Tag Archives: cellular

Technology breakthrough reveals cellular transcription process

The technology is known as the “FISH investigation protocol” (Fluorescent in situ hybridization) — it optimises current flow cytometry processes, resulting in a greater visibility of the transcription of RNA, a key step in the transmission of cellular information. …

Disease decoded: Gene mutation may lead to development of new cancer drugs

Scientists at the University of Michigan and the U-M Health System recently discovered a protein mutation that causes the devastating disease dyskeratosis congenita, in which precious hematopoietic stem cells can’t regenerate and make new blood. People with DC age prematurely and are prone to cancer and bone marrow failure. But the study findings reach far beyond the roughly one in 1 million known DC patients, and could ultimately lead to developing new drugs that prevent cancer from spreading, said Jayakrishnan Nandakumar, assistant professor in the U-M Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology. …

New biomarker highly promising for predicting breast cancer outcomes

Cancer is deadly in large part due to its ability to metastasize, to travel from one organ or tissue type to another and malignantly sprout anew. The vast majority of cancer deaths are associated with metastasis. In breast cancer, a process called “epithelial to mesenchymal transition” aids metastasis…

Zebrafish help decode link between calcium deficiency, colon cancer

By studying zebrafish embryo skin, University of Michigan researchers decoded cell messages underlying abnormal colonic cell growth of the kind that can lead to tumors and colon cancer in calcium deficient individuals. They have also tested this new mechanism in human colon cancer cells. Ultimately, the new biological mechanism unraveled in zebrafish will help scientists understand the pathways that fuel low calcium-related abnormal colonic cell growth and how to stop that growth, said Cunming Duan, professor in the U-M Department of Molecular, Cellular & Developmental Biology. To do this, Duan and colleagues used a fluorescent protein to mark a type of epithelial cell, whose job it is to import calcium into the body. …

Targeted therapy identified for protein that protects and nourishes cancer

Reporting this week in the journal Cell, the researchers describe the first compound that directly binds to and blocks Skp2, a protein they previously showed both turns off a cellular defense against cancer and switches on a cancer-feeding metabolic pathway. "The beauty of this study is we identified an inhibitor and showed how it functions to block Skp2. Inhibitors often are discovered without an initial understanding of how they work," said co-senior author Hui-Kuan Lin, Ph.D., associate professor of Cellular and Molecular Oncology at MD Anderson. …

Drug research: New technique shows if drugs have reached intended target

Named the "Cellular Thermal Shift Assay" (CETSA), scientists can now know for sure if a drug had reached its target protein in the body, which is a critical step in determining the effectiveness of most medicines. Presently, scientists can only hypothesise if a drug has indeed reached its target protein, leading to expensive and prolonged drug development process. …