All posts; Tags Include "Molecular Biology"
- September 2, 2010
- 12:08 PM
- 9 views
Diabetes drug may protect against cancer
by Sally Church in Pharma Strategy Blog
Yesterday, I covered some of the key pathways and kinases associated with cell energy metabolism, LKB1 and AMPK. These, together with Insulin-like Growth Factor-I (IGF-I) and the insulin receptor (IR), appear to play important roles in the broader regulation of...... Read more »
Douglas JB, Silverman DT, Pollak MN, Tao Y, Soliman AS, & Stolzenberg-Solomon RZ. (2010) Serum IGF-I, IGF-II, IGFBP-3, and IGF-I/IGFBP-3 Molar Ratio and Risk of Pancreatic Cancer in the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian Cancer Screening Trial. Cancer epidemiology, biomarkers . PMID: 20699371
Tao Y, Pinzi V, Bourhis J, & Deutsch E. (2007) Mechanisms of disease: signaling of the insulin-like growth factor 1 receptor pathway--therapeutic perspectives in cancer. Nature clinical practice. Oncology, 4(10), 591-602. PMID: 17898809
Chitnis MM, Yuen JS, Protheroe AS, Pollak M, & Macaulay VM. (2008) The type 1 insulin-like growth factor receptor pathway. Clinical cancer research : an official journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, 14(20), 6364-70. PMID: 18927274
- September 1, 2010
- 02:27 PM
- 33 views
LKB1 is a master kinase in cancer
by Sally Church in Pharma Strategy Blog
"LKB1 is a master kinase" What a great subheader in a paper last year by Reuben Shaw (journal link below). Liver kinase B1 (LKB1) first got my attention at the AACR lung cancer meeting in San Diego earlier this year,...... Read more »
Shaw RJ. (2009) LKB1 and AMP-activated protein kinase control of mTOR signalling and growth. Acta physiologica (Oxford, England), 196(1), 65-80. PMID: 19245654
Shackelford DB, & Shaw RJ. (2009) The LKB1-AMPK pathway: metabolism and growth control in tumour suppression. Nature reviews. Cancer, 9(8), 563-75. PMID: 19629071
- September 1, 2010
- 09:51 AM
- 26 views
Millipedes and mites do not cospeciate. But do they coevolve?
by Timothée Poisot in Timothée Poisot
Coevolution is a really cool evolutionary process in which a genetically driven change in the phenotype of one species is responsible for a change in the evolutionary pressures on a second species. The term was coined in the 1960s, and the concept (formalized by Janzen in 1980) is receiving an increasing interest ever since. One [...]... Read more »
James W Demastes, & Mark Hafner. (1993) Cospeciation of Pocket Gophers (Geomys) and Their Chewing Lice (Geomydoecus) . Journal of Mammalogy, 74(3). DOI: 10.2307/1382271
Yves Desdevises, Serge Morand, Olivier Jousson, & Pierre Legendre. (2002) Coevolution between Lamellodiscus (Monogenea: Diplectanidae) and Sparidae (Teleostei): The Study Of a Complex Host-Parasite System. Evolution, 14(12). DOI: 10.1111/j.0014-3820.2002.tb00171.x
Janzen, Daniel H. (1980) When is it Coevolution?. Evolution, 34(3). DOI: 10.2307/2408229
Strauss SY, Sahli H, & Conner JK. (2005) Toward a more trait-centered approach to diffuse (co)evolution. The New phytologist, 165(1), 81-89. PMID: 15720623
Lynn Swafford, & Jason E Bond. (2010) Failure to cospeciate: an unsorted tale of millipedes and mites. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society. info:/10.1111/j.1095-8312.2010.01499.x
John N Thompson. (2010) Four Central Points About Coevolution. Evolution: Education and Outreach, 57(1). DOI: 10.1007/s12052-009-0200-x
- September 1, 2010
- 08:37 AM
- 28 views
Dispersants! Part III: Do dispersants really promote degradation of oil?
