Repair

Deficient DNA Repair Capacity Associated With Increased Risk Of Breast Cancer

Deficiencies in the ability of cells to repair damaged DNA are associated with an increased risk of breast cancer, according to a new study in the January 19 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. is the system of defenses designed to protect the integrity of the genome. Studies have suggested that deficiency...

DNA Recombination and Repair—A New Twist to RecA Function

Molecular motors harness the energy of ATP (or GTP, a related energy currency) and transform it into mechanical force. Well-known examples of motors include myosin and dynein, proteins that use ATP to ferry intracellular cargo along fibers made of actin or tubulin proteins. The ATP-dependent assembly of actin or tubulin fibers itself can work as a motor: for instance, the march of white blood cel...

Heart repair gets new muscle

Some organs in the human body deal with injury better than others. A flesh wound or muscle tear might hurt, but, assuming you are otherwise healthy, both will heal. The prognosis for a heart attack, on the other hand, is not so clear-cut. It has long been thought that cardiac cells (cardiomyocytes) lack the capacity for self-renewal and repair, impeding the chances of a full recovery from...

Nano-bumps could help repair clogged blood vessels

Biomedical engineers at Purdue University have shown that "vascular stents" used to repair arteries might perform better if their surfaces contained "nano-bumps" that mimic tiny features found in living tissues. The researchers already have shown in a series of experiments that bone and cartilage cells in petri dishes attach better to materials that possess smaller surface bumps than are f...

New understanding of DNA repair may pave way to cancer treatments

A Burnham Institute study has found that a protein known for its role in gene regulation has another important function, that of initiating DNA repair. The study, published in the May 27th edition of Molecular Cell, points to new targets for treatment of cancer. Ze'ev Ronai, Ph.D., Director of the Institute's Signal Transduction Program, and his colleagues found that the protein ATF2 ("Ac...

Researchers pioneer new gene therapy technique using natural repair process

Harnessing the strength of a natural process that repairs damage to the human genome, a researcher from UT Southwestern Medical Center has helped establish a method of gene therapy that can accurately and permanently correct mutations in disease-causing genes. By artificially initiating a DNA repair process known as homologous recombinat...

Circulating stem cells play small role in lung repair

Circulating stem cells play a minor role in repairing lung damage, according to a team of scientists who used male and female chromosomal differences to analyze the repair process in lung transplant patients. Reporting in today's edition of the journal Transplantation, lead author Dani Zander, M.D., of The University of Texas Medical School at Houston, and colleagues at the University of F...

Muscle repair: Making a good system better, faster; implications for aging, disease

Skeletal muscles naturally repair themselves very efficiently after injury. But when they don't, otherwise successful recovery following damage from overuse during exercise, surgery or trauma can be stymied. Furthermore, as we age, muscle repair slows noticeably, and in Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy and other degenerative muscle diseases, normal repair functions can't cope with disease progression....

Stressed cells spark DNA repair missteps and speed evolution

When Dr. Susan Rosenberg, professor of molecular and human genetics at Baylor College of Medicine, first published her finding that the mutation rate increased in bacteria stressed by starvation, sometimes resulting in a rare change that benefited the bacteria, it was controversial. In a report in the current issue of the journal Molecular Cell, she and her colleagues describe not only how...

Scientists get first glimpse at how plants, most animals repair UV-damaged DNA

For the first time, researchers have observed exactly how some cells are able to repair DNA damage caused by the sun's ultraviolet (UV) radiation. This enzyme is missing in all mammals, including humans, although all plants and all other animals have it. Greater un...

OHSU researchers discover potential mechanism to repair brain damage linked to Multiple Sclerosis

Oregon Health & Science University researchers have identified some of the key factors that prevent the repair of brain damage caused by multiple sclerosis (MS), complications of premature birth, and other diseases and conditions. The findings offer important clues about why the nervous system fails to repair itself and suggest ways that at least some forms of brain damage could be reversed....

Discovering the first steps in transcription-coupled repair

A team of scientists led by Priscilla Cooper, a senior staff scientist in the Life Sciences Division of the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, has discovered new players in the first steps of transcription-coupled repair (TCR), an essential but still mysterious mechanism of DNA repair. If a blockage occurs when genetic information from a cell's DNA is being trans...

Stem cell mobilization therapy appears to be ineffective in repairing damage caused by heart attack

Therapy that involved bone marrow stem cells did not improve cardiac function in patients following a heart attack, according to a study in the March 1 issue of JAMA. There has been increasing evidence that stem cells contribute to regeneration of cardiac tissue and the development of new blood vessels following a heart attack, thus opening up new prospects for stem-cell based therapies. G...

