http://phys.org/chemistry-news/biochemistry/ en-us Phys.Org provides the latest news on biochemistry Two researchers at the University of Rochester have discovered the chemical that makes naked mole rats cancer-proof. Their research paper will be published this week in the journal Nature. http://phys.org/news290858276.html Chemistry - Biochemistry Wed, 19 Jun 2013 13:00:05 EST news290858276 All our cells wear a coat of sugar molecules, so-called glycans. ETH Zurich and Empa researchers have now discovered that glycans rearrange water molecules over long distances. This may have an effect on how cells sense each other. http://phys.org/news290785232.html Chemistry - Biochemistry Tue, 18 Jun 2013 15:00:02 EST news290785232 Mannitol, a sugar alcohol produced by fungi, bacteria, and algae, is a common component of sugar-free gum and candy. The sweetener is also used in the medical field—it's approved by the FDA as a diuretic to flush out excess fluids and used during surgery as a substance that opens the blood/brain barrier to ease the passage of other drugs. http://phys.org/news290687626.html Chemistry - Biochemistry Mon, 17 Jun 2013 11:33:54 EST news290687626 (Phys.org) —A team of chemists with members from Sweden and the United States has succeeded in capturing the process by which yeast aquaporin transport water across cell membranes while preventing unwanted protons to pass through. In their paper published in the journal Science, they describe how they used ultra-high resolution microscopy to reveal the transportation process. http://phys.org/news290419074.html Chemistry - Biochemistry Fri, 14 Jun 2013 11:33:48 EST news290419074 (Phys.org) —Viruses are masters of minimalist design. With only a simple genome and a handful of proteins, a virus can hijack much more sophisticated cells and mimic many of the intra- and inter-cellular machinery built by their much more complex hosts. Using these same building blocks, many viruses—like Hepatitis C—can also make us dangerously ill. http://phys.org/news290411925.html Chemistry - Biochemistry Fri, 14 Jun 2013 06:58:54 EST news290411925 DNA-coated colloids have been used to create novel self-assembling materials in a breakthrough experiment by EPFL and University of Cambridge scientists. http://phys.org/news290339671.html Chemistry - Biochemistry Thu, 13 Jun 2013 10:54:45 EST news290339671 A protein secreted by the chlamydia bug has a very unusual structure, according to scientists in the School of Medicine at The University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio. The discovery of the protein's shape could lead to novel strategies for diagnosing and treating chlamydia, a sexually transmitted disease that infects an estimated 2.8 million people in the U.S. each year. http://phys.org/news290183597.html Chemistry - Biochemistry Tue, 11 Jun 2013 15:33:25 EST news290183597 (Phys.org) —Conditions such as celiac disease, phenylketonuria, lactose intolerance and exocrine pancreatic disease involve abnormal enzyme activity. Enzymes administered orally could help sufferers. However, because enzymes, like all proteins, break down in the stomach and small intestine, they cannot usually survive in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract long enough to be effective. In a study published in Nature Chemistry, Jean-Christophe Leroux and his colleagues at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology report they have found polymers that, when attached to enzymes, will prevent the enzymes from degrading in the GI tract. The research paves the way for new medical treatments. http://phys.org/news290090708.html Chemistry - Biochemistry Mon, 10 Jun 2013 14:10:01 EST news290090708 American researchers have developed a probe for marking biomolecules that begins to fluoresce only when it is "switched on" by binding. As reported in the journal Angewandte Chemie, the reaction takes place very quickly and the difference in brightness between the "on" and "off" states is two orders of magnitude bigger than for conventional activatable probes. http://phys.org/news289808976.html Chemistry - Biochemistry Fri, 07 Jun 2013 07:29:43 EST news289808976 Scientists have discovered a new enzyme that could prove an important step in the quest to turn waste (such as paper, scrap wood and straw) into liquid fuel. To do this they turned to the destructive power of tiny marine wood-borers called 'gribble', which have been known to destroy seaside piers. http://phys.org/news289490380.html Chemistry - Biochemistry Mon, 03 Jun 2013 14:59:54 EST news289490380 (Phys.org) —In a world where things seem to change overnight, melanin seems to stay essentially the same for more than 160 million years, a new study has found. Melanin is the biological pigment that determines an animal's color, and is currently