http://phys.org/biology-news/microbiology/ en-us PhysOrg Team Phys.Org provides the latest news on microbiology and cell biology. Guido David, associated with VIB and KU Leuven, and Pascale Zimmermann have discovered a new mechanism for the formation of exosomes, small vesicles with a role in tumor development. This research has been published in the authoritative journal Nature Cell Biology. http://phys.org/news258025484.html Biology - Cell & Microbiology 2012-06-04T10:44:49-07:00 The yeast Dekkera bruxellensis plays an important role in the production of wine, as it can have either a positive or a negative impact on the taste. Researchers at Lund University in Sweden, among others, have analyzed the yeast's genome sequenced by the US Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute, giving wine producers the possibility to take control of the flavour development of the wine. http://phys.org/news258025244.html Biology - Cell & Microbiology 2012-06-04T10:43:08-07:00 New microscope enabled scientists at EMBL Heidelberg to film a fruit fly embryo, in 3D, from when it was about two-and-a-half hours old until it walked away from the microscope as a larva. http://phys.org/news258024774.html Biology - Cell & Microbiology 2012-06-04T10:33:39-07:00 Scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, have for the first time uncovered the detailed structure of the shell that surrounds the genetic material of retroviruses, such as HIV, at a crucial and potentially vulnerable stage in their life cycle: when they are still being formed. The study, published online today in Nature, provides information on a part of the virus that may be a potential future drug target. http://phys.org/news258024717.html Biology - Cell & Microbiology 2012-06-04T10:32:13-07:00 (Phys.org) -- An international collaboration between scientists in University College Dublin and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) has revealed for the first time that 15% of the proteins encoded by the human genome contribute to the process of secretion in cells. This finding has been made possible through the assessment of more than 8 million individual cells. http://phys.org/news258018715.html Biology - Cell & Microbiology 2012-06-04T08:52:12-07:00 (Phys.org) -- Mammalian cells can now do what an electronic calculator can: perform logical calculations. Swiss researchers have equipped cells with a complex genetic network that can do more than just one plus one. http://phys.org/news258016213.html Biology - Cell & Microbiology 2012-06-04T08:10:26-07:00 (Medical Xpress) -- The transformation of a fertilized egg into a functioning animal requires thousands of cell divisions and intricate rearrangements of those cells. That process is captured with unprecedented speed and precision by a new imaging technology developed at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Janelia Farm Research Campus, which lets users track each cell in an embryo as it takes shape over hours or days. http://phys.org/news257959849.html Biology - Cell & Microbiology 2012-06-03T16:31:01-07:00 Silicon-based computers are fine for typing term papers and surfing the Web, but scientists want to make devices that can work on a far smaller scale, recording data within individual cells. One way to do that is to create a microscopic hard drive out of DNA, the molecule that already stores the genetic blueprints of all living things. http://phys.org/news257767224.html Biology - Cell & Microbiology 2012-06-01T11:02:15-07:00 In one of the most famous faux pas of exploration, Columbus set sail for India and instead 'discovered' America. Similarly, when scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, set out to find enzymes – the proteins that carry out chemical reactions inside cells – that bind to RNA, they too found more than they expected: 300 proteins previously unknown to bind to RNA – more than half as many as were already known to do so. The study, published online today in Cell, could help to explain the role of genes that have been linked to diseases like diabetes and glaucoma. http://phys.org/news257764967.html Biology - Cell & Microbiology 2012-06-01T10:23:13-07:00 Scientists have revealed a key cog in the biochemical machinery that allows marine algae at the base of the oceanic food chain to thrive. They have discovered a previously unknown protein in algae that grabs an essential but scarce nutrient out of seawater, vitamin B12. http://phys.org/news257703349.html Biology - Cell & Microbiology 2012-05-31T18:00:01-07:00 Howard Hughes Medical Institute scientists have determined the three-dimensional structure of two proteins that help keep the body's clocks in sync. The proteins, CLOCK and BMAL1, bind to each other to regulate the activity of thousands of genes whose expression fluctuates throughout the course of a day. Knowing the structure of the CLOCK:BMAL1 complex will help researchers understand the intricacies of how this regulation is carried out and how mutations in each protein lead the biological clock to go awry. http://phys.org/news257694800.html Biology - Cell & Microbiology 2012-05-31T14:57:05-07:00 During formation of multi-cellular organisms, cells need to talk to each other to make critical decisions as to what kind of cell to become, as well as when and where to become that cell type. The Notch signaling system allows cells to directly talk to each other to program almost every cell type in the body. http://phys.org/news257681828.html Biology - Cell & Microbiology 2012-05-31T12:00:09-07:00 An immune-system receptor plays an unexpected but crucially important role in keeping stem cells from differentiating and in helping blood cancer cells grow, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center report today in the journal Nature. http://phys.org/news257681275.html Biology - Cell & Microbiology 2012-05-31T11:09:17-07:00 Inspired by a 2009 colloquium on microbial evolution convened at the Galapagos Islands, a new book from ASM Press, Microbes and Evolution: The World That Darwin Never Saw celebrates Charles Darwin and his landmark publication On the Origin of Species. The editors compiled 40 first-person essays, written by microbiologists with a passion for evolutionary biology, to illuminate how each scientist's thinking and career paths in science were influenced by Darwin's seminal work. http://phys.org/news257616426.html Biology - Cell & Microbiology 2012-05-30T17:07:14-07:00 Men's offices have significantly more bacteria than women's, and the office bacterial communities of New York and San Francisco are indistinguishable, according to a study published May 30 in the open access journal PLoS ONE. http://phys.org/news257610041.html Biology - Cell & Microbiology 2012-05-30T17:00:12-07:00 Humans spend greater than 90 percent of their time indoors, but we're never alone there. Bacteria and viruses, scientists estimate, make up half of the world's biomass—some 