by Holly Bik in Deep Sea News
Promoting microbial degradation of oil has been one of the main arguments in favor of dispersant use. Interestingly, the PWSRCAC review (covering literature from 1997-2008) did not identify any recent study that explicitly found dispersant use enhancing the biodegradation of oil. Actually, ~50% of studies found that chemical additives inhibited microbial degradation and the other half . . . → Read More: Dispersants! Part III: Do dispersants really promote degradation of oil?... Read more »
Venosa AD, & Holder EL. (2007) Biodegradability of dispersed crude oil at two different temperatures. Marine pollution bulletin, 54(5), 545-53. PMID: 17316707
Yoshida A, Nomura H, Toyoda K, Nishino T, Seo Y, Yamada M, Nishimura M, Wada M, Okamoto K, Shibata A.... (2006) Microbial responses using denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis to oil and chemical dispersant in enclosed ecosystems. Marine pollution bulletin, 52(1), 89-95. PMID: 16202430
- August 31, 2010
- 02:09 PM
- 44 views
Getting OMPs to the membrane - SGM series
This is the first post of my SGM conference series: I'm going to try and write about seven topics from the Society for General Microbiology September conference over the course of two weeks. The first topic I'm looking at is Protein Folding and Misfolding which consisted of thirteen presentations covering various aspects of protein folding in bacteria, fungi and yeast. As a quick background: when proteins are synthesized they are constructed as long chains of amino-acids which then need to fold........ Read more »
Knowles TJ, Scott-Tucker A, Overduin M, & Henderson IR. (2009) Membrane protein architects: the role of the BAM complex in outer membrane protein assembly. Nature reviews. Microbiology, 7(3), 206-14. PMID: 19182809
Johnson, A., & Jensen, R. (2004) Barreling through the membrane. Nature Structural , 11(2), 113-114. DOI: 10.1038/nsmb0204-113
- August 31, 2010
- 10:34 AM
- 22 views
What causes resistance to BRAF inhibition in melanoma?
by Sally Church in Pharma Strategy Blog
Last week there was lot of excitement and interest surrounding the blog post on Roche/Plexxikon's data on PLX4032 in metastatic melanoma published in the New England Journal of Medicine. A number of the discussions on Twitter and email centred around...... Read more »
Dibb, N., Dilworth, S., & Mol, C. (2004) Opinion: Switching on kinases: oncogenic activation of BRAF and the PDGFR family. Nature Reviews Cancer, 4(9), 718-727. DOI: 10.1038/nrc1434
Shao, Y., & Aplin, A. (2010) Akt3-Mediated Resistance to Apoptosis in B-RAF-Targeted Melanoma Cells. Cancer Research, 70(16), 6670-6681. DOI: 10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-09-4471
Crouthamel, M., Kahana, J., Korenchuk, S., Zhang, S., Sundaresan, G., Eberwein, D., Brown, K., & Kumar, R. (2009) Mechanism and Management of AKT Inhibitor-Induced Hyperglycemia. Clinical Cancer Research, 15(1), 217-225. DOI: 10.1158/1078-0432.CCR-08-1253
- August 29, 2010
- 11:32 PM
- 36 views
Does the NHI/FDA Paper Confirm XMRV in CFS? Well, Ditch the MR and Scratch the X… and… you’ve got MLV.
by Laika in Laika's Medliblog
The long awaited paper that would ‘solve’ the controversies about the presence of Xenotropic Murine Leukemia Virus-related virus (XMRV) in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) was finally published in PNAS last week [1]. The study, a joint effort of the NIH and the FDA, was withheld, on request of the authors [2], because it contradicted [...]... Read more »
Lo SC, Pripuzova N, Li B, Komaroff AL, Hung GC, Wang R, & Alter HJ. (2010) Detection of MLV-related virus gene sequences in blood of patients with chronic fatigue syndrome and healthy blood donors. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. PMID: 20798047
Erlwein, O., Kaye, S., McClure, M., Weber, J., Wills, G., Collier, D., Wessely, S., & Cleare, A. (2010) Failure to Detect the Novel Retrovirus XMRV in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. PLoS ONE, 5(1). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0008519
Groom, H., Boucherit, V., Makinson, K., Randal, E., Baptista, S., Hagan, S., Gow, J., Mattes, F., Breuer, J., Kerr, J.... (2010) Absence of xenotropic murine leukaemia virus-related virus in UK patients with chronic fatigue syndrome. Retrovirology, 7(1), 10. DOI: 10.1186/1742-4690-7-10
van Kuppeveld, F., Jong, A., Lanke, K., Verhaegh, G., Melchers, W., Swanink, C., Bleijenberg, G., Netea, M., Galama, J., & van der Meer, J. (2010) Prevalence of xenotropic murine leukaemia virus-related virus in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome in the Netherlands: retrospective analysis of samples from an established cohort. BMJ, 340(feb25 1). DOI: 10.1136/bmj.c1018
McClure, M., & Wessely, S. (2010) Chronic fatigue syndrome and human retrovirus XMRV. BMJ, 340(feb25 1). DOI: 10.1136/bmj.c1099
Lombardi VC, Ruscetti FW, Das Gupta J, Pfost MA, Hagen KS, Peterson DL, Ruscetti SK, Bagni RK, Petrow-Sadowski C, Gold B.... (2009) Detection of an infectious retrovirus, XMRV, in blood cells of patients with chronic fatigue syndrome. Science (New York, N.Y.), 326(5952), 585-9. PMID: 19815723
Enserink M. (2010) Chronic fatigue syndrome. New XMRV paper looks good, skeptics admit--yet doubts linger. Science (New York, N.Y.), 329(5995), 1000. PMID: 20798285
- August 27, 2010
- 10:00 AM
- 56 views
Stop Targeting Lasers on My Chromosomes!