not very well understood. In the new study, scientists have found that a type of melanin called eumelanin from a Jurassic-era mollusk produces a signature when optically excited that is nearly identical to that of the optically excited eumelanin from its modern counterpart, Sepia officinalis, or the common cuttlefish. Because melanin survives so long, an analysis of the melanin from old cancerous tissue samples could give researchers a useful tool for predicting the spread of melanoma skin cancer in humans. http://phys.org/news289479872.html Chemistry - Biochemistry Mon, 03 Jun 2013 12:30:01 EST news289479872 (Phys.org) —A rare tree found in Malaysia and Borneo holds the secret to greener chemical production, according to researchers from the Research School of Chemistry. http://phys.org/news289470821.html Chemistry - Biochemistry Mon, 03 Jun 2013 09:33:54 EST news289470821 For the first time, researchers have found a particular kind of molecular switch in the food poisoning bacteria Salmonella Typhimurium under infection-like conditions. This switch, using a process called S-thiolation, appears to be used by the bacteria to respond to changes in the environment during infection and might protect it from harm, researchers report this week online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Early Edition. http://phys.org/news288873589.html Chemistry - Biochemistry Mon, 27 May 2013 15:00:04 EST news288873589 (Phys.org) —Using only biomolecules (such as DNA and enzymes), scientists at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology have developed and constructed an advanced biological transducer, a computing machine capable of manipulating genetic codes, and using the output as new input for subsequent computations. The breakthrough might someday create new possibilities in biotechnology, including individual gene therapy and cloning. The findings appear today (May 23, 2013) in Chemistry & Biology (Cell Press). http://phys.org/news288602987.html Chemistry - Biochemistry Fri, 24 May 2013 08:29:55 EST news288602987 (Phys.org) —In humans, a polymer called melanin determines skin, eye and hair color—the darker the skin, the more melanin in a person's body. For insects, melanin is a major aspect of their immune defense systems—their blood darkens in response to pathogens. http://phys.org/news288600513.html Chemistry - Biochemistry Fri, 24 May 2013 07:48:41 EST news288600513 Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have devised a powerful new technique for finding antibodies that have a desired biological effect. Antibodies, which can bind to billions of distinct targets, are already used in many of the world's best-selling medicines, diagnostics and laboratory reagents. The newly reported technique should greatly speed the process of discovering such products. http://phys.org/news288529101.html Chemistry - Biochemistry Thu, 23 May 2013 12:00:01 EST news288529101 (Phys.org) —In an age when microbial pathogens are growing increasingly resistant to the conventional antibiotics used to tamp down infection, a team of Wisconsin scientists has synthesized a potent new class of compounds capable of curbing the bacteria that cause staph infections. http://phys.org/news288516452.html Chemistry - Biochemistry Thu, 23 May 2013 09:20:03 EST news288516452 (Phys.org) —Adventitious changes in cellular DNA can endanger the whole organism, as they may lead to life-threatening illnesses like cancer. Researchers at LMU now report how byproducts of respiration cause mispairing of subunits in the double helix. http://phys.org/news288432920.html Chemistry - Biochemistry Wed, 22 May 2013 09:15:30 EST news288432920 A new study of both computer-created and natural proteins suggests that the number of unique pockets – sites where small molecule pharmaceutical compounds can bind to proteins – is surprisingly small, meaning drug side effects may be impossible to avoid. The study also found that the fundamental biochemical processes needed for life could have been enabled by the simple physics of protein folding. http://phys.org/news288270799.html Chemistry - Biochemistry Mon, 20 May 2013 15:00:20 EST news288270799 A new study shows how complex biochemical transformations may have been possible under conditions that existed when life began on the early Earth. The study shows that RNA is capable of catalyzing electron transfer under conditions similar to those of the early Earth. Because electron transfer, the moving of an electron from one chemical species to another, is involved in many biological processes – including photosynthesis, respiration and the reduction of RNA to DNA – the study's findings suggest that complex biochemical transformations may have been possible when life began. http://phys.org/news288172502.html Chemistry - Biochemistry