10 nonillion (1 followed by 31 zeros) microorganisms—and we most often meet them within enclosed spaces. So, that's where the modern microbe hunter often looks first. A new report issued by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) offers guidance to make the hunting more effective. http://phys.org/news257587084.html Biology - Cell & Microbiology 2012-05-30T08:58:17-07:00 For 50 years scientists have been unsure how the bacteria that gives humans cholera manages to resist one of our basic innate immune responses. That mystery has now been solved, thanks to research from biologists at The University of Texas at Austin. http://phys.org/news257514275.html Biology - Cell & Microbiology 2012-05-29T12:44:48-07:00 Giant cells called "titan cells" protect the fungus Cryptococcus neoformans during infection, according to two University of Minnesota researchers. Kirsten Nielsen, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the department of microbiology, and recent Ph.D. recipient Laura Okagaki believe their discovery could help develop new ways to fight infections caused by Cryptococcus. http://phys.org/news257412154.html Biology - Cell & Microbiology 2012-05-28T08:26:18-07:00 In a study published in the journal Cell on May 24, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) scientists describe the three-dimensional atomic structure of a human protein bound to a piece of RNA that "guides" the protein's ability to silence genes. The protein, Argonaute-2, is a key player in RNA interference (RNAi), a powerful cellular phenomenon that has important roles in diverse biological processes, including an organism's development. http://phys.org/news257182123.html Biology - Cell & Microbiology 2012-05-25T16:33:05-07:00 Scientists from the Institute for Physical and Theoretical Chemistry at the University of Bonn have succeeded for the first time in the real time filming of the transport of an important information carrier in biological cells that is practically unmodified. This paper has now been published in the highly regarded journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. http://phys.org/news257162585.html Biology - Cell & Microbiology 2012-05-25T11:03:25-07:00 These spheres may look almost identical, but subtle differences between them revealed a molecular version of the robots from Transformers. Each sphere is a vesicle, a pod that cells use to transport materials between different compartments. http://phys.org/news257160112.html Biology - Cell & Microbiology 2012-05-25T10:52:29-07:00 Stem cells are essential building blocks for all organisms, from plants to humans. They can divide and renew themselves throughout life, differentiating into the specialized tissues needed during development, as well as cells necessary to repair adult tissue. http://phys.org/news257070734.html Biology - Cell & Microbiology 2012-05-24T09:32:26-07:00 (Phys.org) -- Scientists from Wageningen University have concluded that it is possible to develop plants that produce even more food by reducing the level of pigments which make no contribution to photosynthesis. The conclusion is based on research into the effectiveness of photosynthesis in various light conditions, which was carried out in cooperation with the VU University in Amsterdam. The scientists discovered that leaf pigments not directly involved in photosynthesis ‘dissipate’ light by absorption rather than using it effectively. Their findings were published in the scientific magazine Plant Cell. http://phys.org/news257070182.html Biology - Cell & Microbiology 2012-05-24T09:25:39-07:00 When researchers conduct experiments on the way cells grow and respond to outside cues, they tend to use solutions that are much more dilute than the crowded environments found inside living cells. Now, new research from MIT shows that this dilute environment may skew the results of such experiments. http://phys.org/news257059557.html Biology - Cell & Microbiology 2012-05-24T06:26:06-07:00 Swiss researchers provide evidence that a protein in the cell nucleus responds to environmental stimuli like a kind of sensor, regulates genes accordingly and thus exchanges information with the cell memory. And that’s not all: cancer drugs that are currently being tested inhibit precisely this protein – and, thanks to new findings, soon maybe even more specifically. http://phys.org/news256894605.html Biology - Cell & Microbiology 2012-05-22T09:00:05-07:00 E Pluribus Unum, the motto of the United States, could just as well apply to biofilm-forming bacteria. Bacterial biofilms are far more resistant than individual bacteria to the armories of antibiotics we have devised to combat them. Now Tim Holm Jakobsen and Michael Givskov of the University of Copenhagen, and their many collaborators have pinpointed a constituent of garlic that attacks a key step in the development of biofilms, in an effort they hope may offer help in particular for patients with cystic fibrosis. The research is published in the May 2012 issue of Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy. http://phys.org/news256889823.html Biology - Cell & Microbiology 2012-05-22T07:18:06-07:00 One of the most important structures in a cell is the nuclear pore complex — a tiny yet complicated channel through which information flows in and out of the cell’s nucleus, directing all other cell activity. http://phys.org/news256883870.html Biology - Cell & Microbiology 2012-05-22T05:39:04-07:00 Researchers have uncovered what makes one particular strain of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) so proficient at picking up resistance genes, such as the one that makes it resistant to vancomycin, the last line of defense for hospital-acquired infections. They report their findings in mBio, the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology, on Tuesday May 22. http://phys.org/news256877930.html Biology - Cell & Microbiology 2012-05-22T04:13:36-07:00 To become better healers, tissue engineering need a timely and reliable way to obtain enough raw materials: cells that either already are or can become the tissue they need to build. In a new study, Brown University biomedical engineers show that the stiffness, viscosity, and other mechanical properties of adult stem cells derived from fat, such as liposuction waste, can predict whether they will turn into bone, cartilage, or fat. http://phys.org/news256815007.html Biology - Cell & Microbiology 2012-05-21T15:01:24-07:00 Despite their ecologic similarity, soils from three geographically distinct areas of the American southwest harbor vastly different collections of small, biosynthetic genes, a finding that suggests the existence of a far greater diversity of potentially useful products than was previously supposed. The research is published in the May issue of Applied and Environmental Microbiology. http://phys.org/news256830320.html Biology - Cell & Microbiology 2012-05-21T14:46:06-07:00