by Sara Klink in Promega Connections
The phases of the cell cycle, particularly that of mitosis, were taught in college as part of my studies in biology. The cell cycle is a fundamental process for all organisms and constantly happens within our bodies. While cells generally spend most of the time in interphase, many scientists focus on what happens as the [...]... Read more »
Baker, N., Zeitlin, S., Shi, L., Shah, J., & Berns, M. (2010) Chromosome Tips Damaged in Anaphase Inhibit Cytokinesis. PLoS ONE, 5(8). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0012398
- August 26, 2010
- 05:47 PM
- 40 views
Defining the link between enterotoxin production and sporulation in C. perfringens
by epibio in EpiCentral
The second most common cause of bacterial foodborne illness is Clostridium perfringens type A. These isolates produce an enterotoxin (CPE), and an estimated 250,000 cases of resultant food poisoning occur annually in the U.S. Forty years ago, it was postulated that sporulation and enterotoxin production were linked and, in fact, C. perfringens type A isolates only produce CPE during sporulation.
Four sigma factors mediate sporulation in C. perfringens; however, the exact roles of two of them (........ Read more »
Li, J. and McClane, B. (2010) Evaluating the Involvement of Alternative Sigma Factors SigF and SigG in Clostridium perfringens Sporulation and Enterotoxin Synthesis. Infect. Immun. info:/10.1128/IAI.00528-10
- August 26, 2010
- 04:55 PM
- 47 views
Galaxy, a stride towards reproducible computational research
Galaxy started out as a very useful tool to do genomics research that was reproducible and sharable. One of my pet peeves in reading research papers that use genomic analysis or online genomics resources is the materials and methods sections. Often the methods and parameters used are mentioned only in a very cursory manner, if [...]... Read more »
Goecks, J., Nekrutenko, A., Taylor, J., & Galaxy Team, T. (2010) Galaxy: a comprehensive approach for supporting accessible, reproducible, and transparent computational research in the life sciences. Genome Biology, 11(8). DOI: 10.1186/gb-2010-11-8-r86
- August 26, 2010
- 01:52 PM
- 39 views
Trojan horse predators
A while ago, Angry by Choice wrote a post about a fungi that kills it's nematode prey by making little lasso ropes to catch the worm in. At the time, I thought there must be some exciting way that bacteria could cause wormy destruction, but it wasn't I read a paper from Lucas (reference below) that I actually found one.It's not as visually exciting as the little fungi nooses, but it's just as chemically exciting. As bacteria are not capable of forming phyiscal structures to capture a worm, they........ Read more »
Niu Q, Huang X, Zhang L, Xu J, Yang D, Wei K, Niu X, An Z, Bennett JW, Zou C.... (2010) A Trojan horse mechanism of bacterial pathogenesis against nematodes. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. PMID: 20733068
- August 26, 2010
- 09:23 AM
- 38 views
New potential targets in ovarian cancer?