Sun, 19 May 2013 13:00:01 EST news288172502 In the race to protect society from infectious microbes, the bugs are outrunning us. The need for new therapeutic agents is acute, given the emergence of novel pathogens as well as old foes bearing heightened antibiotic resistance. http://phys.org/news288029054.html Chemistry - Biochemistry Fri, 17 May 2013 17:04:38 EST news288029054 For 37 years, Queen's University Biochemistry professor Peter Davies has been unraveling the mystery of why some organisms including insects and fish don't freeze in the winter. His research into insect antifreeze protein (AFP) has shed new light in several areas, including a new paper on longhorn beetles native to Siberia. http://phys.org/news287731672.html Chemistry - Biochemistry Tue, 14 May 2013 06:28:13 EST news287731672 (Phys.org) —3D structures of biological molecules like proteins directly affect the way they behave in our bodies. EPFL scientists have developed a new infrared-UV laser method to more accurately determine the structure of proteins containing thousands of atoms. http://phys.org/news287642915.html Chemistry - Biochemistry Mon, 13 May 2013 05:50:07 EST news287642915 Experiments at Johns Hopkins have unearthed clues about which protein signaling molecules are allowed into hollow, hair-like "antennae," called cilia, that alert cells to critical changes in their environments. http://phys.org/news287575226.html Chemistry - Biochemistry Sun, 12 May 2013 13:00:22 EST news287575226 (Phys.org) —Researchers have made a significant first step with newly engineered biomaterials for cell transplantation that could help lead to a possible cure for Type 1 diabetes, which affects about 3 million Americans. http://phys.org/news287298719.html Chemistry - Biochemistry Thu, 09 May 2013 06:12:08 EST news287298719 Professor of Biochemistry Emad Tajkhorshid and colleagues have discovered that membrane transporters help not just sugars and other specific substrates cross from one side of a cellular membrane to the other—water also comes along for the ride. http://phys.org/news286725586.html Chemistry - Biochemistry Thu, 02 May 2013 15:00:09 EST news286725586 (Phys.org) —While the natural world is replete with compounds that form the basis of many disease-fighting pharmaceuticals, it is also the case that humans and other mammals produce their own host-defense peptide-derived broad-spectrum antibiotics to combat bacterial and fungal infections. By attacking microbial cell membranes, these peptides prevent bacteria from developing rapid antibiotic resistance. While over 1,700 of these peptides are known, the structural and mechanical aspects of their functional activity have remained an unanswered question. Recently, however, scientists at Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology, The University of Edinburgh, and other instiutions1 determined the X-ray crystal structure as well as solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, electrophysiology, and molecular dynamic (MD) simulations of human dermcidin (DCD), revealing its mechanism at atomic scale. The researchers conclude that their results may lead to the peptide structure-based design of second-generation antibiotics. http://phys.org/news286537497.html Chemistry - Biochemistry Tue, 30 Apr 2013 10:45:17 EST news286537497 (Phys.org) —There's hope for patients with myotonic dystrophy. A new small molecule developed by researchers at the University of Illinois has been shown to break up the protein-RNA clusters that cause the disease in living human cells, an important first step toward developing a pharmaceutical treatment for the as-yet untreatable disease. http://phys.org/news286519256.html Chemistry - Biochemistry Tue, 30 Apr 2013 05:41:04 EST news286519256 (Phys.org) —A combined team of researchers from the U.S. and Slovenia has succeeded in creating "origami" type proteins that assemble themselves into three dimensional shapes. As a proof of concept, the team created, as they describe in their paper published in the journal Nature Chemical Biology, a protein with coils that self-formed a true three dimensional tetrahedron. http://phys.org/news286447157.html Chemistry - Biochemistry Mon, 29 Apr 2013 09:39:28 EST news286447157 (Phys.org) —Changes in the bases that make up DNA act as markers, telling a cell which genes it should read and which it shouldn't. In the journal Angewandte Chemie, a British team has now introduced a new method that makes it possible to enrich the rare gene segments that contain the modified base hydroxymethylcytosine and to identify individual hydroxymethylcytosine molecules in DNA. Such modifications are associated with autoimmune diseases and cancer. http://phys.org/news286093716.html Chemistry - Biochemistry Thu, 25 Apr 2013 07:28:43 EST news286093716