http://www.physorg.com/biology-news/microbiology/ en-us PhysOrg.com provides the latest news on microbiology and cell biology. Researchers at Emory University School of Medicine have determined the structures of two enzymes that customize histones, the spool-like proteins around which DNA coils inside the cell. http://www.physorg.com/news180530290.html Biology - Cell & Microbiology Sun, 20 Dec 2009 13:00:15 EST news180530290 (PhysOrg.com) -- There is no lack of worry this season over the flu, both the seasonal and H1N1 varieties, but there is a critical lack of understanding of the viruses that cause these illnesses. For years, scientists have recognized that interactions between the influenza virus and its human host - intricate dances involving the virus's genes and proteins and those in humans - are important in determining the course and severity of disease. But a deep, comprehensive knowledge of such host-virus interactions has been elusive. http://www.physorg.com/news180368422.html Biology - Cell & Microbiology Fri, 18 Dec 2009 14:42:36 EST news180368422 Researchers at Binghamton University, State University of New York, have identified three key regulators required for the formation and development of biofilms. The discovery could lead to new ways of treating chronic infections. http://www.physorg.com/news180369659.html Biology - Cell & Microbiology Fri, 18 Dec 2009 14:41:37 EST news180369659 In some ways a cell in your body or an organelle in that cell is like an ancient walled town. Life inside either depends critically on the intelligence of the gatekeepers. http://www.physorg.com/news180288888.html Biology - Cell & Microbiology Thu, 17 Dec 2009 17:00:17 EST news180288888 Scientists can gain insights into new ways to use microorganisms in medicine and manufacturing through a coordinated large-scale effort to sequence the genomes of not just individual microorganisms but entire ecosystems, according to a new report from the American Academy of Microbiology that outlines recommendations for this massive effort. http://www.physorg.com/news180290332.html Biology - Cell & Microbiology Thu, 17 Dec 2009 16:50:01 EST news180290332 For decades, science texts have told a simple and straightforward story about a particular protein -a transcription factor -that helps the embryo of the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, pattern tissues in a manner that depends on the levels of this factor within individual cells. http://www.physorg.com/news180283760.html Biology - Cell & Microbiology Thu, 17 Dec 2009 15:40:06 EST news180283760 Bacteria of the genus Salmonella cause most food-borne illnesses. The bacteria attach to cells of the intestinal wall and induce their own ingestion by cells of the intestinal epithelium. Up till now, researchers assumed that Salmonella have to induce the formation of distinctive membrane waves in order to invade these gut cells. Researchers from the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research in Braunschweig, Germany, now refuted this common doctrine. http://www.physorg.com/news180265995.html Biology - Cell & Microbiology Thu, 17 Dec 2009 10:10:09 EST news180265995 Our cells are more like us than we may think. They're sensitive to their environment, poking and prodding deliberately at their surroundings with hand-like feelers and chemical signals as they decide whether and where to move. Such caution serves us well but has vexed engineers who seek to create synthetic tissue, heart valves, implants and other devices that the human body will accept. http://www.physorg.com/news180202451.html Biology - Cell & Microbiology Wed, 16 Dec 2009 16:17:58 EST news180202451 Bacteria inhabited our planet for more than 4 billion years before humans showed up, and they'll probably outlive us by as many eons more. That suggests they may have something to teach us. http://www.physorg.com/news180182479.html Biology - Cell & Microbiology Wed, 16 Dec 2009 11:30:05 EST news180182479 Our cells' molecules form an intricate network of interactions. Today's techniques, however, can only be used to measure individual molecular reactions outside the cells. Since molecular concentrations are much higher in cells than in the laboratory, scientists suspect that the kinetics of molecular reactions in living cells differ substantially from external probes. http://www.physorg.com/news180181367.html Biology - Cell & Microbiology