by Sally Church in Pharma Strategy Blog
Treatment for ovarian cancer hasn't changed much in the last ten years, reflecting the lack of biomarkers and biochemical targets for the disease. Chemotherapy with a platinum (carboplatin or cisplatin) and a taxane (paclitaxel or docetaxel) has therefore formed the...... Read more »
Ahmed, A., Lu, Z., Jennings, N., Etemadmoghadam, D., Capalbo, L., Jacamo, R., Barbosa-Morais, N., Le, X., Vivas-Mejia, P., & Lopez-Berestein, G. (2010) SIK2 Is a Centrosome Kinase Required for Bipolar Mitotic Spindle Formation that Provides a Potential Target for Therapy in Ovarian Cancer. Cancer Cell, 18(2), 109-121. DOI: 10.1016/j.ccr.2010.06.018
Lu, C., Han, H., Mangala, L., Ali-Fehmi, R., Newton, C., Ozbun, L., Armaiz-Pena, G., Hu, W., Stone, R., & Munkarah, A. (2010) Regulation of Tumor Angiogenesis by EZH2. Cancer Cell, 18(2), 185-197. DOI: 10.1016/j.ccr.2010.06.016
- August 25, 2010
- 06:07 PM
- 48 views
Inhibition of mutated, activated BRAF in metastatic melanoma
by Sally Church in Pharma Strategy Blog
Hot on the heels of last week's New England Journal of Medicine article on ipilimumab (BMS) comes another article on metastatic melanoma, this time from Keith Flaherty's group in Pennsylvania and Boston on BRAF inhibition with PLX4032, an exciting compound...... Read more »
Flaherty, K., Puzanov, I., Kim, K., Ribas, A., McArthur, G., Sosman, J., O'Dwyer, P., Lee, R., Grippo, J., Nolop, K.... (2010) Inhibition of Mutated, Activated BRAF in Metastatic Melanoma. New England Journal of Medicine, 363(9), 809-819. DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa1002011
Heidorn, S., Milagre, C., Whittaker, S., Nourry, A., Niculescu-Duvas, I., Dhomen, N., Hussain, J., Reis-Filho, J., Springer, C., & Pritchard, C. (2010) Kinase-Dead BRAF and Oncogenic RAS Cooperate to Drive Tumor Progression through CRAF. Cell, 140(2), 209-221. DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2009.12.040
Poulikakos PI, Zhang C, Bollag G, Shokat KM, & Rosen N. (2010) RAF inhibitors transactivate RAF dimers and ERK signalling in cells with wild-type BRAF. Nature, 464(7287), 427-30. PMID: 20179705
Hatzivassiliou, G., Song, K., Yen, I., Brandhuber, B., Anderson, D., Alvarado, R., Ludlam, M., Stokoe, D., Gloor, S., Vigers, G.... (2010) RAF inhibitors prime wild-type RAF to activate the MAPK pathway and enhance growth. Nature, 464(7287), 431-435. DOI: 10.1038/nature08833
- August 25, 2010
- 12:05 PM
- 36 views
NOTCH signaling and brain cancer
by Sally Church in Pharma Strategy Blog
At the annual American Association of Cancer Research (AACR) annual meeting earlier this year, Prof Bert Vogelstein presented a fascinating lecture on the critical cancer pathways and how targeting the aberrant signalling may potentially lead to new breakthroughs in treatment....... Read more »
Gilbert, C., Daou, M., Moser, R., & Ross, A. (2010) -Secretase Inhibitors Enhance Temozolomide Treatment of Human Gliomas by Inhibiting Neurosphere Repopulation and Xenograft Recurrence. Cancer Research. DOI: 10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-10-1378
Cook, K., & Figg, W. (2010) Angiogenesis Inhibitors: Current Strategies and Future Prospects. CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, 60(4), 222-243. DOI: 10.3322/caac.20075
- August 25, 2010
- 08:15 AM
- 52 views
Bacterial Fingerprinting: A Microbial Future on CSI?
by agoldstein in Beyond the Bench
In 1915, detectives dusted for physical fingerprints. In 1990, they started using PCR (polymerase chain reaction) to extract DNA fingerprints from bits of hair and skin. In 2020, scientists might be identifying culprits with a whole new type of fingerprint: a bacterial fingerprint.... Read more »
Fierer, N., Lauber, C., Zhou, N., McDonald, D., Costello, E., & Knight, R. (2010) From the Cover: Forensic identification using skin bacterial communities. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107(14), 6477-6481. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1000162107
Tucker JB, & Koblentz GD. (2009) The four faces of microbial forensics. Biosecurity and bioterrorism : biodefense strategy, practice, and science, 7(4), 389-97. PMID: 20028247
- August 24, 2010
- 06:09 AM
- 43 views
Coiling bacterial DNA
by Grant Jacobs in Code for life
A chain of proteins hold bacterial DNA in a compacted spiral.
