Biosynthesis captured in motion

(Phys.org) —Chemists have caught molecules in the act of biosynthesis revealing an animated view of how a fundamental piece of cellular machinery operates. The system they observed, a critical metabolic pathway, generates ...

Fatty acids crucial to embryonic development

One classical question in developmental biology is how different tissue types arise in the correct position of the developing embryo. While one signaling pathway that controls this process has been well described, unexpected ...

Researchers make a case for free fatty acids

The current global epidemic of obesity-linked diabetes and its associated consequences -cardiovascular, neurological and renal diseases - is a growing public health problem for which therapeutic options are limited.

Typhoid Mary case may be cracked, a century later

When Typhoid Mary died in 1938, in medical exile on a tiny New York island, she took untold numbers of Salmonella typhi to her grave. No one knew how the bacteria managed to thrive and not kill her.

Reversible method of tagging proteins developed

Chemists at UC San Diego have developed a method that for the first time provides scientists the ability to attach chemical probes onto proteins and subsequently remove them in a repeatable cycle.

Studying fish to learn about fat

In mammals, most lipids (such as fatty acids and cholesterol) are absorbed into the body via the small intestine. The complexity of the cells and fluids that inhabit this organ make it very difficult to study in a laboratory ...

Mechanism for regulating plant oil production identified

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory have identified key elements in the biochemical mechanism plants use to limit the production of fatty acids. The results suggest ways scientists ...

page 4 from 5