Cell division is essential to life, but the mechanism by which emerging daughter cells organize and divvy up their genetic endowments is little understood. In a new study, researchers at the University of Illinois and Columbia University report on how a key motor protein orchestrates chromosome movements at a critical stage of cell division.

Neuroscientists at Johns Hopkins are a step closer to understanding pain sensitivity - specifically why it’s variable instead of constant - having identified a gene that regulates a heat-activated molecular sensor.

A team of Canadian researchers has completed a massive survey of the network of protein complexes that orchestrate the fundamental processes of life. In the online edition of the journal Science, researchers from the Université de Montréal describe protein complexes and networks of complexes never before observed – including two implicated in the normal mechanisms by which cells divide and proliferate and another that controls recycling of the molecular building blocks of life called autophagy.

Researchers at the University of New Hampshire Glycomics Center have helped identify a specific carbohydrate structure that confers anti-inflammatory activity to a glycoprotein antibody that could lead to improved treatment of autoimmune diseases like lupus or rheumatoid arthritis. The study, reported in a recent edition of the journal Science, was led by immunologist Jeffrey Ravetch of Rockefeller University.

RNA is best known as a working copy of the DNA sequence of genes. In this role, it’s a carrier of the genes’ instructions to the cell, which manufactures proteins according to information in the RNA molecule.

By inducing a specific gene to increase expression of a key enzyme, vitamin D protects healthy prostate cells from the damage and injuries that can lead to cancer, University of Rochester Medical Center researchers report.

Fruit flies are dramatically different from humans not in their number of genes, but in the number of protein interactions in their bodies, according to scientists who have developed a new way of estimating the total number of interactions between proteins in any organism.

X-ray spectroscopy shows that a protein acetate group (molecule at center) prefers binding with sodium (blue curve) over potassium (red curve); the green sphere represents a cation, with surrounding water molecules in white. Credit: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, figure by Janel Uejio In the late 19th century the Czech scientist Franz Hofmeister observed that some salts (ionic compounds) aided the solution of proteins in egg white, some caused the proteins to destabilize and precipitate, and others ranged in activity between these poles.

The COMT gene – known already for its role in schizophrenia – has been found to play a role in preeclampsia, according to a report in today’s advance on-line issue of Nature.

At first, fruit flies eat like horses. Hatching inside over-ripe fruit where they were laid, they feed wildly in the sugar-rich environment until nature sends them an offer they can’t refuse. To survive, they must leave the fruit, wander off and burrow into the earth where they avoid food as if it were poison. Only then can the larvae grow and hatch into flies that will take wing to lay their own eggs.

This meta-analysis, published in the latest issue of Nature Genetics, is based on data from more than 26,000 study participants. It verifies two already known genes, but also discovered ten new genes. Altogether they explain a difference in body size of about 3.5 centimeters.

Researchers at the OU Cancer Institute have identified a new gene that causes cancer. The ground-breaking research appears in Nature’s cancer journal Oncogene.

EVANSTON, Ill. --- Real or perceived threats can trigger the well-known “fight or flight response” in humans and other animals. Adrenaline flows, and the stressed individual’s heart pumps faster, the muscles work harder, the brain sharpens and non-essential systems shut down. The whole organism responds in concert in order to survive.

Now that the genome (DNA) of humans and many other organisms have been sequenced, biologists are turning their attention to discovering how the many thousands of structural and control genes -- the “worker bees” of living cells that can turn genes on and off -- function.

Retinas in newborn mice appear perfectly fine without any help from tiny bits of genetic material called microRNAs except for one thing — the retinas do not work.

Prions, the infamous agents behind mad cow disease and its human variation, Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, also have a helpful side. According to new findings from Gerald Zamponi and colleagues, normally functioning prions prevent neurons from working themselves to death. The findings appear in the May 5th issue of the Journal of Cell Biology.

Whole-organ maps that superimpose genetic information over the terrain of cancerous bladders chart the molecular journey from normal cell to invasive cancer, an international research team led by scientists at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center reports online at the journal Laboratory Investigation, a member of the Nature Publishing Group.

A process of self-digestion called autophagy prompts the maturation of red blood cells. Without a protein called Nix, the cells would not effectively rid themselves of organelles called mitochondria and consequently become short-lived, leading to anemia, said researchers at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston in a report that appears online today in the journal Nature.

Although the human genome has been sequenced, research into mechanism of action of genes has been hampered by the fact that most human genes have not been isolated. This is true for even the most common class of cancer-associated genes, the protein kinases, which mediate the majority of signaling events in cells by phosphorylating and modulating the activity of other proteins. It has been estimated by systematic gene sequencing efforts that up to a quarter of kinases may play a role in human cancers.

Tumor cells living in the cross hairs of radiation or chemotherapy may be able to escape death because their self-destruct mechanisms are jammed, say University of Florida scientists writing in a recent issue of Developmental Cell.

Scientists at The Australian National University are a step closer to understanding the rare Hartnup disorder after discovering a surprising link between blood pressure regulation and nutrition that could also help to shed light on intestinal and kidney function.

Botulinum neurotoxin – responsible for the deadly food poisoning disease botulism and for the beneficial effects of smoothing out facial wrinkles – can also be used as a dreaded biological weapon. When ingested or inhaled, less than a billionth of an ounce can cause muscle paralysis and eventual death. Although experimental vaccines administered prior to exposure can inhibit the destructive action of this neurotoxin – the most deadly protein known to humans – no effective pharmacological treatment exists.

CSIRO Entomology business manager, Cameron Begley, said researchers believed the discovery opened up an entirely new class of chemistry.

Brain-imaging studies performed in animals at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory provide researchers with clues about why an increasingly popular recreational drug that causes hallucinations and motor-function impairment in humans is abused. Using trace amounts of Salvia divinorum – also known as “salvia,” a Mexican mint plant that can be smoked in the form of dried leaves or serum – Brookhaven scientists found that the drug’s behavior in the brains of primates mimics the extremely fast and brief “high” observed in humans. Their results are now published online in the journal NeuroImage.

A new technique that marries a fast-moving laser beam with a special microscope that look at tissues in different optical planes will enable scientists to get a three-dimensional view of neurons or nerve cells as they interact, said Baylor College of Medicine scientists in a report that appears today in the journal Nature Neuroscience.

Enzymes regulating genetic expression can be just as important as the genome itself, increasing evidence shows. The expanding field of epigenetics focuses on the multiple influences on DNA and surrounding molecules that determine whether genes are turned on or off during development and disease processes.

In response to energy stress, AMPK, which acts like a gas gauge by sensing how much energy a cell has, puts a damper on cell proliferation. It muffles a cellular protein called raptor (shown in green), which keeps starving cells from dividing. Nuclei are shown in blue and actin, which forms an integral part of the cellular architecture, is shown in red. Credit: Image: Courtesy of Dr. Reuben Shaw, Salk Institute for Biological Studies A team of scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies think they know how many—if not most—living organisms answer this question. They recently showed that when food supplies dwindle, mammals, fruitflies, or frogs probably activate the same ancient cell signaling pathway in order to conserve energy.

By restoring two small molecules that are often lost in chronic leukemia, researchers were able to block tumor growth in an animal model.

Just as fire engines arrive quickly at the scene to save people and property, the cells that fight viruses have to reach the site of an infection promptly to mount a protective response.

When the eye tracks a bird’s flight across the sky, the visual experience is normally smooth, without interruption. But underlying this behavior is a complex coordination of neurons that has remained mysterious to scientists. Now, UCSF researchers have broken ground in understanding how the brain generates this tracking motion, a finding that offers a window, they say, into how neurons orchestrate all of the body’s movements.