Latest Cell signaling Stories
Research led by Shyamal Desai, PhD, Assistant Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans, has discovered a key change in the body's defense system that increases the potential for breast cancer to spread to other parts of the body. The results, reported for the first time, are featured in the January 2012 issue of Experimental Biology and Medicine. For cancer cells shape matters. All cells contain a protein cytoskeleton that acts as a scaffold...
Half the drugs used today target a single class of proteins – and now scientists have identified an important molecular player critical to the proper workings of those proteins critical to our health. A protein known as Ric-8 plays a vital role, according to new results from a team led by Gregory Tall, Ph.D., assistant professor of Pharmacology and Physiology at the University of Rochester Medical Center. The work was published recently in Science Signaling. What you see, what you...
UC Riverside discovery creates new blueprint for engineering drought tolerant crops. When a plant encounters drought, it does its best to cope with this stress by activating a set of protein molecules called receptors. These receptors, once activated, turn on processes that help the plant survive the stress. A team of plant cell biologists has discovered how to rewire this cellular machinery to heighten the plants' stress response – a finding that can be used to engineer crops to give...
The research team at Lyon has developed an animal model carrying a mutation of the DCC gene. Mice carrying the mutation develop tumors, because this gene can no longer induce the death of the cancer cells. This discovery could lead to the development of a new targeted cancer treatment that aims to reactivate the dying of cancer cells. The results of this study have been published as a Letter in the 11th December 2011 issue of the journal Nature. The team led by Patrick Mehlen, Director...
Something rotten never smelled so sweet. This is what members of a team of scientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) are telling one another as they discuss a new finding they did not expect to make. They have discovered that hydrogen sulfide (H2S) – the flammable, highly toxic gas that we usually associate with the smell of rotten eggs in landfills and sewers – plays an important role in the regulation of a signaling pathway implicated in biological malfunctions linked to...
Scientists have discovered a new signal that helps invading bacteria communicate but also helps targeted rice plants coordinate defensive attacks on the disease-causing invaders, a finding that could lead to new methods of combating infection not just in plants, but in humans. Findings from the study, conducted by a team of researchers led by a University of California, Davis, scientist, will be reported in the Dec. 12 issue of the journal PLoS ONE and in the journal Discovery Medicine....
Single-celled bacteria communicate with each other using coded messages to coordinate attacks on their targets. Until now, the diversity of codes employed by these invading bacteria was thought to be extremely limited. However, a new report published Dec. 12 in PLoS ONE reveals bacterial communication by a novel, previously undescribed signal type – and, as is often the case in evolutionary stories, some plants have evolved a complementary cypher-breaking detection system that intercepts...
SAN DIEGO, Dec. 12, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Receptos Inc. announced today the establishment of a collaboration with Ono Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. (Osaka, Japan) for the research and development of small molecule modulators of an undisclosed G-protein coupled receptor (GPCR) target. Under the terms of the agreement, Receptos will use its proprietary technology platform to produce high resolution protein crystal structures of the discovery target and drive Ono's structure-based drug...
Baylor College of Medicine researchers presented new data regarding breast cancer stem cells, the unique subset of breast cancer cells that are capable of initiating tumor growth and are relatively resistant to chemo and radiotherapies, today at the 2011 CTRC-AACR San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium. The conference is co-sponsored by BCM, the American Association of Cancer Research and the Cancer Therapy and Research Center at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio....
SEATTLE, Nov. 30, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Omeros Corporation (NASDAQ: OMER) today reported that with its identification of compounds that interact selectively with each of four additional orphan G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) - GPR19, GPR20, GPR31 and GPR141 - it has now unlocked over 20 percent of the 77 Class A orphans. GPCRs represent the premier family of drug targets, with more than 30 percent of currently marketed drugs targeting only 46 GPCRs. There are approximately...
