The plasma membrane serves as a major hub for signal cascades to control crucial cellular processes. But it is a fluid medium, which makes the signaling processes difficult to monitor. Now, German scientists have designed ...
Biochemistry
Mar 30, 2017
0
28
Zinc is a vital micronutrient involved in many cellular processes: For example, in learning and memory processes, it plays a role that is not yet understood. By using nanoelectrochemical measurements, Swedish researchers ...
Biochemistry
Mar 21, 2017
0
228
A team of Hokkaido University researchers has discovered a hitherto-unknown mechanism that detains transposable elements or "mobile genes" - which can move and insert into new positions in plant genomes.
Cell & Microbiology
Mar 13, 2017
0
5
PERK is known to detect protein folding errors in the cell. Researchers at the Laboratory of Cell Death Research & Therapy at KU Leuven (University of Leuven, Belgium) have now revealed a hidden perk: the protein also coordinates ...
Cell & Microbiology
Feb 23, 2017
0
8
Every time a hormone is released from a cell, every time a neurotransmitter leaps across a synapse to relay a message from one neuron to another, the cell must undergo exocytosis. This is the process responsible for transporting ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jan 23, 2017
0
6
Mycobacteria cause a number of dangerous, difficult-to-treat diseases including leprosy and tuberculosis, and progress has been slow in eradicating them. But new strategies for combating these bacteria may eventually emerge ...
Cell & Microbiology
Apr 25, 2016
0
414
Cells are not uniform spheres; they generally come in a variety of disparate shapes. In the broadest sense, this variation in shapes is known as cell polarity, and it is an essential property for a variety of cell functions. ...
Cell & Microbiology
Feb 5, 2016
0
9
In biology, free radicals are often regarded as the source of all evil and the major cause of molecular damage and aging. However, free radicals are indispensable as signaling molecules governing important functions in the ...
Cell & Microbiology
Dec 1, 2015
0
5
Glycoproteins such as the mucins are assumed to be heavily involved in oncogenesis and metastasic spread. They are part of a strategy developed by malignant cells to resist or dodge the cell death machinery specialized for ...
Biochemistry
Nov 26, 2015
2
436
Cancer cells need life-essential molecules to proliferate. These so-called growth factors are activated by ectodomain shedding of precursor proteins on the outside of the plasma membrane, mainly carried out by three human ...
Biochemistry
Jul 10, 2015
0
16
