Pathway in Biological News

UCLA researchers discover new molecular pathway for targeting cancer, disease

A UCLA study has identified a way to turn off a key signaling pathway involved in physiological processes that can also stimulate the development of cancer and other diseases. The findings may lead to new treatments and targeted drugs using this approach. In the study, which is currently ava...

Researchers engineer metabolic pathway in mice to prevent diet-induced obesity

In recent years, obesity has taken on epidemic proportions in developed nations, contributing significantly to major medical problems, early death and rising health care costs. According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates, at least a quarter of all American adults and more tha...

ISU researcher identifies genetic pathway responsible for much of plant growth

AMES, Iowa -- Researchers at Iowa State University have discovered a previously unknown pathway in plant cells that regulates plant growth. Yanhai Yin, an assistant professor in genetics, development and cell biology, examined signaling mechanisms of a plant hormone called brassinosteroids. The ...

Identification of a key molecular pathway required for brain neural circuit formation

Montral, May 15, 2009 The research group of Dr. Frdric Charron, a researcher at the Institut de recherches cliniques de Montral (IRCM), has made a discovery which could help treat spinal cord injuries and neurodegenerative diseases. This new finding has been published in the current issue of the ...

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...

Tracking the molecular pathway to mixed-lineage leukemia

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (Dec. 15, 2008) Infants and adults with the blood cancer mixed-lineage leukemia (MLL) typically have a poor prognosis, and most infants die before their first birthdays. Although there are varying causes of MLL, most cases are caused by a fusion of two genes, the MLL and the AF4 ...

Stowers Institute's Baumann Lab identifies key step in maturation pathway of telomerase

The Stowers Institute's Baumann Lab has discovered an important step in the maturation pathway of telomerase, the enzyme that replenishes the sequences that are lost at chromosome ends with every cell division. The findings were published today in the Advance Online Publication of Nature . Te...

GEN reports growing focus on PI3-kinase pathway in cancer research

New Rochelle, NY, December 4, 2008Researchers are taking a closer look at the phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3-kinase) pathway as studies continue to demonstrate that inhibiting this biological route suppresses tumor growth, reports Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News ( GEN ). The pathway is ...

New gene-silencing pathway found in plants

Biologists at Washington University in St. Louis have made major headway in explaining a mechanism by which plant cells silence potentially harmful genes. Differential gene expression profoundly influences the way in which organisms grow and develop. For instance, although every cell in the...

Research uncovers new steps on pathway to enlarged heart

Researchers have new insight into the mechanisms that underlie a pathological increase in the size of the heart. The research, published by Cell Press in the October 24th issue of the journal Molecular Cell , may lead to the development of new strategies for managing this extremely common cardiac...

Combining advanced medical and information technologies offers pathway to lower health care costs

Washington D.C. (September 22, 2008): Integrating sophisticated medical technologies for patient monitoring with advanced information systems and clinical expertise has the potential to significantly improve medical care while lowering treatment costs. This is especially true for patients with chr...

USC researchers identify alternate pathway that leads to palate development

(Los Angeles CA) Researchers at the University Of Southern California School Of Dentistry have uncovered another clue behind the causes of cleft palate and the process that leads to palate formation. Cleft palate is one of the most common congenital birth defects, occurring in one out of every...

A new cellular pathway linked to cancer is identified by NYU researchers

NEW YORK, July 24, 2008 In the life of a cell, the response to DNA damage determines whether the cell is fated to pause and repair itself, commit suicide, or grow uncontrollably, a route leading to cancer. In a new study, published in the July 25th issue of Cell , scientists at NYU Langone Medic...

Study identifies brain pathway that shuts down seizures

Researchers at the University of Iowa and the Veterans Affairs Iowa City Health Care System have uncovered a brain pathway that shuts down seizures. The multidisciplinary team of scientists pieced together information from clinical observations made in the first half of the 20th century with k...

Proteins that stop a major signaling pathway can also generate new proteins

DURHAM, N.C. Duke University Medical Center researchers have recently discovered that a crucial communications pathway in cells not only stops cells from making proteins, it also makes them go. The team was able to define the way in which proteins called beta arrestins (for their role in stopping...

Researcher discovers pathway plants use to fight back against pathogens

COLUMBIA, Mo. Plants are not only smart, but they also wage a good fight, according to a University of Missouri biochemist. Previous studies have shown that plants can sense attacks by pathogens and activate their defenses. However, it has not been known what happens between the pathogen attacks ...

Newly defined signaling pathway could mean better biofuel sources

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - A newly defined biochemical pathway in plants may provide the scientific tools to design plants that will yield larger quantities of alternative transportation fuels than currently can be produced, according to Purdue University researchers. The pathway moves materials th...

Researchers reveal HIV peptide's possible pathway into the cell

Troy, N.Y. - Two theoretical physicists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have uncovered what they believe is the long-sought-after pathway that an HIV peptide takes to enter healthy cells. The theorists analyzed two years of biocomputation and simulation to uncover a surprisingly simple mechani...

Study identifies pathway required for normal reproductive development

Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) clinical researchers, in collaboration with basic scientists from the University of California, Irvine (UC Irvine) have identified a new molecular pathway required for normal development of the reproductive, olfactory and circadian systems in both humans and mi...

UC health news: molecular pathway may predict chemotherapy effectiveness

CINCINNATIA common molecular pathway could help physicians predict which lung cancer patients will benefit from chemotherapy drugs, according to new research from a multidisciplinary team at the University of Cincinnati (UC). Known as the retinoblastoma (RB) tumor suppressor, this fundamental m...

New drug agent knocks out multiple enzymes in cancer pathway

A team of 24 researchers from the U.S., Europe, Taiwan and Japan and led by University of Illinois scientists has engineered a new anti-cancer agent that is about 200 times more active in killing tumor cells than similar drugs used in recent clinical trials. The study appears this week in the ...

