Latest Cell membrane Stories
Scientists have identified the role of two proteins that contribute to disease-causing bacteria cells' versatility in resisting certain classes of antibiotics.The finding is a step toward development of drug therapies that could target bacterial resistance at its cellular source. Before researchers can design such drugs, they must understand all of the activities at play in the conflict between bacteria and the agents that kill them. This finding by Ohio State University microbiologists...
Scientists have gotten their best look ever at interactions inside human skin cells, finding a Velcro-like setup that links them and makes skin strong while also supple. The cell-interior images, made with a new a technique called cryo-electron tomography, show the proteins responsible for cell-cell contacts for the first time. "This is a real breakthrough in two respects," said Achilleas Frangakis of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory. "Never before has...
By Otter, W K den Shkulipa, S A ABSTRACT The flow behavior of lipid bilayer membranes is characterized by a surface viscosity for in-plane shear deformations, and an intermonolayer friction coefficient for slip between the two leaflets of the bilayer. Both properties have been studied for a variety of coarse-grained double-tailed model lipids, using equilibrium and nonequilibrium molecular dynamics simulations. For lipids with two identical tails, the surface shear viscosity rises rapidly...
Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have discovered new details about how bacteria generate energy to live. In two recently published papers, the scientists add key specifics to the molecular mechanism behind the pathogen that causes cholera. The work could provide a better understanding of this pathogen, while also offering insight into how cells transform energy from the environment into the forms required to sustain life. The findings may lead to a better understanding of how...
LEXINGTON, Ky.− Membranes composed of manmade carbon nanotubes permit a fluid flow nearly 10,000 to 100,000 times faster than conventional fluid flow theory would predict because of the nanotubes' nearly friction-free surface, researchers at the University of Kentucky report in the Nov. 3 issue of Nature. In their study, Mainak Majumder, Nitin Chopra and Bruce J. Hinds of UK's Chemical and Materials Engineering Department, and Rodney Andrews of UK's Center for Applied Energy Research...
One of the biggest mysteries in molecular biology is exactly how ion channels "“ tiny protein pores through which molecules such as calcium and potassium flow in and out of cells "“ operate. Such channels can be extremely important; members of the voltage-gated ion channel family are crucial to generating electrical pulses in the brain and heart, carrying signals in nerves and muscles. When channel function goes awry, the resulting diseases "“ known as channelopathies, including...
Cell volume is the outcome of a subtle balance between water uptake and secretion by the cell plasma membrane. A cell can regulate its volume by adjusting the salt concentrations in and around the cell. Exactly how this process works is still not known. Bas Tomassen has identified a number of important mechanisms that play a role in this process. Increasing the salt concentration in the cell or decreasing the salt concentration around the cell leads to an influx of water. This principle is...
It took almost 10 years for Elaine Fuchs, Ph.D., a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at Rockefeller University, to find a postdoctoral fellow who shared her curiosity for the direction of cell divisions in the skin. Then Terry Lechler, Ph.D., came along and the result is a new paper published online last week in Nature detailing how asymmetric cell divisions are essential for skin development. Their findings challenge long standing ideas of how skin forms and functions and is one...
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- For a glycerol molecule, a measly angstrom's difference in diameter is a road-closed sign: You can't squeeze through unless you are a sleek, water-molecule-sized sports car, say scientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The roadway is in aquaporins, a class of proteins that form trans-membrane channels in cell walls in all forms of life. They allow for water movement between the cell and its environment. A subfamily of aquaporins allows slightly larger...
Jerusalem - The structure of the membrane protein NhaA has been revealed by researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Max Planck Institute of Germany. Membrane protein research is at the forefront of modern biological study, with great potential consequences for development of new medicinal treatments and genetic engineering of plants. The research on NhaA has been carried out by Etana Padan, the Adelina and Massimo DellaPergola Professor of Life Sciences, with Dr. Rimon...
