Amino Acid News and Research

RSS

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

Researchers Explain How a Single Mutation Causes Ataxia

Worldwide, only a handful of patients are known to suffer from episodic ataxia type 6, a neurological disease that causes transient loss of muscle control.

4 Apr 2023

Harnessing a natural bacterial system to deliver proteins in mice and human cells

Researchers at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT have harnessed a natural bacterial system to develop a new protein delivery approach that works in human cells and animals.

30 Mar 2023

Heart-healthy benefits of walnuts may be linked to beneficial changes in the mix of gut microbes

A new study examining the gene expression of gut microbes suggests that the heart-healthy benefits of walnuts may be linked to beneficial changes in the mix of microbes found in our gut.

27 Mar 2023

Meta-scale approach to quantifying the protein variants in the human body

A key conundrum in biology is why many very simple creatures, such as the widely studied worm C. elegans, have almost as many genes as the human genome, which has about 20,000 genes.

27 Mar 2023

Eye color genes play important roles in maintaining retinal health

Metabolic pathways consist of a series of biochemical reactions in cells that convert a starting component into other products.

24 Mar 2023

Walnuts might support heart health by changing the gut microbiome

Scientists at Texas Tech University have revealed that the heart-healthy benefits of eating walnuts could be a result of the changes they induce in the gut microbiome.

24 Mar 2023

Stem cells must take out the trash to protect against age-related diseases

In humanity's ongoing quest for the elixir of life, the science keeps pointing to stem cells. Research increasingly shows that maintaining stem cell fitness promotes a long healthspan, and new findings show keeping stem cells clean and tidy is an integral step.

22 Mar 2023

Novel newborn screening test for HCU works by measuring homocysteine levels

Scientists have developed a test that could greatly improve quality of life for infants with homocystinuria (HCU)-;a congenital disease that, if not treated early, causes serious complications. Research demonstrating the efficacy of this test was published today in AACC's Clinical Chemistry journal.

16 Mar 2023

Study reveals why the FMO5 gene produces an enzyme with a different activity

Our body produces lots of enzymes that break down toxic substances. One class of such enzymes are the flavin-containing monooxygenases (FMOs), which are present in all tetrapods. Humans have five different FMO genes, of which the first four display the same activity. However, the fifth FMO gene triggers a different breakdown reaction. University of Groningen biochemists have succeeded in resurrecting the ancestral genes of all tetrapod FMOs to show how this divergence has occurred. Their results appear on 24 February in Nature Communications.

28 Feb 2023

Study reveals how chloroplast ATP synthase regulates ATP production in organisms

ATP, the compound essential for the functioning of photosynthetic organisms such as plants, algae, and cyanobacteria, is produced by an enzyme called "chloroplast ATP synthase" (CFoCF1).

22 Feb 2023

New insights into the mechanism underlying the immunomodulatory effects of polyphenols

PCB2DG, a polyphenol with anti-inflammatory properties, works by targeting and directly interacting with the major glutamine transporter protein, alanine serine cysteine transporter 2 (ASCT2), to inhibit the uptake of glutamine, an important amino acid found in the blood.

22 Feb 2023

New technique uses amino acids to cure meat and poultry products

Imagine your favorite cured meat like beef jerky, pepperoni or bacon without any added sodium nitrite from any source currently necessary for color and shelf life. Wes Osburn, Ph.D., is doing exactly that.

22 Feb 2023

Improved efficacy of advanced genome editing with machine learning

Researchers at the Wellcome Sanger Institute have developed a new tool to estimate the probability of successfully introducing a gene-edited DNA sequence into a cell’s genome using the prime editing method.

17 Feb 2023

Researchers discover target enzyme for blast disease

A fungus that plagues rice crops worldwide gains entry to plant cells in a way that leaves it vulnerable to simple chemical blockers, a discovery that could lead to new fungicides to reduce the substantial annual losses of rice and other valuable cereals.

14 Feb 2023

New route to understanding the origins of life

A team of scientists from France and Austria has discovered a new abiotic pathway for the formation of peptide chains from amino acids - a key chemical step in the origin of life.

13 Feb 2023

Protein-rich droplets in cells linked to many unresolved diseases

Most proteins localize to distinct protein-rich droplets in cells, also known as "cellular condensates". Such proteins contain sequence features that function as address labels, telling the protein which condensate to move into.

9 Feb 2023

New arsenal in the fight against superbugs

RMIT scientists have created a new type of antibiotic that can be rapidly re-engineered to avoid resistance by dangerous superbugs.

8 Feb 2023

Innovative cancer therapy options with new cell death mechanism

Researchers from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have described a previously unrecognized type of cell death called disulfidptosis in a study that was published in Nature Cell Biology.

7 Feb 2023

Structure of amyloid fibers formed by the protein hnRNPDL-2 determined

Using high-resolution cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM), UAB researchers determined the structure of amyloid fibers formed by the protein hnRNPDL-2, which has been linked to limb-girdle muscular dystrophy type 3 and concluded that the protein’s inability to form amyloid ﬁbers, rather than aggregation, would be the cause of the disease.

6 Feb 2023

Employing molecular anchor for more effective CAR immunotherapies

Researchers at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital discovered that immune cells with the attached protein boosted the killing of cancer, irrespective of the kind of cancer cell or the type of cancer being targeted.

3 Feb 2023