Tag: proteins
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Nation & World
Protein packages activate genes
It’s all in the packaging. How nature wraps and tags genes determines if and when they become active, according to researchers from Harvard and M.I.T. They did the largest, most…
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Nation & World
Functional protein changes caught and quantified
Just knowing that a protein is expressed in a cell does not reveal what it is up to; increasingly, the chemical modifications it undergoes are the key to understanding its…
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Nation & World
Disparate proteins structurally identical
Gerhard Wagner, the Elkan Blout professor of biological chemistry and molecular pharmacology, and Tucker Collins, the S. Burt Wolbach professor of pathology at Harvard Medical School and Children’s Hospital, made…
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Nation & World
Protein in urine may warn of preeclampsia risk in pregnant women
Preeclampsia, or toxemia, develops during pregnancy. In severe cases, it can rapidly escalate to eclampsia, a condition in which the mother suffers a series of potentially fatal complications. Ananth Karumanchi,…
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Nation & World
DNA splicing enzyme observed in action
Researchers in the lab of Tom Ellenberger, the Hsien Wu and Daisy Yen Wu professor of biological chemistry and molecular pharmacology at Harvard Medical School, reported the doughnut shape of…
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Nation & World
Protein reverses engineering of chromosome structure
An enzyme, a histone demethylase, removes methyl groups appended to histones, nuclear proteins that organize DNA and regulate gene activity. Methyl groups and other chemical tags on histones regulate how…
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Nation & World
C-reactive protein, high blood pressure linked
Researchers from Harvard Medical School and Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital found a strong link between levels of C-reactive protein in the blood and the future development of high blood…
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Nation & World
Enzyme responsible for protein’s ‘Jekyll-and-Hyde’ personality
Normally, a protein regulates when and how body parts develop, but when mutated, it triggers a rare, often-lethal infant leukemia called mixed lineage leukemia. The newly identified protease enzyme, Taspase1,…
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Nation & World
Researchers make new compounds from protein
Over the years, scientists have repeatedly sought to use a cell’s protein-making process to create new drugs and other compounds. They have had some dramatic successes, such as inducing bacteria…
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Nation & World
Death and survival proteins work together
At a cellular level, life-sustaining activities such as glucose metabolism were thought to be carried out by entirely different proteins from those involved in apoptosis, or cell death. “People in…
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Nation & World
Eating less and living longer
Tantalizing evidence exists that cutting calories by 20 percent helps monkeys, who are close relatives, to live longer, healthier lives. And, in one nonscientific program, adults are reducing their caloric…
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Nation & World
CRP shown to predict heart disease among patients with metabolic syndrome
It is estimated that over 50 million people in the United States have at least three of the five medical problems that result in a diagnosis of metabolic syndrome. In…
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Nation & World
Enzyme pair joins fight against drug-resistant bacteria
Scientists have been striving to develop antibiotics against drug-resistant bacterial strains. Most attempts have been plagued by a lack of molecular tools for manipulating — and ultimately improving — the…
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Nation & World
Enzyme linked to pathology of Parkinson’s disease appears two-faced
A finding by Harvard Medical School researchers adds a new wrinkle to the story of Parkinson’s disease and insight into how failure to dispose of proteins can wreak havoc on…
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Nation & World
Protector protein part of nerve cell defense
Heat shock proteins are known to protect all cell types from various general assaults. They were originally discovered when cultured cells that were heated expressed the proteins at high levels…
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Nation & World
Protein seen to animate cell skeleton
The cytoskeleton is made up of arrays of actin filaments that are arranged into widely different structures — parallel arrays that mediate muscle contraction, networks of branched filaments at the…
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Nation & World
Medical student engineers protein to dissolve blood clots
Heart attacks and strokes are caused by blood clots called thrombi that block blood flow in the arteries of the heart and of the brain. Body tissues become deprived of…
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Nation & World
Researchers identify protein linked to tumor invasion
Metastasis occurs when cancer cells penetrate the boundaries of the tumor’s tissue and infiltrate the walls of blood vessels or lymph vessels, gaining a means of transport to other parts…
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Nation & World
Death protein may cause neural tube defects in babies of diabetic mothers
A research report provides a possible explanation for a class of birth defects that appears to be on the rise. A protein normally involved in programmed cell death may, as…
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Nation & World
Cell surface proteins can have pro- and anti-angiogenic face
Angiogenesis is the process by which cancer tumors develop a network of blood vessels to feed them, so that they may continue their growth. The strategy that cancer cells use…
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Nation & World
Lack of protein ApoE in brain may raise Alzheimer’s risk
Brain cells are protected from possible contamination by substances in circulating blood by what is known as “the blood-brain barrier.” Researchers have many questions about precisely how this protective mechanism…
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Nation & World
Researchers explain how protein inhibits growth of blood vessels
Thirty years ago, Judah Folkman, of Children’s Hospital Boston and Harvard Medical School, first developed the idea that cancerous tumors are dependent on the growth of small blood vessels. Since…
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Nation & World
Cell protein potently blocks enzyme linked to cancer
The ends of chromosomes in normal cells eventually unravel, causing the cells to die. This does not happen in cancer cells, however. Cancer cells use an enzyme named telomerase to…
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Nation & World
Cancer cells’ immortality may depend on longevity protein
A team of Harvard Medical School researchers has identified a protein that 10 percent of tumor cells use to attain an immortal state. By blocking the molecule, it may be…
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Nation & World
Studies show new players and patterns in vertebrate heart development
Cell biologists have identified proteins capable of promoting heart development — at least in frogs and birds. They report that the proteins Dkk1 and Crescent, which inhibit regulatory proteins of…
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Nation & World
Protein may play double role in issuing genetic gag order
So cells can differentiate and maintain their specialized identities, large sections of unneeded genes must be turned off. During cell division, the stability of every chromosome depends upon sections of…
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Nation & World
Shadow proteins in thymus may explain how immune system gets to know its own body
Researchers recently identified a protein that appears to work by turning on in the thymus, which lies beneath the breast bone, the production of a wide array of proteins from…