A study of tentacle-formation in a sea anemone shows how epithelial cells form elongated structures and puts the spotlight on a new model organism.

Biology - Cell & Microbiology

May 02, 2013 3 / 5 (1) 0 |

Over the past several years, Rong Li, Ph.D., at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research has been making crucial discoveries about the development of cell polarity—the process by which one side of a cell ...

Biology - Cell & Microbiology

Jan 22, 2013 4.5 / 5 (2) 1 |

Unlike less versatile muscle or nerve cells, embryonic stem cells are by definition equipped to assume any cellular role. Scientists call this flexibility "pluripotency," meaning that as an organism develops, ...

Biology - Cell & Microbiology

Dec 27, 2012 3 / 5 (2) 0 |

For a tiny embryo to grow into an entire fruit fly, mouse or human, the correct genes in each cell must turn on and off in precisely the right sequence. This intricate molecular dance produces the many parts of the whole ...

Biology - Cell & Microbiology

Dec 20, 2012 5 / 5 (3) 0 |

Chromatin remodeling—the packaging and unpackaging of genomic DNA and its associated proteins—regulates a host of fundamental cellular processes including gene transcription, DNA repair, programmed cell ...

Chemistry - Biochemistry

Nov 29, 2012 5 / 5 (1) 0

Changes in how DNA interacts with histones—the proteins that package DNA—regulate many fundamental cell activities from stem cells maturing into a specific body cell type or blood cells becoming leukemic. ...

Biology - Biotechnology

Nov 19, 2012 5 / 5 (1) 0 |

As the national waistline expands, so do pools of intra-cellular fat known as lipid droplets. Although most of us wish our lipid droplets would vanish, they represent a cellular paradox: on the one hand droplets ...

Biology - Cell & Microbiology

Aug 29, 2012 not rated yet 0 |

Two opposing teams battle it out to regulate gene expression on the DNA playing field. One, the activators, keeps DNA open to enzymes that transcribe DNA into RNA. Their repressor opponents antagonize that ...

Biology - Cell & Microbiology

Aug 26, 2012 not rated yet 0 |

The first step in gene expression is the exact copying of a segment of DNA by the enzyme known as RNA polymerase II, or pol II, into a mirror image RNA. Scientists recognize that pol II does not transcribe ...

Biology - Biotechnology

Aug 22, 2012 5 / 5 (1) 0 |

Scientists at the Stowers Institute of Medical Research have developed an innovative method to count the number of fluorescent molecules in a cluster and then applied the novel approach to settle a debate ...

Biology - Cell & Microbiology

Jul 19, 2012 not rated yet 0 |

Not all adult stem cells are created equal. Some are busy regenerating worn out or damaged tissues, while their quieter brethren serve as a strategic back-up crew that only steps in when demand shoots up. ...

Biology - Cell & Microbiology

Jul 19, 2012 not rated yet 0

Molecular geneticists call big boss proteins that switch on broad developmental or metabolic programs "master regulators," as in master regulators of muscle development or fat metabolism. One such factor, ...

Chemistry - Biochemistry

Jun 28, 2012 not rated yet 1 |

During the final stage of cell division, a short-lived contractile ring constricts the cellular membrane and eventually separates the dividing cell in two. Although this "molecular muscle's" composition, mainly ...

Biology - Cell & Microbiology

Jun 11, 2012 5 / 5 (1) 1 |

When stretched out, the genome of a single human cell can reach six feet. To package it all into a tiny nucleus, the DNA strand is tightly wrapped around a core of histone proteins in repeating units—each ...

Biology - Cell & Microbiology

Apr 30, 2012 5 / 5 (2) 1 |

Historically, fly and human Polycomb proteins were considered textbook exemplars of transcriptional repressors, or proteins that silence the process by which DNA gives rise to new proteins. Now, work by a ...

Biology - Cell & Microbiology

Apr 30, 2012 5 / 5 (1) 0 |