You and I are eukaryotes. Our cells have nuclei, repositories that contain our DNA and the proteins that read them to produce an RNA copy of them.
In earlier articles, I’ve mentioned in passing how the enormous length of DNA in our cells is fitted into [...]... Read more »
Arold, S., Leonard, P., Parkinson, G., & Ladbury, J. (2010) H-NS forms a superhelical protein scaffold for DNA condensation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1006966107
Dame, R., Luijsterburg, M., Krin, E., Bertin, P., Wagner, R., & Wuite, G. (2005) DNA Bridging: a Property Shared among H-NS-Like Proteins. Journal of Bacteriology, 187(5), 1845-1848. DOI: 10.1128/JB.187.5.1845-1848.2005
Thanbichler, M., Wang, S., & Shapiro, L. (2005) The bacterial nucleoid: A highly organized and dynamic structure. Journal of Cellular Biochemistry, 96(3), 506-521. DOI: 10.1002/jcb.20519
- August 23, 2010
- 10:10 AM
- 35 views
Nanoparticle drug delivery helps reduce tumour metastasis
by Sally Church in Pharma Strategy Blog
Nanotechnology is a topic that fascinates me, ever since hearing some interesting data in pancreatic cancer at the American Association of Cancer Research (AACR) meeting last November on Molecular Targets in Boston. Someone kindly sent me a paper from PNAS...... Read more »
Murphy, E., Majeti, B., Barnes, L., Makale, M., Weis, S., Lutu-Fuga, K., Wrasidlo, W., & Cheresh, D. (2008) From the Cover: Nanoparticle-mediated drug delivery to tumor vasculature suppresses metastasis. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105(27), 9343-9348. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0803728105
Gasparini G, Brooks PC, Biganzoli E, Vermeulen PB, Bonoldi E, Dirix LY, Ranieri G, Miceli R, & Cheresh DA. (1998) Vascular integrin alpha(v)beta3: a new prognostic indicator in breast cancer. Clinical cancer research : an official journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, 4(11), 2625-34. PMID: 9829725
- August 22, 2010
- 02:31 PM
- 48 views
Nanofibre paint that kills MRSA
MRSA, the antibiotic resistant form of Staphylococcus aureus is a major problem in hospitals. The antibiotic resistance makes it hard to erradicate, not just from patients, but in the surounding environment, on surfaces, on medical equipment, on the walls of the hospital. In order to minimise the numbers of dangerous bacteria found in hospital surroundings, quite a lot of research has gone into creating antibacterial coverings or coatings that would reduce the number of bacteria p. Currently how........ Read more »
Pangule RC, Brooks SJ, Dinu CZ, Bale SS, Salmon SL, Zhu G, Metzger DW, Kane RS, & Dordick JS. (2010) Antistaphylococcal nanocomposite films based on enzyme-nanotube conjugates. ACS nano, 4(7), 3993-4000. PMID: 20604574
- August 20, 2010
- 06:56 AM
- 57 views
It’s a Rich Man’s World-Or Is It?
by Isobel in Promega Connections
We all know that “Money Can’t Buy You Love” or make you happy. Now comes a piece of research suggesting that having money (or even just looking at money) can actually make normal everyday pleasures less enjoyable. Even worse, this bad feeling can’t be cured by having a piece of chocolate. In the study “Money [...]... Read more »
Quoidbach J, Dunn EW, Petrides KV, & Mikolajczak M. (2010) Money giveth, money taketh away: the dual effect of wealth on happiness. Psychological science : a journal of the American Psychological Society / APS, 21(6), 759-63. PMID: 20483819
- August 18, 2010
- 09:20 PM
- 55 views
PAINTing Individual Protein Molecules in Neural Synapses
by Michael Long in Phased
Laurent Cognet (Universite de Bordeaux, France) and coworkers have used PAINT microscopy to track tens of thousands of protein binding events in cell membranes within a few minutes, extremely useful for unraveling secrets of cell membrane physiology. This news feature was written on August 18, 2010.... Read more »
Giannone, G., Hosy, E., Levet, F., Constals, A., Schulze, K., Sobolevsky, A. I., Rosconi, M. P., Gouaux, E., Tampé, R., & Choquet, D. (2010) Dynamic Superresolution Imaging of Endogenous Proteins on Living Cells at Ultra-High Density. Biophysical Journal, 99(4), 1303-1310. DOI: 10.1016/j.bpj.2010.06.005
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