have interfered with the brain's ability to control an animal's response to a high-fat diet. The report, to be published in the latest issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences online the week of May 1, is based ...