Cell Biology

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Brain insulin sensitivity associated with body weight and fat distribution

Just where fat is deposited in the body and to what degree a person may benefit from a lifestyle intervention depends, among other things, on how sensitive the brain is to insulin.

27 Apr 2020

Two nose cells may contribute to COVID-19 pandemic

Scientists have discovered two specific types of cells in the nose that are believed to be the initial infection points for COVID-19 coronavirus.

27 Apr 2020

NMR spectroscopy reveals mechanisms involved in DNA repair

The information contained in DNA is crucial for life. Hence, the integrity of the DNA has to be maintained extremely well.

27 Apr 2020

Scientists discover how tissues protect their DNA from mechanical stress

In everyday life, our tissues, for example skin and muscle, are stretched, pulled and compressed without causing damage to the cells or the DNA.

24 Apr 2020

Pancreatic tumors hijack basic cell mechanism for immune evasion

Pancreatic cancer cells use a normal waste removal process to hide tags on their surfaces that would otherwise let the immune system destroy them, a new study finds. Published online April 22 in Nature, the study results help to answer a longstanding question: why are pancreatic cancers so resistant to immunotherapies, which use the body's own immune defenses to fight cancer?

24 Apr 2020

Scientists elucidate precise shape of a key player in human metabolism

A USC-led international team of scientists has found the precise shape of a key player in human metabolism, which could lead the way to better treatments for obesity and other metabolic disease.

24 Apr 2020

Combination therapy encourages innate immune cells to eat GBM tumors

A combination of immunotherapy agents that encourages some immune cells to eat cancer cells and alert others to attack tumors put mice with a deadly type of brain cancer called glioblastoma into long-term remission, a new study led by UT Southwestern scientists suggests.

24 Apr 2020

Study sheds light on the regulation of microRNAs

In all the organisms, including humans, proteins are encoded by genes and these proteins, in turn, control the body’s diverse specific cellular functions.

24 Apr 2020

DNA may not be the 'blueprint' for life, just a scrambled list of ingredients

The common view of heredity is that all information passed down from one generation to the next is stored in an organism's DNA. But Antony Jose, associate professor of cell biology and molecular genetics at the University of Maryland, disagrees.

23 Apr 2020

Researchers develop new molecular workflow to study single-cell genomics of diseases

Although advances in genetics and genomics reveal numerous disease-associated gene mutations, physicians and researchers still wrestle with the tricky challenge of linking those mutations to actual disease-causing processes.

23 Apr 2020

Study reveals the mechanism used by tuberculosis bacteria for their growth

The structure of a protein that plays a role in importing vitamin B12 into the cells of a tuberculosis (TB)-causing bacterium has been revealed by scientists from the Netherlands, Russia, the United States, and Sweden.

23 Apr 2020

How do cells react to stressful conditions?

Most often, cells are subjected to stressful conditions that can pose a serious threat to life, for example, toxins or high temperatures.

23 Apr 2020

Scientists find gene signature linked to worst prognosis in rare uterine cancer

Women who don't survive a rare and aggressive uterine cancer called uterine serous carcinoma, have high expression of a group of 73 genes, a score scientists say can help identify these women and improve their outcome.

22 Apr 2020

Study shows how tumor cells respond to nutrient deficiency

Some solid tumors have a very high growth rate, which often leads to a lack of vascularization due to the impossibility to develop, at the same time, the blood vessels that accompany and nourish it.

22 Apr 2020

New study could lead to effective immunotherapy treatments for cancer patients

According to a study recently published in the eLife journal, researchers have devised a new method to chart the molecules present on tumor cells that indicate their presence to the immune system.

22 Apr 2020

A novel prediction method for promising antiviral drug or vaccine targets

A novel method to predict the most promising targets for antiviral drugs or vaccines is based on the conformational changes viral glycoproteins go through during the process of recognition and binding to the host cell.

21 Apr 2020

Discovery marks a critical step toward developing new anti-cancer drugs

A team of scientists led by the University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center and Case Comprehensive Cancer Center has identified the binding site where drug compounds could activate a key braking mechanism against the runaway growth of many types of cancer.

21 Apr 2020