Scripps research team defines new painkilling chemical pathway

Marijuana kills pain by activating a set of proteins known as cannabinoid receptors, which can also regulate appetite, inflammation, and memory. The body also has chemicals known as endocannabinoids that naturally activate these same receptors, namely N-arachidonoyl ethanolamine (AEA) and 2-arachi...

Breast cancer treatment resistance linked to signaling pathway

PHILADELPHIA -- Activation of the Src signaling pathway may cause resistance to standard medical treatment in some patients with breast cancer, and inhibition of this pathway holds the potential to overcome that resistance, according to data presented here at the American Association for Cancer Re...

Imiquimod, an immune response modifier, is dependent on the OGF-OGFr signaling pathway

Researchers at The Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine, Hershey, Pennsylvania have discovered that the efficacy of imiquimod, a clinically important immune response modifier with potent antiviral and antitumor activity, is dependent on the Opioid Growth Factor (OGF)-OGF receptor (OGF...

Paired microbes eliminate methane using sulfur pathway

Anaerobic microbes in the Earth's oceans consume 90 percent of the methane produced by methane hydrates methane trapped in ice preventing large amounts of methane from reaching the atmosphere. Researchers now have evidence that the two microbes that accomplish this feat do not simply reverse the...

Rong Li Lab reports protein interactions of MAP kinase signaling pathway

The Stowers Institutes Rong Li Lab, in collaboration with the Institutes Imaging Center, has achieved a quantitative in vivo measurement of the dynamic protein-protein interactions in the mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinase cascade signaling pathway, which is critical to growth and differentiat...

Salk scientists identify key nerve navigation pathway

LA JOLLA, CA Newly launched nerve cells in a growing embryo must chart their course to distant destinations, and many of the means they use to navigate have yet to surface. In a study published in the current issue of the journal Neuron, scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies hav...

Pesticides choke pathway for nature to produce nitrogen for crops

Jennifer E. Fox, NIH/NRSA postdoctoral fellow at the University of Oregon, has shown that many pesticides interfere with the ability of legumes to recruit soil bacteria needed to provide a natural fertilizer to crops. Credit: University of Oregon Many farmers applying pesticides to boost crop y...

Researchers identify protein pathway involved in Parkinson disease development

Scientists have found a novel signaling pathway in cells that is altered by genetic mutations recently identified in Parkinson disease development. These new findings show how the mutations affect cellular function and could provide a target for drug therapies to treat the disease. The research ...

Salk scientists hammer out a pathway that promotes muscle cell survival in mice

Scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have identified an enzyme that pumps up a cell’s ability to maintain healthy muscle and restores normal muscle function in genetically engineered mice with weak muscles. The study, published online in Nature Medicine, is the first to explore t...

Gene found for rare disorder may reveal new pathway in mental retardation

Studying mutations that give rise to a rare genetic disease, genetics researchers have identified a novel biological pathway that may have a broader role during human development, potentially in cases of mental retardation and autism. An international team of researchers identified two genes tha...

New molecular pathway could reveal how cells stick together

Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have found a new pathway by which cells change their adhesive properties. With a $1.4 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, they plan to fill in the details behind how cells decide to stick to a surface, which could lead to a better un...

Scripps research team discovers a chemical pathway that causes mice to overeat and gain weight

The Scripps Research team, led by neuroscientists Manuel Sanchez-Alavez and Tamas Bartfai, discovered that mice genetically altered to lack a molecule known as the EP3 receptor tend to be more active during their normal sleep cycle and to eat more. In the study, this led to weight increases of up t...

Novel pathway regulates timing of brain cell development

Brain formation involves the carefully timed production of different types of nerve cells by neural stem cells: neurons are produced first, then astrocytes. Making too much of one kind of cell and too little of another at a given time could lead to brain malformations. In the October 6 issue of Cel...

GlycoFi and Dartmouth report full humanization of yeast glycosylation pathway in Science

For the first time, scientists have engineered yeast cells capable of producing a broad repertoire of recombinant therapeutic proteins with fully human sugar structures (glycosylation). These sugar structures ensure a glycoprotein's biological activity and half-life and to date, have necessitated t...

Biologists discover new pathway into plant cells

Researchers at Oregon State University have made a major discovery in basic plant biology that may set the stage for profound advances in plant genetics or biotechnology. The scientists have identified for the first time a protein that can cross plant cell membranes, where it functions as a toxin...

Scientists discover genetic pathway responsible for breast cancer cell growth

Scientists at the MUHC have made an important discovery that will advance our understanding of how the female hormone estrogen causes growth of breast cancer cells. The research, in collaboration with scientists at the Institut de Recherches Cliniques de Montreal (IRCM) identifies 153 genes that re...

Ariadne Genomics Announces the Release of PathwayStudio?Central, Client-Server Software for Biological Pathway Analysis

Ariadne Genomics, Inc. today announced the release of PathwayStudio?Central, client-server software for visualization and analysis of biological pathways and gene regulation networks for bio-medical research labs, biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies. PathwayStudio?Central is available for a ...

Measuring Enzymes At End Of Cancer Pathway Predicts Outcome Of Tarceva, Taxol

Researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center have developed a way to test whether the new targeted therapy Tarceva and the widely used chemotherapy drug Taxol are effectively killing tumor cells. They say that with further refinement, the test may make it possible to accurate...

Newly discovered pathway might help in design of cancer drugs

Johns Hopkins chemists have discovered a new way to sabotage DNA's ability to reproduce, a finding that could eventually lead to the development of new anti-cancer drugs and therapies. The method could enable future doctors to target treatment more precisely, rather than directing chemotherapeuti...