Chromosome Ends and Diseases of Aging
UCSF Professor Elizabeth Blackburn explores the effects of aging on a cellular level.
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Chromosome Ends and Diseases of Aging
Chromosome Ends and Diseases of Aging
UCSF Professor Elizabeth Blackburn explores the effects of aging on a cellular level.
Unwinding Clock Genetics
The fruit fly has taught scientists a great deal about the daily rhythms of animals and their internal biological clocks. Dr. Michael Rosbash explains how he and colleagues cloned the first gene identified as having an important role in the function of the clock. His work opened up the molecular analysis of biological clocks and represents one of the most advanced studies of how genes affect behavior
Frontiers in Cancer Diagnostics: Chipping Away at Cancer
Clinical practice informs basic science research, and that research in turn informs clinical practice. In the field of oncology discoveries in molecular biology and genetics have revolutionized clinical care for patients with cancer. This series begins at the "bench" with Katherine Hyland and Joseph DeRisi describing genomic alterations that occur in cancer cells and how applications of genomic technologies use this information for diagnostic and therapeutic management Series.
Induced Pluripotent stem (iPS ) Cells
Induced pluripotent stem cells, commonly abbreviated as iPS cells or iPSCs are a type of pluripotent stem cell artificially derived from a non-pluripotent cell, typically an adult somatic cell, by inducing a "forced" expression of specific genes.
Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells are similar to natural pluripotent stem cells, such as embryonic stem (ES) cells, in many respects, such as the expression of certain stem cell genes and proteins, chromatin methylation patterns, doubling time, embryoid body formation, teratoma formation, viable chimera formation, and potency and differentiability, but the full extent of their relation to natural pluripotent stem cells is still being assessed.
iPSCs were first produced in 2006 from mouse cells and in 2007 from human cells. This has been cited as an important advance in stem cell research, as it may allow researchers to obtain pluripotent stem cells, which are important in research and potentially have therapeutic uses, without the controversial use of embryos. They may also be less prone to immune rejection than embryonic stem cells because of the fact that they are derived entirely from the patient.
Depending on the methods used, reprogramming of adult cells to obtain iPSCs may pose significant risks that could limit its use in humans. For example, if viruses are used to genomically alter the cells, the expression of cancer-causing genes or oncogenes may potentially be triggered. In February 2008, in ground-breaking findings published in the journal Cell, scientists announced the discovery of a technique that could remove oncogenes after the induction of pluripotency, thereby increasing the potential use of iPS cells in human diseases[3]. In April 2009, Sheng Ding and colleagues in La Jolla, California, demonstrated that generation of iPS cells is possible without any genetic alteration of the adult cell: A repeated treatment of the cells with certain proteins channeled into the cells via poly-arginine anchors was sufficient to induce pluripotency. The acronym given for those iPSCs is piPSCs
EF-Tu delivers aminoacyl-tRNA to the ribosome
Elongation factor Tu (EF-Tu) binds all elongator aminoacyl-transfer RNAs (aa-tRNAs) for delivery to the ribosome during protein synthesis. Here, we show that EF-Tu binds misacylated tRNAs over a much wider range of affinities than it binds the corresponding correctly acylated tRNAs, suggesting that the protein exhibits considerable specificity for both the amino acid side chain and the tRNA body. The thermodynamic contributions of the amino acid and the tRNA body to the overall binding affinity are independent of each other and compensate for one another when the tRNAs are correctly acylated. Because certain misacylated tRNAs bind EF-Tu significantly more strongly or weakly than cognate aa-tRNAs, EF-Tu may contribute to translational accuracy.
Kidney Transplant - Gene Expression
Kidney Transplant - Gene Expression
Kidney Transplant Update presents Dr. Manikkam Suthanthiran who discusses the status of gene expression profiling.
Bacterial Pneumonia: Old Habits and New Approaches
Pneumonia occurs when a person's lungs become inflamed and filled with fluid as a result of infection by bacteria, viruses or fungi. Though treatment protocols have significantly advanced since the Great Pandemic of 1918 -- when mortality rates were 320 times those of today -- pneumonia is still the 6th leading cause of death in the United States. Norman Rizk, MD, professor of medicine, discusses some of the current challenges in diagnosis and treatment, including the issue of drug-resistant bacteria and the prevalence of hospital-acquired pneumonia.
The Influence of Sex/Gender on Cardiovascular Health
While more men have heart disease, each year more women die from it--studies have shown that only 8% of women are aware that heart disease is the leading cause of death among women. Hannah Valentine, MD, professor of medicine at Stanford, discusses this and other related discrepancies.
SH2 Domain Phosphotyrosine
SH2 domains typically bind a phosphorylated tyrosine residue in the context of a longer peptide motif within a target protein, and SH2 domains represent the largest class of known pTyr-recognition domains.
Phosphorylation of tyrosine residues in a protein occurs during signal transduction and is carried out by tyrosine kinases. In this way, phosphorylation of a substrate by tyrosine kinases acts as a switch to trigger binding to an SH2 domain-containing protein. The intimate relationship between tyrosine kinases and SH2 domains is supported by their coordinate emergence during eukaryotic evolution.
Phosphorylation of tyrosine residues in a protein occurs during signal transduction and is carried out by tyrosine kinases. In this way, phosphorylation of a substrate by tyrosine kinases acts as a switch to trigger binding to an SH2 domain-containing protein. The intimate relationship between tyrosine kinases and SH2 domains is supported by their coordinate emergence during eukaryotic evolution.
Beta Sheet
The β sheet (also β-pleated sheet) is the second form of regular secondary structure in proteins, only somewhat less common than alpha helix. Beta sheets consist of beta strands connected laterally by at least two or three backbone hydrogen bonds, forming a generally twisted, pleated sheet. A beta strand (also β strand) is a stretch of polypeptide chain typically 3 to 10 amino acids long with backbone in an almost fully extended conformation. The higher-level association of β sheets has been implicated in formation of the protein aggregates and fibrils observed in many human diseases, notably the amyloidoses such as Alzheimer's disease
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