Stem cells from muscles can repair cartilage

Damage to articular cartilage (cartilage covering the ends of bones where they meet in a joint) frequently occurs due to injury or illness, and can lead to degenerative disease. Treatments and experimental approaches to repair this articular cartilage have achieved limited results, but currently there is no method to fully restore this type of injured cartilage. Tissue engineering involving the d...

Liver cancer linked to cellular repair pathway

The unchecked activity of a cell signaling pathway crucial in embryonic development and the liver's response to injury leads to liver cancer, researchers from Duke University Medical Center and John Hopkins University School of Medicine have found. Because the pathway, called Hedgehog, is present only in immature, stem-like liver cells, the discovery offers hope for targeted treatment of l...

Rice bioengineers pioneer techniques for knee repair

A breakthrough self-assembly technique for growing replacement cartilage offers the first hope of replacing the entire articular surface of knees damaged by arthritis. The technique, developed at Rice University's Musculoskeletal Bioengineering Laboratory, is described in this month's issue of the journal Tissue Engineering. "This has significant ramifications because we are now beginning...

Common enzyme is a key player in DNA repair

A quarter century after they discovered it, researchers have identified the job of one of the most common DNA-damage response proteins. The enzyme has puzzled scientists because it is present in nearly every organism, which suggests that it is crucial to life, and yet, in laboratory experiments, its function has remained a mystery. The discovery suggests that the enigmatic enzyme known a...

Removing DNA repair gene causes metabolic syndrome

Removing a gene involved in repairing damaged DNA causes mice to develop the metabolic syndrome, researchers at Oregon Health & Science University have discovered. Scientists at OHSU, the University of Texas Medical Branch and the University of Alabama found that generating mice that lack the gene encoding the DNA repair enzyme NEIL1 causes them to develop severe obesity and reach near...

Measuring artery repair cells could become new heart disease test

A more accurate method for measuring blood levels of specialized cells that circulate in the bloodstream and repair damage to the arterial lining has been discovered by Duke University Medical Center cardiologists. These cells, known as endothelial progenitor cells (EPC), are produced in the bone marrow and travel to the site of arterial damage. The researchers said that tests for EPCs cou...

Enzyme crystal structure reveals 'unexpected' genome repair functions

The study is being published in an advance online version of the journal Molecular Cell. The research looked at XPB helicase from an archaea, a single cell organism similar to bacteria. Helicases are enzymes that unwind or separate the strands of the nucleic acid double helix, an action that is critical to transcription and nucleotide excision repair (NER), as well as other cell processes...

Little known DNA repair enzyme may be a tumor suppressor gene

Use of the amino acid supplement L-arginine following a heart attack does not improve certain cardiac functions and measurements and may be associated with an increased risk of death, according to a study in the January 4 issue of JAMA. L-arginine is a widely available dietary supplement and is publicized as having benefits for patients with hypertension, angina, heart failure and sexual d...

Stem cells can repair torn tendons or ligaments

Weekend athletes who overexert themselves running or playing basketball may one day reap the benefits of research at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem that shows that adult stem cells can be used to make new tendon or ligament tissue. Tendon and ligament injuries present a major clinical challenge to orthopedic medicine. In the United States, at least 200,000 patients undergo tendon or...

Dartmouth study finds that arsenic inhibits DNA repair

Dartmouth researchers, working with scientists at the University of Arizona and at the Department of Natural Resources in Sonora, Mexico, have published a study on the impact of arsenic exposure on DNA damage. They have determined that arsenic in drinking water is associated with a decrease in the body's ability to repair its DNA. "This work supports the idea that arsenic in drinking wate...

Unusual mechanism keeps repair protein accurate

Cancer researchers have discovered that a recently identified protein critical for repairing damaged genes uses an unusual mechanism to keep its repairs accurate. But while other DNA-repair proteins insure their accuracy with...

Cigarette smoke blocks cell repair mechanism, University of Florida study shows

Cigarette smoke can turn normal breast cells cancerous by blocking their ability to repair themselves, eventually triggering tumor development, University of Florida scientists report. While some cells nonetheless rally and are able to fix their damaged DNA, many others become unable to access their own cellular first aid kit, according to findings from a UF study published today (Aug. 21...

Age-related changes in DNA repair illuminate the connection between age and genetic damage

Researchers have uncovered a new way in which the aging process is linked to DNA damage--which occurs normally as a result of cell metabolism and environmental influences--and the various ways in which cells repair that damage. In the new work, researchers found that cells in young fruit flies make use of a different mix of molecular DNA-repair mechanisms compared to cells in older flies. The fin...

