Tag Archives: formation

Potential new way to suppress tumor growth discovered

Writing in this week’s online Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Willis X. Li, PhD, a professor in the Department of Medicine at UC San Diego, reports that a particular form of a signaling protein called STAT5A stabilizes the formation of heterochromatin (a form of chromosomal DNA), which in turn suppresses the ability of cancer cells to issue instructions to multiply and grow. Specifically, Li and colleagues found that the unphosphorylated form of STAT promotes and stabilizes heterochromatin, which keeps DNA tightly packaged and inaccessible to transcription factors. …

Mystery behind dormant breast tumor cells that become metastatic unlocked

In a small but significant number of breast cancer patients, cancerous cells can move through the bloodstream from breast tissue to secondary sites in other parts of the body where they may remain in a dormant state, clinically undetected, for an extended period of time, before suddenly becoming metastatic. …

Biologists take snapshot of fleeting protein process

The biological "freeze-frame" shows the initial step in the formation of actin, a sturdy strand-like filament that is vital for humans. Actin filaments help cells maintain their shape. The filaments, which are called F-actin, also play key roles in muscle contraction, cell division and other critical processes. "One of the major distinctions between cancerous cells and healthy cells is their shape," said study co-author Jianpeng Ma, professor of bioengineering at Rice and the Lodwick T. …

DNA damage: The dark side of respiration

The DNA in our cells controls the form and function of every cell type in our bodies. The instructions for this are encoded in the linear sequence of the four subunits found in DNA, the bases adenine (A), cytosine (C), guanine (G) and thymine (T). …

Water governs cell movement

The ability of cells to move and change shape is significant in many biological processes. White blood corpuscles gather at "hotspots" like infections and inflammations. Stem cells in the embryo move off in different directions to make the organs of the body…

Dad’s genome more ready at fertilization than mom’s is — but hers catches up

In the earliest stages, embryo cells have the potential to develop into any type of cell, a state called totipotency. Later, this potency becomes restricted through a process called differentiation…

Gene offers clues to new treatments for a harmful blood clotting disorder

The research, which was led by Yanming Wang, a Penn State University associate professor of biochemistry and molecular biology, and Denisa Wagner, senior author with decades of research on thrombosis at the Boston Children’s Hospital and the Harvard University Medical School, will be published in in the Online Early Edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences during the week ending 10 May 2013. The team’s new findings are an extension of previous research by Wang and other scientists. In earlier studies, Wang and his colleagues had revealed that a gene in mice called Pad4 (peptidylarginine deiminase 4) produces an enzyme that plays an important role in protecting the body from infection. The researchers discovered that cells with a functioning PAD4 enzyme are able to build around themselves a protective, bacteria-killing web that is dubbed a NET (neutrophil extracellular trap)…