News tagged with plasma membrane

How plants sense touch, gravity and other physical forces

(PhysOrg.com) -- At the bottom of plants' ability to sense touch, gravity or a nearby trellis are mechanosensitive channels, pores through the cells' plasma membrane that are opened and closed by the deformation ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Oct 21, 2011 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (15) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Study uncovers key mechanisms of cell communication

(PhysOrg.com) -- A unique bridging process may be behind a mystery of intracellular communication, according to new Cornell research published Feb. 4 in the journal Cell.

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Feb 07, 2011 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (9) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Researchers show how cells open 'doors' to release neurotransmitters

Like opening a door to exit a room, cells in the body open up their outer membranes to release such chemicals as neurotransmitters and other hormones.

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Oct 14, 2010 | popularity 5 / 5 (4) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Researchers unveil new method for detecting lung cancer

When lung cancer strikes, it often spreads silently into more advanced stages before being detected. In a new article published in Nature Nanotechnology, biological engineers and medical scientists at the ...

Nanotechnology / Bio & Medicine

created Sep 15, 2011 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (4) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Neuroscientists learn how channels fine-tune neuronal excitability

Scientists in the Hotchkiss Brain Institute at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Calgary, have discovered a new mechanism that nerve cells (neurons) use to fine-tune their electrical output. The exciting discovery, published ...

Medicine & Health / Neuroscience

created Jan 26, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

A second pathway for antidepressants: New fluorescent assay reveals TREK1 mechanism

(PhysOrg.com) -- Using a unique and relatively simple cell-based fluorescent assay they developed, scientists with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) ...

Medicine & Health / Medical research

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

Study finds new way deadly food-borne bacteria spread

University of Central Florida Microbiology Professor Keith Ireton has uncovered a previously unknown mechanism that plays an important role in the spread of a deadly food-borne bacterium.

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Sep 21, 2009 | popularity 3.3 / 5 (3) | comments 0

HIV tamed by designer 'leash'

Researchers have shown how an antiviral protein produced by the immune system, dubbed tetherin, tames HIV and other viruses by literally putting them on a leash, to prevent their escape from infected cells. The insights reported ...

Medicine & Health / HIV & AIDS

created Oct 29, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0

Retrovirus replication process different than thought

How a retrovirus, like HIV, reproduces and assembles new viruses is different than previously thought, according to Penn State College of Medicine researchers. Understanding the steps a virus takes for assembly could allow ...

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Jul 15, 2010 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Nanotechnology may lead to new treatment of liver cancer

(PhysOrg.com) -- Nanotechnology may open a new door on the treatment of liver cancer, according to a team of Penn State College of Medicine researchers. They used molecular-sized bubbles filled with chemotherapy drugs to ...

Nanotechnology / Bio & Medicine

created Feb 21, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Mechanism of sculpting the plasma membrane of intestinal cells identified

The research group of Professor Pekka Lappalainen at the Institute of Biotechnology, University of Helsinki, has identified a previously unknown mechanism which modifies the structure of plasma membranes in intestinal epithelial ...

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Aug 01, 2011 | popularity 3 / 5 (2) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Matrix protein key to fighting viruses

Researchers from Durham University's Centre for Bioactive Chemistry are developing methods that show how proteins interact with cell membranes when a virus strikes. Using their approach, the team hopes to ...

Chemistry / Biochemistry

created Apr 29, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

New view of HIV entry may lead to next generation of inhibitors

Scientists may need to rethink the design of drugs meant to block HIV from infecting human cells, according to a study that appears in the May 1st issue of the journal Cell, a Cell Press publication. That's because the ne ...

Medicine & Health / HIV & AIDS

created Apr 30, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 2

New research helps explain how connexin hemichannels are kept closed

Hemichannels are connexin channels that can dock with each other to create a gap junction across two plasma membranes. In the June 2009 issue of the Journal of General Physiology (JGP), Andrew Harris (University of Medicine a ...

Chemistry / Biochemistry

created May 26, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Researchers put proteins right where they want them

Using a method they developed to watch moment to moment as they move a molecule to precise sites inside live human cells, Johns Hopkins scientists are closer to understanding why and how a protein at one location may signal ...

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Apr 14, 2010 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Cell membrane

The cell membrane (also called the plasma membrane or plasmalemma) is the biological membrane separating the interior of a cell from the outside environment.

It is a semipermeable lipid bilayer found in all cells. It contains a wide variety of biological molecules, primarily proteins and lipids, which are involved in a vast array of cellular processes such as cell adhesion, ion channel conductance and cell signaling. The plasma membrane also serves as the attachment point for both the intracellular cytoskeleton and, if present, the extracellular cell wall.

For more information about Cell membrane, read the full article at Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.

Related topics: cells , protein