News tagged with cell metabolism
Molecular spectroscopy tracks living mammalian cells in real time as they differentiate
Knowing how a living cell works means knowing how the chemistry inside the cell changes as the functions of the cell change. Protein phosphorylation, for example, controls everything from cell proliferation ...
Chemistry / Analytical Chemistry
Apr 30, 2012 |
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Unique adaptations to a symbiotic lifestyle reveal novel targets for aphid insecticides
Aphids are pests that cause millions of pounds of damage to crops in the UK, but new research led by biologists at the University of York reveals potential new targets for aphid-specific insecticides.
Apr 18, 2012 |
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Study dusts sugar coating off little-known regulation in cells
In Alzheimer's disease, brain neurons become clogged with tangled proteins. Scientists suspect these tangles arise partly due to malfunctions in a little-known regulatory system within cells. Now, researchers have dramatically ...
Apr 16, 2012 |
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Using game theory to understand the physics of cancer propagation
In search of a different perspective on the physics of cancer, Princeton University and University of California, San Francisco researchers teamed up to use game theory to look for simplicity within the complexity of the ...
Mar 27, 2012 |
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Powerful systems biology
An international team of researchers headed by ETH-Zurich scientists has demonstrated for the first time how to extract testable hypotheses from a vast amount of different measurement data for cells that are ...
Mar 27, 2012 |
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Cyborg snail produces electricity
(PhysOrg.com) -- First it was grapes, then cockroaches, and now snails have become the latest organism to generate electricity through an implanted biofuel cell. The process works similarly in all three situations: ...
Mar 15, 2012 |
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Insulin, nutrition prevent blood stem cell differentiation in fruit flies
UCLA stem cell researchers have shown that insulin and nutrition keep blood stem cells from differentiating into mature blood cells in Drosophila, the common fruit fly, a finding that has implications for studying inflammatory ...
Mar 12, 2012 |
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Without second wave of brown fat, young mice can't live without mama
For all those who have wondered where they'd be without their mothers, a study reported in the February Cell Metabolism puts a whole new spin on the question. Mice whose mothers pass along a mutant copy of a single imprin ...
Feb 07, 2012 |
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Metabolic errors can spell doom for DNA
Many critical cell functions depend on a class of molecules called purines, which form half of the building blocks of DNA and RNA, and are a major component of the chemicals that store a cell’s energy. ...
Jan 31, 2012 |
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Examining evolution from a cellular perspective
The evolutionary processes of unicellular and multicellular organisms are continually under debate. John Torday, Ph.D., a lead investigator at Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute (LA BioMed), has recently co-authored ...
Jan 25, 2012 |
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New test spots early signs of mucopolysaccharidoses -- inherited metabolic disorders
A team of scientists, led by researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and Zacharon Pharmaceuticals, have developed a simple, reliable test for identifying biomarkers for mucopolysaccharidoses ...
Jan 08, 2012 |
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How work tells muscles to grow
We take it for granted, but the fact that our muscles grow when we work them makes them rather unique. Now, researchers have identified a key ingredient needed for that bulking up to take place. A factor produced in working ...
Jan 03, 2012 |
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Aging-related degeneration caused by defects of energy metabolism in tissue stem cells?
Aging-related tissue degeneration can be caused by mitochondrial dysfunction in tissue stem cells. The research group of Professor Anu Suomalainen Wartiovaara in Helsinki University, with their collaborators in Max Planck ...
Jan 03, 2012 |
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Researchers use light to measure cancer cells' response to treatment
Many cancer therapies target specific proteins that proliferate on the outside of some cancer cells, but the therapies are imperfect and the cancer does not always respond. Since it is beneficial for doctors to know as soon ...
Dec 20, 2011 |
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Decades-old conclusion about energy-making pathway of cyanobacteria is corrected
A generally accepted 44-year-old assumption about how certain kinds of bacteria make energy and synthesize cell materials has been shown to be incorrect by a team of scientists led by Donald Bryant, the Ernest ...
Dec 15, 2011 |
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Metabolism
Metabolism is the set of chemical reactions that occur in living organisms to maintain life. These processes allow organisms to grow and reproduce, maintain their structures, and respond to their environments. Metabolism is usually divided into two categories. Catabolism breaks down organic matter, for example to harvest energy in cellular respiration. Anabolism, on the other hand, uses energy to construct components of cells such as proteins and nucleic acids.
The chemical reactions of metabolism are organized into metabolic pathways, in which one chemical is transformed into another by a sequence of enzymes. Enzymes are crucial to metabolism because they allow organisms to drive desirable but thermodynamically unfavorable reactions by coupling them to favorable ones, and because they act as catalysts to allow these reactions to proceed quickly and efficiently. Enzymes also allow the regulation of metabolic pathways in response to changes in the cell's environment or signals from other cells.
The metabolism of an organism determines which substances it will find nutritious and which it will find poisonous. For example, some prokaryotes use hydrogen sulfide as a nutrient, yet this gas is poisonous to animals. The speed of metabolism, the metabolic rate, also influences how much food an organism will require.
A striking feature of metabolism is the similarity of the basic metabolic pathways between even vastly different species. For example, the set of carboxylic acids that are best known as the intermediates in the citric acid cycle are present in all organisms, being found in species as diverse as the unicellular bacteria Escherichia coli and huge multicellular organisms like elephants. These striking similarities in metabolism are most likely the result of the high efficiency of these pathways, and of their early appearance in evolutionary history.
For more information about Metabolism, read the full article at
Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
