News tagged with damaged proteins

Do bacteria age? Biologists discover the answer follows simple economics

When a bacterial cell divides into two daughter cells and those two cells divide into four more daughters, then 8, then 16 and so on, the result, biologists have long assumed, is an eternally youthful population of bacteria. ...

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Oct 27, 2011 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (30) | comments 15 | with audio podcast

Key protein aids in DNA repair

Scientists have shown in multiple contexts that DNA damage over our lifetimes is a key mechanism behind the development of cancer and other age-related diseases. Not everyone gets these diseases, because the body has multiple ...

Chemistry / Biochemistry

created Apr 11, 2010 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (20) | comments 2 | with audio podcast

Scientists show TAp63 suppresses cancer metastasis

Long overshadowed by p53, its famous tumor-suppressing sibling, the p63 gene does the tougher, important job of stifling the spread of cancer to other organs, researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center ...

Medicine & Health / Cancer

created Oct 20, 2010 | popularity 5 / 5 (4) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Mapping of protein inhibitors facilitates development of tailor-made anticancer agents

(PhysOrg.com) -- A team of researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden has generated a map over the effects of small drug-like molecules on PARP1 and other similar proteins in the body. This map may explain the mechanism ...

Biology / Biotechnology

created Feb 20, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Chromosome 'glue' surprises scientists

Proteins called cohesins ensure that newly copied chromosomes bind together, separate correctly during cell division, and are repaired efficiently after DNA damage. Scientists at the Carnegie Institution have found for the ...

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created May 06, 2010 | popularity 5 / 5 (7) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Loss of Tumor-Suppressor and DNA-Maintenance Proteins Causes Tissue Demise, Study Finds

(PhysOrg.com) -- A study published in the October issue of Nature Genetics demonstrates that loss of the tumor-suppressor protein p53, coupled with elimination of the DNA-maintenance protein ATR, severely disrup ...

Medicine & Health / Cancer

created Oct 15, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Scientists identify novel approach to view inner workings of viruses

Since the discovery of the microscope, scientists have tried to visualize smaller and smaller structures to provide insights into the inner workings of human cells, bacteria and viruses. Now, researchers at the National Institute ...

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Jan 12, 2012 | popularity 4 / 5 (5) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

A chaperone for the 'guardian of the genome'

The protein p53 plays an essential role in the prevention of cancer by initiating the controlled death of a cell with damaged genes which is in danger to transform into a cancerous cell. The heat shock protein Hsp90, in turn, ...

Biology / Biotechnology

created Sep 07, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Mystery solved: Tiny protein-activator responsible for brain cell damage in Huntington disease

Johns Hopkins brain scientists have figured out why a faulty protein accumulates in cells everywhere in the bodies of people with Huntington's disease (HD), but only kills cells in the part of the brain that controls movement, ...

Medicine & Health / Medical research

created Jun 04, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (10) | comments 0

An Alzheimer's vaccine in a nasal spray

One in eight Americans will fall prey to Alzheimer's disease at some point in their life, current statistics say. Because Alzheimer's is associated with vascular damage in the brain, many of them will succumb through a painful ...

Medicine & Health / Medical research

created Feb 28, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (10) | comments 3 | with audio podcast

Protein and microRNA block cellular transition vital to metastasis

Like a bounty hunter returning escapees to custody, a cancer-fighting gene converts organ cells that change into highly mobile stem cells back to their original, stationary state, researchers report online at Nature Cell Bi ...

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Feb 25, 2011 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (4) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Study identifies a key molecular switch for telomere extension by telomerase

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine describe for the first time a key target of DNA damage checkpoint enzymes that must be chemically modified to enable stable maintenance of chromosome ...

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Nov 23, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (5) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

How old yeast cells send off their daughter cells without the baggage of old age

The accumulation of damaged protein is a hallmark of aging that not even the humble baker's yeast can escape. Yet, aged yeast cells spawn off youthful daughter cells without any of the telltale protein clumps. ...

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Nov 23, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Chaperone enzyme provides new target for cancer treatments

UNC scientists who study how cells repair damage from environmental factors like sunlight and cigarette smoke have discovered how a "chaperone" enzyme plays a key role in cells' ability to tolerate the DNA damage that leads ...

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Jan 18, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Researchers pinpoint how one cancer gene functions

For several decades, researchers have been linking genetic mutations to diseases ranging from cancer to developmental abnormalities. What hasn't been clear, however, is how the body's genome sustains such destructive glitches ...

Medicine & Health / Genetics

created Feb 02, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0 | with audio podcast