Amino Acid News and Research

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Amino Acid is one of several molecules that join together to form proteins. There are 20 common amino acids found in proteins.

Nagoya University Team Identifies BCAT1 Enzyme as Key Driver of Cardiac Fibrosis

Heart failure often develops after a heart attack because excessive collagen-based scar tissue forms during repair. While collagen is necessary to reinforce scars, disease and chronic inflammation can cause overproduction, which stiffens the heart muscle and impairs its pumping ability.

10 Oct 2026

Studies Redefine Lactation Biology Through Computational Multi-Omics and Mammary Metabolic Modeling

A study led by researchers at NYU Grossman School of Medicine identified shared molecular patterns in human milk that link maternal nutrition, mammary gland biology, and infant growth.

9 Oct 2026

Integrated Multi-Omics Maps Metabolic Shift During Seed Development Stages

Canavalia gladiata, commonly known as sword bean, is a leguminous crop with high seed protein content (26%–30%) and oil rich in unsaturated fatty acids. Despite its nutritional promise, the species has remained underutilized, largely because a complete genome and the genetic basis of its nutritional traits were lacking.

8 Oct 2026

Gut Bacterial Gene tnaA Converts Dietary Tryptophan Into Toxic Indole

Researchers at LMU have discovered how a metabolite produced by gut bacteria can influence brain damage after stroke.

5 Oct 2026

Scientists Discover Why High Levels of the Amino Acid Cysteine Are Toxic to Cells

Cysteine is one of the main building blocks that cells use to make proteins. But this amino acid is a double-edged sword–too much cysteine is toxic to the cell.

24 Sep 2026

Blocking Mitochondrial Iron Transport Protects Cells Against Elevated Cysteine Toxicity

Cysteine is one of the main building blocks that cells use to make proteins.

22 Sep 2026

Restoring Gut Indole Levels Reduces Campylobacter Infection in Mouse Models

What if something produced naturally by your gut bacteria could help fight a dangerous foodborne pathogen?

17 Sep 2026

Genetic Redundancy Allows Cells to Optimize mRNA Sequences Against Aggregation

Messenger RNA, or mRNA, is best known for carrying genetic instructions from DNA to the cellular machinery that makes proteins. But all RNA molecules have another, less appreciated property: they are naturally sticky.

17 Sep 2026

New AI Model Unites Protein Sequences and Structures for Evolutionary Insights

An international team of researchers, including Earth-Life Science Institute (ELSI) at the Institute of Science Tokyo, has developed a protein language model that brings together two fundamental sources of information about proteins: their amino acid sequences and their three-dimensional structures.

11 Sep 2026

SMART Researchers Discover First PLP-Dependent Enzyme That Influences Bacterial Protein Production

Researchers from the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research & Technology’s (SMART) Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) interdisciplinary research group, alongside collaborators from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Nanyang Technological University (NTU Singapore), and institutions in the United States, Poland, and France, have discovered aminovaleramididine synthetase (AvaS), the first identified pyridoxal phosphate (PLP)-dependent enzyme responsible for producing a chemical modification linked to how bacteria respond to metabolic stress.

10 Sep 2026

New Platform Promises Rapid Vaccine Monitoring and Biomarker Discovery for Emerging Pathogens

A research team comprising Associate Professor FUNAKOSHI Yohei, Associate Professor YAKUSHIJIN Kimikazu, Professor MINAMI Hironobu, and Associate Professor OHJI Goh of Kobe University, together with graduate student MASUDA Genki, then-graduate student IIZUMI Shunsuke, Associate Professor OHUE Masahito, and colleagues at the Institute of Science Tokyo, has developed a new analysis method, LM-QASAS.

9 Sep 2026

Open Sesame: Can Plants Acquire Genes from the Species They Parasitize On?

A new study shows how Cuscuta plants acquire and repurpose a functional gene from a host species through horizontal gene transfer, thereby enhancing metabolic diversity.

8 Sep 2026

Elusive Archaea Act as Flexitarians in Marine Sponge Symbiosis

Symbiotic ammonia-oxidizing archaea in marine sponges are not strict specialists, but true "flexitarians": A team led by microbiologists Bettina Glasl and Katharina Kitzinger from the University of Vienna, in collaboration with partners from Australia, has shown that these microbes dine not only on ammonia but also on amino acids such as valine, leucine, and isoleucine - and presumably do that to communicate with their animal host.

7 Sep 2026

Researchers Unlock Key Potassium Channel That Controls Plant Stalk Elongation

Potassium (K) is one of the three essential nutrients for plants. It plays a critical role in a wide range of processes, including cell growth, photosynthesis, and regulation of water balance. Plants take up K from the soil and circulate it throughout their bodies via molecules called K+ channels.

3 Sep 2026

Repulsive Bias Forces AlphaFold3 to Uncover Alternative Dynamic Protein States

Conformational changes in proteins are vital to their function yet remain challenging for state-of-the-art artificial intelligence, such as AlphaFold3, to predict.

1 Sep 2026

New Agentex Tool Synthesizes Molecules Without Damaging Natural Machinery

Scientists have been hard at work for more than 20 years to instruct biological systems, such as E. coli cells, to produce proteins they don't naturally do.

27 Aug 2026

Scientists Reconstruct Prehistoric Mammalian Peptides to Combat Global Antibiotic-Resistance

University of Oregon biologists have resurrected prehistoric proteins up to 160 million years old that carry natural antimicrobial properties.

26 Aug 2026

Advanced Peptides Overcome Human Biological Barriers in New Cancer Medicine

Influencers across TikTok and the internet have been touting peptides as a beauty and health cure-all, with some claiming they can de-age you or significantly transform your appearance.

25 Aug 2026

Research Reveals Supposedly Decoded Gene Has Hidden Cellular Function

The complete genome for the tuberculosis bacterium was sequenced and published in 1998. Since then, scientists have deciphered about two-thirds of TB's genes. Or have they?

18 Aug 2026

Cells Deploy Specialized Quality Control Factors When Protein Synthesis Fails

Scientists at the Center for Molecular Medicine Cologne (CMMC) and the CECAD Cluster of Excellence on Aging Research have demonstrated in a biomedical study that ribosomes, the protein factories of our cells, face an unusually tough challenge when building large, membrane‑embedded proteins.

13 Aug 2026