Membrane protein

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A membrane protein is a protein molecule that is attached to, or associated with the membrane of a cell or an organelle. More than half of all proteins interact with membranes.

Biological membranes consist of a phospholipid bilayer and a variety of proteins that accomplish vital biological functions. Structural proteins are attached to microfilaments in the cytoskeleton which ensures stability of the cell. Cell recognition proteins allow cells to identify each other and interact. Such proteins are involved in immune response, for example. Membrane enzymes produce a variety of substances essential for cell function. Membrane receptor proteins serve as connection between the cell's internal and external environments. Finally, transport proteins play an important role in the maintenance of concentrations of ions. These transport proteins come in two forms: carrier proteins and channel proteins. Carrier proteins are involved in using the energy released from ATP being broken down to facilitate active transport and ion exchange. These processes ensure that useful substances are able to enter the cell and that toxic substances are pumped out of the cell.

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News tagged with membrane proteins


Computational microscope peers into the working ribosome

Computational microscope peers into the working ribosome (w/ Video)

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Nov 23, 2009 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (9) | comments 2

Two new studies reveal in unprecedented detail how the ribosome interacts with other molecules to assemble new proteins and guide them toward their destination in biological cells. The studies used molecular ...


Control of blood clotting by platelets described; provides medical promise

Medicine & Health / Research

created Nov 24, 2009 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Cell fragments called platelets are essential to promote blood clotting. Virginia Tech faculty members and students have discovered novel molecular interactions at the surface of platelets that control blood clotting.





Search results for membrane proteins


Nervy research: Researchers take initial look at ion channels in a model system

Nervy research: Researchers take initial look at ion channels in a model system

Chemistry / Biochemistry

created Dec 02, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Before one of your muscles can twitch, before the thought telling it to flex can race down your nerve, a tiny floodgate of sorts -- called an ion channel -- must open in the surface of each cell in these organs ...


Clinical trials launched for treating most aggressive brain tumor with personalized cell vaccines

Medicine & Health / Cancer

created Nov 30, 2009 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

The University of Navarra Hospital (Spain) has launched a series of clinical trials in order to assess the efficacy of an immunotherapy treatment. This approach involves the application of personalised vaccines —produced ...


Scientists get up close to bacteria's toxic pumps

Scientists get up close to bacteria's toxic pumps

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Nov 30, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Scientists are building a clearer image of the machinery employed by bacteria to spread antibiotic resistance or cause diseases such as whooping cough, peptic stomach ulcers and legionnaires' disease.


Invention will help speed development of drug treatments for heart failure

Medicine & Health / Research

created Nov 23, 2009 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Research conducted by University of Minnesota scientists, in collaboration with Celladon Corporation, has led to the invention of technology to more rapidly identify compounds for the treatment of heart failure.


Measuring and modeling blood flow in malaria

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Nov 23, 2009 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

When people have malaria, they are infected with Plasmodium parasites, which enter the body from the saliva of a mosquito, infect cells in the liver, and then spread to red blood cells. Inside the blood cells, the parasites ...


Saving the single cysteine: new antioxidant system found (w/ Video)

Chemistry / Biochemistry

created Nov 19, 2009 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- We've all read studies about the health benefits of having a life partner. The same thing is true at the molecular level, where amino acids known as cysteines are much more vulnerable to damage when single ...


An atomic-level look at an HIV accomplice

Chemistry / Biochemistry

created Nov 19, 2009 | popularity 1 / 5 (1) | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- Since the discovery in 2007 that a component of human semen called SEVI boosts infectivity of the virus that causes AIDS, researchers have been trying to learn more about SEVI and how it works, in hopes of ...


Small nanoparticles bring big improvement to medical imaging

Small nanoparticles bring big improvement to medical imaging

Nanotechnology / Bio & Medicine

created Nov 18, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 0

If you're watching the complex processes in a living cell, it is easy to miss something important—especially if you are watching changes that take a long time to unfold and require high-spatial-resolution ...


New effort probes how two groups of viruses cause disease

New effort probes how two groups of viruses cause disease

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Nov 18, 2009 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- Purdue University is leading a team of researchers in a federally funded effort aimed ultimately at developing better vaccines and antiviral drugs against two types of disease-causing viruses ...


Imaging study shows HIV particles assembling around its genome

Medicine & Health / HIV & AIDS

created Nov 17, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- The genesis of one the planet's most lethal viruses, HIV, has been caught on tape. New imaging experiments show individual HIV genomes -- strands of RNA — docking on the inner membrane of an infected cell ...



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