Latest Autophagy Stories
In order to maintain muscle strength with age, cells must rid themselves of the garbage that accumulates in them over time, just as it does in any household, according to a new study in the December issue of Cell Metabolism, a Cell Press journal. In the case of cells, that waste material includes spent organelles, toxic clumps of proteins, and pathogens.The researchers made their discovery by studying mice that were deficient for a gene required for the tightly controlled process of...
A powerful new breast cancer treatment could result from packaging one of the newer drugs that inhibits cancer's hallmark wild growth with another that blocks a primordial survival technique in which the cancer cell eats part of itself, researchers say.While they are powerful killers of some breast cancer cells, new drugs called histone deacetylase inhibitors, or HDAC inhibitors, also increase self-digestion, or autophagy, in surviving, mega-stressed cells, Medical College of Georgia Cancer...
Recent data have indicated that the more brown fat cells a person has the lower their body mass. This contrasts with what is known for white fat cells, the more white fat cells a person has the greater their body mass. It has been suggested that manipulating the development of fat cells so that they become brown fat cells rather than white fat cells might be an approach to treat obesity. However, before such an approach can be developed more needs to be learned about the mechanisms regulating...
Infectious-disease specialists at UT Southwestern Medical Center have demonstrated that a cannibalistic process in cells plays a key role in limiting Salmonella infection.Salmonella, the causative agent of salmonellosis, causes many of the intestinal infections and food-related illnesses reported in the U.S. About 600 people die each year as a result of these infections, accounting for roughly 30 percent of all reported food-related deaths. It is particularly dangerous among the elderly.The...
Recent research has uncovered an unexpected vulnerability in deadly melanoma cells that, when exploited, can cause the cancer cells to turn against themselves. The study, published by Cell Press in the August issue of the journal Cancer Cell, identifies a new target for development of future therapeutics aimed at selectively eliminating this aggressive skin cancer which is characterized by a notoriously high rate of metastasis and treatment-resistance."Although considerable effort has...
Not satisfied with simply thwarting its host's defensive maneuvers, HIV actually twists one to its advantage, based on new findings from Kyei et al. in the July 27, 2009 issue of the Journal of Cell Biology (www.jcb.org). Vojo Deretic and colleagues suggest that autophagy"”a stress response process"”helps HIV to proliferate and that conversely, blocking autophagy lessens HIV production.Reduced HIV levels were accompanied by a blockade in the processing of Gag"”a key precursor protein...
Scientists have now revealed how nanoparticles can cause lung damage. In the same research, they reported successfully being able to block the cancer-causing mechanism.Nanotechnology is a growing sector of research that involves the control of atoms and molecules to create new materials, including many that could have medical applications. Nanotechnology, as an industry, is expected to gain an annual market of about $1 trillion by 2015, researchers said in the June 11 issue of the Journal of...
 "Taking out the trash" takes on a whole new meaning, as investigators at The Cancer Institute of New Jersey (CINJ) and Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, have discovered that a waste disposal protein is the key to cancer tumor suppression in a process known as autophagy. CINJ is a Center of Excellence of UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.Autophagy is a process in which cancer cells eat themselves. Previous study from the lab of Eileen White, PhD, associate...
Scientists counteract nanoparticle lung damage in miceScientists have identified for the first time a mechanism by which nanoparticles cause lung damage and have demonstrated that it can be combated by blocking the process involved, taking a step toward addressing the growing concerns over the safety of nanotechnology.Nanotechnology, the science of the extremely tiny (one nanometre is one-billionth of a metre), is an important emerging industry with a projected annual market of around one...
A new study has identified a potential strategy for removing the abnormal protein that causes Huntington's disease (HD) from brain cells, which could slow the progression of the devastating neurological disorder. In the April 3 issue of Cell, a team of researchers from the MassGeneral Institute for Neurodegenerative Disease (MGH-MIND) describes how an alteration to the mutated form of the huntingtin protein appears to accelerate its breakdown and removal through normal cellular...
