
Researchers use multivalent gold nanoparticles to develop efficient molecular probe
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Cells play a precise game of telephone, sending messages to each other that trigger actions further on. With clear signaling, the cells achieve their goals. In disease, however, the signals break up and result in confused messaging and unintended consequences. To help parse out these signals and how they function in health -- and go awry in disease -- scientists tag proteins with labels they can follow as the proteins interact with the molecular world around them.
The covid-19 crisis has tested healthcare systems throughout the world. Access to vaccines against covid-19 has rendered the situation more stable by the day. However, we must and will have to continue mass population screening to detect positive cases and thus break possible virus transmission chains. Hence, we must investigate new techniques to reduce the time and cost of diagnostic tests to carry them out on a large scale in an accessible, efficient and economical manner.
Nanomaterials found in consumer and health-care products can pass from the bloodstream to the brain side of a blood-brain barrier model with varying ease depending on their shape - creating potential neurological impacts that could be both positive and negative, a new study reveals.
Neuroscientists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have demonstrated in new research that dopamine plays a key role in how songbirds learn complex new sounds.
Some three quarters of the biomass in hop plants used in beer-making ends up in landfills. But a group of Japanese researchers has developed a technique that 'upcycles' that waste hop into cellulose nanofibers (CNFs). A paper describing the technique was published in the journal ACS Agricultural Science & Technology on June 11, 2021.
The CRISPR-Cas9-based gene editing system has dramatically advanced the field of bioengineering. However, while fusing transcription activator or repressor to dCas9 protein allows targeted alteration of gene expression, the effect is short-term. Now, in a new study, scientists from the USA have developed a dCas9-based epigenetic editing tool that performs robust and long-term silencing of target genes.
UC San Diego studies using human cell lines and tumors grown in mice provide early evidence that inhibiting RNA-binding proteins, a previously overlooked family of molecules, might provide a new approach for treating some cancers.
Bacteria found in cow stomachs can be used to digest polyesters used in textiles, packaging, and compostable bags, according to a new study by the open access publisher Frontiers. Plastic is notoriously hard to break down, but microbial communities living inside the digestive system of animals are a promising but understudied source of novel enzymes that could do the trick. The new findings present a sustainable option for reducing plastic waste and litter, co-opting the great metabolic diversity of microbes.
Researchers have developed a more efficient platform for studying proteins that play a key role in regulating gene expression. The approach uses engineered yeast cells to produce enzyme and histone proteins, conduct biochemical assays internally, and then display the results.
A new technique called sci-Space, combined with data from other technologies, could lead to four-dimensional atlases of gene expression across diverse cells during embryonic development of mammals. Such atlases would map how the gene transcripts in individual cells reflect the passage of time, cell lineages, cell migration, and location on the developing embryo. They would also help illuminate the spatial regulation of gene expression.