Related topics: protein

Fitting a right hand in a left-handed mitten

Many biomolecules come in two versions that are each other's mirror image, like a left and a right hand. Cells generally use the left-hand version of amino acids to produce proteins, and uptake mechanisms were thought to ...

Proteins barge in to turn off unneeded genes

(Phys.org)—The sorcerer's apprentice started a water-carrying system, but couldn't stop it, and soon he was up to his neck in water, and trouble. Living cells have a better design: When they activate a gene, they have a ...

Chemists discover how antiviral drugs bind to and block flu virus

Antiviral drugs block influenza A viruses from reproducing and spreading by attaching to a site within a proton channel necessary for the virus to infect healthy cells, according to a research project led by Iowa State University's ...

All tied up: Tethered protein provides long-sought answer

The tools of biochemistry have finally caught up with lactose repressor protein. Biologists from Rice University in Houston and the University of Florence in Italy this week published new results about "lac repressor," which ...

How plants bind their green pigment chlorophyll

Chlorophyll is the pigment used by all plants for photosynthesis. There are two versions, chlorophyll a and chlorophyll b. These are structurally very similar to one another but have different colors, blue-green and yellowish ...

Epigenetic 'switch' regulates RNA-protein interactions

Chemical changes - also known as epigenetic modifications - to messenger RNA (mRNA) are thought to play an important role in gene expression, and have recently been found to affect biological processes such as circadian clock ...

How do protein binding sites stay dry in water?

In a report to be published soon in EPJE¹, researchers from the National University of the South in Bahía Blanca, Argentina studied the condition for model cavity and tunnel structures resembling the binding sites ...

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