New mechanism clarifies how cells migrate

Similarly to cars, cells need a steering mechanism that guides them towards a certain target or direction. Scientists at the Center for Cognition and Sociality (Institute for Basic Science, IBS), and KAIST, led by Prof. HEO ...

Blame the 'chaperone'

A Jackson Laboratory research team led by Professor Patsy Nishina, Ph.D., has identified a mutation in a gene that's essential for correct protein-processing in cells. Defects in protein folding are associated with a variety ...

Cell mechanics research is making chemotherapy friendlier

Malignant tumor cells undergo mechanical deformation more easily than normal cells, allowing them to migrate throughout the body. The mechanical properties of prostate cancer cells treated with the most commonly used anti-cancer ...

Urge to merge: Understanding how cells fuse

Scientists have known for a decade that cells that fuse with others to perform their essential functions—such as muscle cells that join together to make fibers—form long projections that invade the territory of their ...

Hierarchical self-assembly of supramolecular muscle-like fibers

The macroscopic movement of our muscles is caused by the collective movement of "biomolecular motors". Scientists and engineers have long been trying to imitate this process. French scientists have now come a good way closer ...

Let's stretch... Scientists study myomesin protein

The proteins actin, myosin and titin are big players in the business of muscle contraction. Scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Hamburg, Germany, have now examined another muscle protein – ...

Protein 'comet tails' propel cell recycling process

Several well-known neurodegenerative diseases, such as Lou Gehrig's (ALS), Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, and Huntington's disease, all result in part from a defect in autophagy - one way a cell removes and recycles misfolded ...

Cells on the move

Cells on the move reach forward with lamellipodia and filopodia, cytoplasmic sheets and rods supported by branched networks or tight bundles of actin filaments. Cells without functional lamellipodia are still highly motile ...

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