Protein scissors for cellular transport

In many ways, a cell is like a city. Proteins or people do daily work to keep the economy going, and items are imported and exported for trade. Imports are shipped into cells by way of endocytosis. Before reaching their final ...

Virulence factor of the influenza A virus mapped in real-time

The influenza A viruses, which are responsible for deadly pandemics in the past, still remain a major global public health problem today. Molecules known as virulence factors are produced by bacteria, viruses, and fungi to ...

Scientists open up new world for biologics—inside the cell

The vast majority of top-selling drugs are biologics—also known as proteins. Proteins are used today to treat many debilitating diseases, including arthritis, Crohn's disease, and several forms of cancer. They have helped ...

Probing the pores in membrane vesicles

Ion channels in the membrane vesicles that mediate intracellular protein transport play a crucial role in cell physiology. A method developed by an Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich team now allows them to be ...

Special delivery: Macromolecules via spider's 'bite'

Our cells are rich in proteins which are potential targets for therapy. But study of these proteins' behavior, using externally delivered biomacromolecules, has often been stymied by the difficulty of gaining access to the ...

New explanation for key step in anthrax infection proposed

A new hypothesis concerning a crucial step in the anthrax infection process has been advanced by scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious ...

Researchers discover mechanism for signaling receptor recycling

An international team of researchers led by Carnegie Mellon University's Manojkumar Puthenveedu has discovered the mechanism by which signaling receptors recycle, a critical piece in understanding signaling receptor function. ...

Researchers reveal mechanism for neuron self-preservation

Tsuruta et al. find that a lipid kinase directs a voltage-gated calcium channel's degradation to save neurons from a lethal dose of overexcitement. The study appears in the October 19, 2009 issue of the Journal of Cell Biology ...

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