Wed, 16 Dec 2009 10:23:29 EST news180181367 Tissue-specific genes, thought to be dormant or not marked for activation in embryonic stem cells, are indeed marked by transcription factors, with proper marking potentially crucial for the function of tissues derived from stem cells. http://www.physorg.com/news180181077.html Biology - Cell & Microbiology Wed, 16 Dec 2009 10:19:05 EST news180181077 Scientists at the Carnegie Institution, with colleagues, have found that a plant steroid prompts two genes to battle each other -one suppresses the other to ensure that leaves grow normally in rice and the experimental plant Arabidopsis thaliana, a relative of mustard. The results, published in the December 15, 2009, issue of The Plant Cell, have important implications for understanding how to manipulate crop growth and yield. http://www.physorg.com/news180116701.html Biology - Cell & Microbiology Tue, 15 Dec 2009 16:40:05 EST news180116701 (PhysOrg.com) -- Bacteria dance the electric slide, officially named electrokinesis by the USC geobiologists who discovered the phenomenon. http://www.physorg.com/news180112213.html Biology - Cell & Microbiology Tue, 15 Dec 2009 16:00:01 EST news180112213 (PhysOrg.com) -- Most people need about two days to recover from being sickened by foods contaminated with what's known as staphylococcal enterotoxin A, or "SEA." Produced by Staphylococcus aureus bacteria, this toxin is a leading cause of foodborne illness in the United States and worldwide, according to Agricultural Research Service (ARS) research chemist Reuven Rasooly. http://www.physorg.com/news180108224.html Biology - Cell & Microbiology Tue, 15 Dec 2009 14:20:07 EST news180108224 (PhysOrg.com) -- For thousands of years, humans have bred pigs for desirable traits, such as more muscle and less fat in the meat. Domestication makes animals ideal models for studying how genes control physical traits because when humans selectively breed animals for the best physical features, they are also selecting for the genes controlling those traits. http://www.physorg.com/news180087491.html Biology - Cell & Microbiology Tue, 15 Dec 2009 08:40:02 EST news180087491 Reproductive researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia have succeeded in isolating and transplanting pure populations of the immature cells that enable male reproduction in two species -human spermatogonia and mouse gonocytes. These germline stem cells, taken from testis biopsies, demonstrated viability following transplantation to mouse testes within a controlled laboratory setting. http://www.physorg.com/news180082346.html Biology - Cell & Microbiology Tue, 15 Dec 2009 06:53:40 EST news180082346 A discovery by scientists at the University of East Anglia (UEA) could contribute to the development of systems that use domestic or agricultural waste to generate clean electricity. http://www.physorg.com/news180028197.html Biology - Cell & Microbiology Mon, 14 Dec 2009 16:40:01 EST news180028197 Imagine a huge spool of film containing thousands of sequences of random scenes. Without a talented editor, a screening would have no meaning. http://www.physorg.com/news180024852.html Biology - Cell & Microbiology Mon, 14 Dec 2009 14:54:56 EST news180024852 In all vertebrates, including humans, bones, muscles and tendons work together to give the skeleton its characteristic balance of stability and movement. Now, new research uncovers a previously unrecognized interaction between tendons, which connect muscles to bones, and the developing embryonic skeleton. This study, published by Cell Press in the December 15th issue of the journal Developmental Cell, demonstrates that tendons drive the development of specific bone features that are needed for a strong skeletal system. http://www.physorg.com/news180016606.html Biology - Cell & Microbiology Mon, 14 Dec 2009 12:50:01 EST news180016606 The most comprehensive study to date of the proteins in a species of salamander that can regrow appendages may provide important clues to how similar regeneration could be induced in humans. http://www.physorg.com/news180013294.html Biology - Cell & Microbiology Mon, 14 Dec 2009 12:20:13 EST news180013294 It's important to finish what you start, say Jeong-Sun Ju and researchers from Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis. In the December 14, 2009 issue of the Journal of Cell Biology, Ju et al. reveal how a