Microbiology
A small molecule known as 125B11 but also called Fatostatin and reportedly having both anti-fat and anti-cancer abilities is also a literal turnoff for fat-making genes, according to a new report in the journal Chemistry and Biology.
The chemical blocks transcription factor known SREBP, a master controller of fat synthesis. That action in mice that are genetically prone to obesity causes the animals to become leaner. It also lowers the amount of fat in their livers, along with their blood sugar and cholesterol levels.
Fatostatin or its analogs may also serve a tool for gaining…
Little LEGO pieces shaped like pegs can re-create microscopic activity taking place inside lab-on-a-chip devices, also known as microfluidic arrays, at a scale scientists can more easily observe.
Microfluidic arrays are commonly used to sort tiny samples by size, shape or composition, but the minuscule forces work at such a small magnitude, they are difficult to measure. To solve this small problem, the Johns Hopkins engineers decided to think big. Like LEGO big.
Led by Joelle Frechette and German Drazer, both assistant professors of chemical and biomolecular engineering in the…
Researchers at Virginia Tech believe they have solved the controversy over how the oldest complex life forms, which lived more than 540 million years ago, ate. Osmosis, they say.
The researchers studied two groups of modular Ediacara organisms, the fern-shaped rangeomorphs and the air mattress-shaped erniettomorphs. These macroscopic organisms, typically several inches in size, absorbed nutrients through their outer membrane, much like modern microscopic bacteria. The rangeomorphs had a repeatedly branching system like fern leaves and the erniettomorphs had a folded surface…
A Dresden research team using laser tweezers measured the friction between a single motor protein molecule and its track and say that within our cells, motors work against the resistance of friction and are restrained in its operation—usually by far not as much though as their macroscopic counterparts.
These first experimental measurements of protein friction could help researchers to better understand key cellular processes such as cell division which is driven by such molecular machines.
Friction is the force that resists the relative motion of two bodies in contact. The same is true…
Magnetotactic bacteria are the smallest organisms to use a biological compass but exactly how these bacteria create their cellular magnets is a mystery. In a study published online in Genome Research, scientists have used genome sequencing to unlock new secrets about these magnetic microbes that could accelerate biotechnology and nanotechnology research.
Oxygen is essential for human life but it is poisonous to many bacteria. Magnetotactic bacteria evolved a clever method of using the Earth's magnetic field to orient itself and swim downward; exactly the direction a microbe must move to…
Comets contained vast oceans of liquid water in their interiors during the first million years of their formation, argue Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe and colleagues at the Cardiff Centre for Astrobiology in a paper published in the International Journal of Astrobiology.
The watery environment of early comets, together with the vast quantity of organics already discovered in comets, would have provided ideal conditions for primitive bacteria to grow and multiply, they say.
The Cardiff teamcalculated the thermal history of comets after they formed from interstellar and…
Researchers say they directly convert spermatogonial stem cells, the precursors of sperm cells, into tissues of the prostate, skin and uterus, an effective alternative to the medical use of embryonic stem cells.
The hunt for alternatives to embryonic stem cells has led to some promising yet problematic approaches, some of which involve spermatagonial stem cells (SSCs). Researchers recently observed, for example, that SSCs grown in the laboratory will eventually give rise to a few cells that look and act like embryonic stem cells. But this process can take months and only a small percentage of…
A new technique has allowed researchers to make film bacteria infecting their living host.
Most studies of bacterial infection are done after the death of the infected organism a new technique developed by scientists at the University of Bath and University of Exeter has allowed researchers to make film bacteria and follow the progress of infection in real-time with living organisms.
The researchers used developing fruit fly embryos as a model organism, injecting fluorescently tagged bacteria into the embryos and observing their interaction with the insect's immune system using…
University of Dundee scientists say they have shown that E. coli, one of the most extensively studied organisms in the world, still has some secrets that may hold the key to human diseases, such as cancer.
The team has examined the genome sequence of this workhorse of the laboratory and spotted three previously unknown genes that, it turns out, are essential for the survival of E. coli and one out of the three could also be implicated in cancer or developmental abnormalities in humans. These mystery genes are also found in numerous other creatures, suggesting a vital role for them…
The news that Newcastle University researchers have used embryonic stem cells to create human sperm under laboratory conditions has led to a lot of questions; like, who will television commercials make fun of if all men are gone?
In the technique developed at Newcastle, stem cells with XY chromosomes (male) were developed into germline stem cells which were then prompted to complete meiosis - cell division with halving of the chromosome set. These were shown to produce fully mature sperm called In Vitro Derived sperm (IVD sperm).
In contrast, stem cells with XX chromosomes (female) were…