Gene therapy research switches off joint inflammation; switches on genetic process of joint repair

Scientists at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and Albany Medical College, together with Rainforest Nutritionals, Inc. have demonstrated in a mini symposium held today at the 14th International Conference of the Inflammation Research Association (IRA) that a blend of natural botanical products called Reparagen have turned on the master repair gene, IGF-1, which is responsible fo...

Neural stem cells lend the brain a surprising capacity for self-repair

The brain contains stem cells with a surprising capacity for repair, researchers report in the December 15 issue of the journal Cell, published by Cell Press. The novel insight into the brain's natural ability to heal might ultimately have clinical implications for the treatment of brain damage, according to the researchers. The researchers found that mice whose brains were severely damage...

Drug can quickly mobilize an army of cells to repair injury

To speed healing at sites of injury - such as heart muscle after a heart attack or brain tissue after a stroke - doctors would like to be able to hasten the formation of new blood vessels. One promising approach is to "mobilize" patients' blood vessel-forming cells, called angiogenic cells, so these cells can reach the injured area. Recently, researchers at Washington University School of...

Nanoscale microscope sheds first light on gene repair

Proteins called H2AX act as "first aid" to DNA, among other roles. For the first time, scientists using the world's most powerful light microscope (the only one of its kind in the Americas) have seen how H2AX is distributed in the cell nucleus: in clusters, directing the first aid/repair after DNA injuries to the region where it is really needed. Many biological processes lie out of t...

First Quantum Grant to fund stem cell repair of damage from stroke

The National Institutes of Health has named researchers at Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) and Rice University in Houston as the first and only recipients of the inaugural Quantum Grant for their international research initiative to regenerate damaged brain cells and blood vessels for the treatment of stroke. The three-year, $2.9 million grant, funded by the National Institute of Biomedic...

Smashing the time it takes to repair our bones

New research by Queensland University of Technology is helping scientists better understand how bone cells work and may one day lead to the development of technology that can speed up the time it takes to heal fractured and broken bones. Dr Hannay said his device re...

Lungs try to repair damaged elastic fibers

The lungs of patients suffering chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) attempt to repair damaged elastic fibers, a new finding that contradicts the conventional wisdom on the capabilities of the adult lung. The study "Evidence for attempted regional elastic fiber repair in severe emphysema," was done by Jason Woods, Kristin Castillo, Alexander Patterson and Richard Pierce of Washingt...

Liposuctioned fat stem cells to repair bodies

Expanding waistlines, unsightly bulges: people will gladly remove excess body fat to improve their looks. But unwanted fat also contains stem cells with the potential to repair defects and heal injuries in the body. A team led by Philippe Collas at the University of Oslo in Norway has identified certain chemical marks that allow him to predict which, among the hundreds of millions of stem cells i...

Pregnancy hormone key to repairing nerve cell damage

The mystery of why multiple sclerosis (MS) tends to go into remission while women are pregnant may be the secret to overcoming the devastating neurodegenerative disease, according to University of Calgary researchers who have shown that a pregnancy-related hormone is responsible for rebuilding the protective coating around nerve cells. In a paper to be published in the February 21 issue of...

UW launches study testing adult stem cells for heart damage repair

The University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health is among the first medical centers in the country taking part in a novel clinical trial investigating if a subject's own stem cells can treat a form of severe coronary artery disease. The trial, just underway at UW Hospital and Clinics, is enrolling subjects in the Autologous Cellular Therapy CD34-Chronic Myocardial Ischemia...

3 proteins may play important role in nerve-cell repair

Some mature brain cells can grow new extensions when the amount of three particular proteins on their surface increases, a new study shows. When researchers increased the amount of the three proteins, the cells grew extensions that were up to three times lon...

Woven scaffolds could improve cartilage repair

Using a unique weaving machine of their design, Duke University Medical Center researchers have created a three-dimensional fabric "scaffold" that could greatly improve the ability of physicians to repair damaged joints with the patient's own stem cells. "If further experiments are successful, the scaffold could be used in clinical trials within three or four years," said Franklin Moutos,...

DNA repair proteins monitored at double-strand break

Investigators at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital had a molecule’s eye view of the human cell’s DNA repair kit as it assembled on a double-strand break to link together the broken ends. Double-strand breaks are ruptures that cut completely across the twisted, ladder-like structure of DNA, breaking it into two pieces. Using a technique developed specifically for this project, the St....

Herpes virus hijacks DNA repair process

The DNA damage response normally fixes DNA errors caused by radiation or other environmental factors, or mistakes accidentally introduced when cells c...