A team led by scientists at the UNC School of Medicine identified a molecule called microRNA-29 as a powerful controller of brain maturation in mammals. Deleting microRNA-29 in mice caused problems very similar to those seen in autism, epilepsy, and other neurodevelopmental conditions. The results, published in Cell Reports, illuminate an important process in the […]
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Immortalized blood cell lines enable new studies of malaria invasion: Using artificial blood to help find ways to cure malaria
Researchers at the University of Bristol and Imperial College London have established a new model system that uses red blood cells grown in the laboratory to study how malaria parasites invade red blood cells. The work, which was funded by the National Institute for Health Research and NHS Blood and Transplant and is published in […]
Labeling proteins with ubiquitin paves new road to cell regulation research
Human cells have a sophisticated regulatory system at their disposal: labeling proteins with the small molecule ubiquitin. In a first, a team from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has succeeded in marking proteins with ubiquitin in a targeted manner, in test tubes as well as in living cells. The procedure opens the door to […]
A new way to transfer energy between cells
Researchers from the Catalonian Institute of Bioengineering (Instituto de Bioingeniería de Cataluña) and the Seville Chemical Research Institute (Instituto de Investigaciones Químicas de Sevilla) have described a new method for the transmission of electrons between proteins that refutes the evidence from experiments until now. This process, involved in the generation of energy in both animal […]
Discovery casts doubt on cell surface organization models
Like planets, the body’s cell surfaces look smooth from a distance but hilly closer up. An article published in Communications Biology describes implications, unknown to date, of the way data from cell surfaces are normally interpreted; i.e. as if they lacked topographic features. When Earth is studied from space, its surface looks smooth, but on […]
New RNA sequencing strategy provides insight into microbiomes: Tools allow scientists to understand the activity of naturally occurring microbiomes in response to real-world conditions and diet
Researchers from the University of Chicago have developed a high-throughput RNA sequencing strategy to study the activity of the gut microbiome. The new tools analyze transfer RNA (tRNA), a molecular Rosetta Stone that translates the genetic information encoded in DNA into proteins that perform basic biological functions. Developing a clear picture of tRNA dynamics will […]
A Trojan horse delivery method for miRNA-enriched extracellular vesicles
A method for large-scale production of extracellular vesicles enriched with specific microRNAs (miRNAs) has been developed in the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM) labs, offering a manufacturing standardization process which may have therapeutic applications and clinical impact. Extracellular vesicles are currently of particular interest in the scientific community for their therapeutic potential as […]
New insights into DNA phase separation
“Each human cell contains approximately 2 meters of DNA, yet that are too small to be visible to the unaided eye. Amazingly, all of that DNA is tightly packaged into a teeny little nucleus. There, we were able to observe the most basic separation principle of oil and water phases.” A new study by Professor […]
Chronic diseases driven by metabolic dysfunction: New model suggests natural healing cycle becomes blocked by cellular miscommunication, allowing conditions like cancer, diabetes and some neurological disorders to persist; a small but dramatic autism trial offers evidence
Much of modern Western medicine is based upon the treatment of acute, immediate harm, from physical injury to infections, from broken bones and the common cold to heart and asthma attacks. But progress in treating chronic illness, where the cause of the problem is often unknown — and, in fact, may no longer even be […]
A novel synthetic antibody enables conditional ‘protein knockdown’ in vertebrates
Research groups led by Dr. Jörg Mansfeld of the Biotechnology Center of the TU Dresden (BIOTEC) and Dr. Caren Norden of the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics (MPI-CBG) have developed a novel synthetic antibody that paves the way for an improved functional analysis of proteins. They combined auxin-inducible “protein knockdown” with […]