Tag Archives: work

Promising new cancer therapy uses molecular ‘Trash Man’ to exploit a common cancer defense

Cancer therapies cause unwanted proteins to accumulate in cancer cells, which can trigger a form of cell suicide known as apoptosis. To survive, the cells break down the excess proteins through autophagy, from a Greek term meaning “self eating.” In a study recently published in the journal Molecular and Cellular Biology, scientists induced autophagy using the anti-tumor drug obatoclax while simultaneously blocking the production of p62 using a drug known as a cyclin-dependant kinase (CDK) inhibitor. …

Being overweight causes hazardous inflammations

“We believe that there is a connection between metabolism, inflammation, heart attack and stroke,” says Bente Halvorsen, professor at the Research Institute for Internal Medicine, University of Oslo, Norway. Together with the research group’s leader, Pål Aukrust, who last year received the university’s research award for his work on inflammatory diseases, and researcher Arne Yndestad, she has looked deeply into the molecular explanation of why overweight is harmful. …

Researchers identify a mechanism that stops progression of abnormal cells into cancer

Although the link between abnormal cells and tumor suppressor pathways — like that mediated by the well known p53 gene — has been firmly established, the critical steps in between are not well understood. According to the authors, whose work appears in Cell, this work completes at least one of the missing links. Normal human cells contain 23 pairs of chromosomes, but this number doubles to 46 pairs as a cell prepares to divide…

Synthetic molecule makes cancer self-destruct

These synthetic ion transporters, described this week in the journal Nature Chemistry, confirm a two-decades-old hypothesis that could point the way to new anticancer drugs while also benefitting patients with cystic fibrosis. Synthetic ion transporters have been created before, but this is the first time researchers have shown them working in a real biological system where transported ions demonstrably cause cells to self-destruct. Cells in the human body work hard to maintain a stable concentration of ions inside their cell membranes. Disruption of this delicate balance can trigger cells to go through apoptosis, known as programmed cell death, a mechanism the body uses to rid itself of damaged or dangerous cells…

Mystery of brain cell growth unraveled by scientists

How a single protein can exert both a push and a pull force to nudge a neuron in the desired direction is a longstanding mystery that has now been solved by scientists from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and collaborators in Europe and China. Jia-huai Wang, PhD, who led the work at Dana-Farber and Peking University in Beijing, is a corresponding author of a report published in the August 7 online edition of Neuron that explains how one guidance protein, netrin-1, can either attract or repel a brain cell to steer it along its course. Wang and co-authors at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Hamburg, Germany, used X-ray crystallography to reveal the three-dimensional atomic structure of netrin-1 as it bound to a docking molecule, called DCC, on the axon of a neuron…

More than 40 melanoma-specific genes that determine aggressiveness identified

What is the function of these genes? Strangely, the factors that are increased in melanoma share a common mechanism: the formation of vesicles called endosomes. Endosomes are machinery that tumor cells, via a process called endocytosis, can use to incorporate components into their environment and obtain energy by degrading them via autodigestion or autophagy…