Culture
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (Nov. 4, 2020) -- For the first time, scientists have visualized a new class of molecular gates that maintain pH balance within brain cells, a critical function that keeps cells alive and helps prevent stroke and other brain injuries.
These gates, called proton-activated chloride channels (PAC), nest within cell membranes and regulate the passage of small molecules called chloride ions into and out of cells. This allows cells to sense and respond to their environment.
A new University of Colorado Boulder-led study sheds light on a protein key to controlling how cells grow, proliferate and function and long implicated in tumor development.
The findings, published this week in the journal Genes and Development, could lead not only to new therapies for hard-to-treat cancers, but also inform novel treatments for neurological diseases and rare developmental disorders, the authors say.
"These findings could have broad biomedical application," said lead author Dylan Taatjes, a professor in the Department of Biochemistry.
Despite extensive support for relationships between the gut microbiome and the brain (the "microbiota-gut-brain axis") in humans and rodents, little is known about these relationships in other animals, leaving questions about this system's generality.
The ability of SARS-CoV-2 to infect cells depends on interactions between the viral spike protein and the human cell surface protein ACE2. To enable the virus to hook onto the cell surface, the spike protein binds ACE2 using three finger-like protrusions, called the receptor binding domains (RBDs). Blocking the RBDs therefore has the potential to stop the virus from entering human cells. This can be done using antibodies.
Nara, Japan - Mutants that reveal the secrets of how plants attack? No, it's not a scene from a science fiction movie, but you could be forgiven for thinking that. Instead, it's a scene from real life:
Researchers at Nara Institute of Science and Technology in Japan report in a new study in Science Advances that parasitic plants use the plant hormone ethylene as a signal to invade the roots of host plants.
Fungus farming is a fascinating symbiosis that has evolved multiple times in social insects: once in ants, once in termites, and several times in weevils (beetles) from the subfamilies Scolytinae and Platypodinae. The behavior of these "ambrosia beetles" - over 3,000 species - is poorly known, because they live inside galleries in wood, making observation hard. Here, a study focuses for the first time on the division of labor within colonies of ambrosia beetles.
Vitamin D supplementation eased the symptoms experienced by children with severe atopic dermatitis, or eczema, in a recent randomized controlled trial published in Pharmacology Research & Perspectives.
Investigators reported on the results of 86 patients with the inflammatory skin condition who completed the trial and received either oral daily vitamin D or placebo, in addition to standard care, for 12 weeks.
Researchers from John Carroll University and University of Kansas published a new paper in the Journal of Marketing that investigates how recipients respond to charities' pre-giving incentives to determine if they are worth the investment.
The study forthcoming in the Journal of Marketing is titled "Coins are Cold and Cards are Caring: The Effect of Pre-giving Incentives on Charity Perceptions, Relationship Norms and Donation Behavior" and is authored by Bingqing (Miranda) Yin, Yexin Jessica Li, Surendra Singh.
Working together with researchers from the University of Tübingen, the University of Tromsø, the UC Davis and the Sainsbury Laboratory in Norwich, biologists from Friedrich-Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) have discovered how tomato plants identify Cuscuta as a parasite. The plant has a protein in its cell walls that is identified as 'foreign' by a receptor in the tomato.
Researchers from University of Georgia, University of South Carolina, and University of Arkansas published a new paper in the Journal of Marketing that analyzes how asymmetries in pre-alliance network ties between a firm and its alliance partner affect the focal firm's financial performance and financial performance uncertainty.
The study, forthcoming in the Journal of Marketing, is titled "Effect of Alliance Network Asymmetry on Firm Performance and Risk" and is authored by Anindita Chakravarty, Chen Zhou, and Ashish Sharma.
Fossilized jaw bone fragments of a rat-like creature found at the Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona last year by a Virginia Tech College of Science Ph.D. candidate are in fact a newly discovered 220-million-year-old species of cynodont or stem-mammal, a precursor of modern-day mammals.
A world-first study on the Great Barrier Reef shows crown-of-thorns starfish have the ability to find their own way home--a behaviour previously undocumented--but only if their neighbourhood is stocked with their favourite food: corals.
Australian researchers observed the starfish emerging from their shelters in the afternoons so they could feed on coral during the night before returning home at dawn.
Gentoo penguins should be reclassified as four separate species, say scientists at the Milner Centre for Evolution at the University of Bath, after analysing the genetic and physical differences between populations around the southern hemisphere.
The researchers say that counting them as four separate species will aid in their conservation because it will make it easier to monitor any decline in numbers.
Investigations of deceased COVID-19 patients have shed light on possible lung damage caused by the virus.
The study, published today in The Lancet's eBioMedicine, by King's College London in collaboration with University of Trieste and the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biology in Italy, shows the unique characteristics to the SARS-CoV-2 virus and may explain why patients suffer from 'long COVID'.
Over the course of only a century, humanity has made an observable impact on the genetic diversity of the lion population. That's the conclusion of a recently published study by Drs. Caitlin Curry and James Derr from the Texas A&M University College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences.