Cell Biology

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Researchers trace neurons in mosquitoes that sense blood's distinctive flavor

It's one of the world's deadliest animals, and it has a taste for human blood: the mosquito. Mosquitoes spread diseases like malaria, dengue, and yellow fever that kill at least a half a million people each year. Now researchers are learning what humans taste like to mosquitoes, down to the individual neurons that sense blood's distinctive, delectable flavor.

13 Oct 2020

Enzyme SSH1 impairs disposal of damaged tau and mitochondria leaking toxins

In a healthy brain, the multistep waste clearance process known as autophagy routinely removes and degrades damaged cell components - including malformed proteins like tau and toxic mitochondria.

13 Oct 2020

Components leaking from broken muscle fibers activate 'satellite' muscle stem cells

While building a muscle damage model in a cultured system, a research collaboration between Kumamoto University and Nagasaki University in Japan has found that components leaking from broken muscle fibers activate "satellite" muscle stem cells.

13 Oct 2020

Scientists identify molecular mechanisms of IFN responses in COVID-19 disease

SARS-CoV-2 continues to cause an ongoing pandemic as of October 2020, with over 35 million reported cases and over 1 million deaths around the world.

13 Oct 2020

Researchers identify mechanism that silences “parasitic” DNA-elements in pluripotent stem cells

Every eukaryotic organism contains the so-called transposons, which are abundant DNA-elements.

13 Oct 2020

Severe cases of COVID-19 resemble systemic lupus erythematosus

Scientists from Emory Health Sciences have been observing an intense stimulation of immune cells in severe cases of COVID-19 disease. This activation of immune cells is similar to acute flares of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE)—an autoimmune disease.

13 Oct 2020

Oncopig fulfills the unmet clinical modeling needs for hepatocellular carcinoma

Volume 11, Issue 28 of Oncotarget features "Development and comprehensive characterization of porcine hepatocellular carcinoma for translational liver cancer investigation" by Gaba et, al. which reported that reliable development of Oncopig HCC cell lines was demonstrated through hepatocyte isolation and Cre recombinase exposure across 15 Oncopigs.

12 Oct 2020

Researchers examine cooperative tumorigenic effects of targeted deletions of tumor suppressors

Volume 11, Issue 28 of Oncotarget features "Genetic analysis of the cooperative tumorigenic effects of targeted deletions of tumor suppressors Rb1, Trp53, Men1, and Pten in neuroendocrine tumors in mice" by Xu et, al. which reported that the authors examined whether the TSGs Rb1, Trp53, Pten, and Men1 have cooperative effects in suppressing neuroendocrine tumors in mice.

12 Oct 2020

Genomes provide insights into fig-wasp coevolution

Banyan trees are fig trees that begin their life as an epiphyte. The most noticeable feature of banyan Ficus species is their extraordinary aerial roots, which enable them to live as hemi-epiphytes, as do the strangler figs often seen in tropical forests.

12 Oct 2020

Bone destruction caused by too little sugar

Bone marrow cancer is currently an incurable disease that affects about 400 people in Norway every year. Professor Therese Standal at NTNU has now found an important reason for bone destruction in people with this disease.

12 Oct 2020

UroCAD assay shows better sensitivity than urine cytology in detecting bladder cancer

Analysis of DNA copy number variants (CNVs) in the cells exfoliated in urine showed better sensitivity and similar specificity in detecting urothelial carcinoma compared with urine cytology.

12 Oct 2020

Study offers new insights how the plant tips stay free of virus

Plants are able to keep growing indefinitely because they have tissues made of meristems--plant stem cells--which have the unique ability to transform themselves into the various specialized cells that make up the plant, dividing whenever appropriate and producing new cells of whatever type as needed.

9 Oct 2020

Reducing the harvest period of stem cell sheets to two days

Stem cells are cell factories that constantly divide themselves to create new cells. Implanting stem cells in damaged organs can regenerate new tissues.

9 Oct 2020

Study shows thymoquinone compound selectively kills prostate cancer cells

According to a new study reported in the Oncogene journal, the thymoquinone (TQ) compound selectively destroys prostate cancer cells at advanced phases.

9 Oct 2020

Researchers identify specific neurons that may contribute to epileptic seizures

Epilepsy, results from impairment in brain cells and is often treated with drugs that counteract or control the seizures.

9 Oct 2020

Immune cell biomarker may help identify patients at risk for graft-versus-host disease

A recent report published in Science Translational Medicine by MUSC Hollings Cancer Center investigator Sophie Paczesny, M.D., Ph.D., sheds light on immune cell biomarkers that may reveal which patients are most at risk for graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), a life-threatening condition that can arise after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) for treatment of liquid cancers such as leukemia.

8 Oct 2020