mutant ATPase blocks autophagy partway through to cause a multi-tissue degenerative disease. http://www.physorg.com/news180013508.html Biology - Cell & Microbiology Mon, 14 Dec 2009 11:45:42 EST news180013508 Biologists have identified plant enzymes that may help to engineer plants that take advantage of elevated carbon dioxide to use water more efficiently. The finding could help to engineer crops that take advantage of rising greenhouse gases. http://www.physorg.com/news179932670.html Biology - Cell & Microbiology Sun, 13 Dec 2009 13:18:38 EST news179932670 (PhysOrg.com) -- While most school children understand that green plants photosynthesize, absorb carbon dioxide and produce oxygen, few people consider the profound global-scale effects that photosynthesis has had on Earth. One of those actively shedding light on the origins and evolution of photosynthesis is Jeffrey Touchman, assistant professor in Arizona State University's School of Life Sciences. http://www.physorg.com/news179776706.html Biology - Cell & Microbiology Fri, 11 Dec 2009 18:10:02 EST news179776706 (PhysOrg.com) -- Bacteria use all sorts of cunning to trick hosts into doing their bidding. One con in their bag of tricks: the molecular mimic. In this ruse, bacteria or their agents look for all purposes like some native molecule in a cell, but then do not behave accordingly. Working with H. pylori, the bacterium responsible for gastric ulcers and cancer, researchers have revealed one way bacteria pull this off, deciphering the structure of a piece of CagA, a bacterial protein that impersonates a human protein in order to disable a key enzyme. http://www.physorg.com/news179759608.html Biology - Cell & Microbiology Fri, 11 Dec 2009 13:14:12 EST news179759608 When given the chance to consume alcohol at will, fruit flies behave in ways that look an awful lot like human alcoholism. That's according to a study published online on December 10th in Current Biology that is one of the first to consider alcohol self-administration in the insects. http://www.physorg.com/news179674844.html Biology - Cell & Microbiology Thu, 10 Dec 2009 13:50:02 EST news179674844 Understanding the incredibly speedy atomic mechanisms at work when a protein transitions from one shape to another has been an elusive scientific goal for years, but an essential one for elucidating the full panoply of protein function. How do proteins transition, or interconvert, between distinct shapes without unfolding in the process? Until now, this question has been a hypothetical one, approached by computation only rather than experimentation. http://www.physorg.com/news179673102.html Biology - Cell & Microbiology Thu, 10 Dec 2009 13:30:02 EST news179673102 MIT and Boston University researchers have discovered that the drug hydroxyurea kills bacteria by inducing them to produce molecules toxic to themselves - a conclusion that raises the possibility of finding new antibiotics that use similar mechanisms. http://www.physorg.com/news179674100.html Biology - Cell & Microbiology Thu, 10 Dec 2009 13:29:28 EST news179674100 Proteins, which perform such vital roles in our bodies as building and maintaining tissues and regulating cellular processes, are a finicky lot. In order to work properly, they must be folded just so, yet many proteins readily collapse into useless tangles when exposed to temperatures just a few degrees above normal body temperature. http://www.physorg.com/news179672989.html Biology - Cell & Microbiology Thu, 10 Dec 2009 13:10:52 EST news179672989 The sequences of nonsense DNA that interrupt genes could be far more important to the evolution of genomes than previously thought, according to a recent Science report by Indiana University Bloomington and University of New Hampshire biologists. http://www.physorg.com/news179664799.html Biology - Cell & Microbiology Thu, 10 Dec 2009 10:54:30 EST news179664799 December 9, 2009 -Even small errors made by cells during protein production can have profound disease effects, and nature has developed ways to uncover these mistakes and correct them. Though in the case of one essential protein building block -the amino acid alanine -nature has been extra careful, developing not one, but two checkpoints in her effort to make sure that this component is used correctly. http://www.physorg.com/news179598698.html Biology - Cell & Microbiology Wed, 09 Dec 2009 17:10:01 EST news179598698