Researchers at Yale University have discovered new chemical compounds that prevent HIV from replicating in human T-cells. These compounds could result in new, highly effective HIV treatments that are 10 to 2000 times more potent than HIV drugs now on the market.
“The current compounds or slight variants could become drugs,” said Professor William L. Jorgensen, one of two principal investigators behind the research. The other is Karen S. Anderson, a pharmacology professor at Yale School of Medicine. They reported their results online Nov. 15 in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry. (more…)
In the results of a new study, scientists explain how they used DNA to identify microbes present in the Gulf of Mexico following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill–and the particular microbes responsible for consuming natural gas immediately after the spill.
Water temperature played a key role in the way bacteria reacted to the spill, the researchers found. (more…)
Cell-penetrating peptides, such as the HIV TAT peptide, are able to enter cells using a number of mechanisms, from direct entry to endocytosis, a process by which cells internalize molecules by engulfing them.
Further, these cell-penetrating peptides, or CPPs, can facilitate the cellular transfer of various molecular cargoes, from small chemical molecules to nano-sized particles and large fragments of DNA. Because of this ability, CPPs hold great potential as in vitro and in vivo delivery vehicles for use in research and for the targeted delivery of therapeutics to individual cells. (more…)
*The genomes of 17 common strains of lab mice were sequenced to advance genetic studies of human diseases*
Scientists have sequenced the genomes (genetic codes) of 17 strains of common lab mice–an achievement that lays the groundwork for the identification of genes responsible for important traits, including diseases that afflict both mice and humans.
Mice represent the premier genetic model system for studying human diseases. What’s more, the 17 strains of mice included in this study are the most common strains used in lab studies of human diseases. By enabling scientists to list all DNA differences between the 17 strains, the new genome sequences will speed the identification of subsets of mutations and genes that contribute to disease. (more…)
UCLA life scientists and colleagues have produced one of the first high-resolution genetic maps for African American populations. A genetic map reveals the precise locations across the genome where DNA from a person’s father and mother have been stitched together through a biological process called “recombination.” This process results in new genetic combinations that are then passed on to the person’s children.
The new map will help disease geneticists working to map genetic diseases in African Americans because it provides a more accurate understanding of recombination rates among that population, said the senior author of the research, John Novembre, a UCLA assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and of bioinformatics. The map could help scientists learn the roots of these diseases and discover genes that play a key role in them. (more…)
*Molecular “machine” responsible for pulling chromosome copies apart is isolated and seen in action outside the cell*
The dance of cell division is carefully choreographed and has little room for error. Paired genetic information is lined up in the middle of the cell in the form of chromosomes. The chromosomes must then be carefully pulled apart so that the resulting daughter cells each have an identical copy of the mother cell’s DNA.(more…)
Mouse Stroke. An MRI of a mouse brain after stroke. The mouse section has been stained to show cell bodies. Image credit: University of California
A stroke wreaks havoc in the brain, destroying its cells and the connections between them. Depending on its severity and location, a stroke can impact someone’s life forever, affecting motor activity, speech, memories, and more.
The brain makes an attempt to rally by itself, sprouting a few new connections, called axons, that reconnect some areas of the brain. But the process is weak, and the older the brain, the poorer the repair. Still, understanding the cascade of molecular events that drive even this weak attempt could lead to developing drugs to boost and accelerate this healing process.
Now researchers at UCLA have achieved a promising first step. Reporting in the current online edition of the journal Nature Neuroscience, senior author Dr. S. Thomas Carmichael, a UCLA associate professor of neurology, and colleagues have, for the first time, identified in the mouse the molecular cascade that drives the process of reconnection or sprouting in the adult brain after stroke.(more…)
A model representation of telomerase's RNA "core domain," determined by Juli Feigon, Qi Zhang and colleagues in Feigon's UCLA laboratory. Image credit: Juli Feigon, UCLA Chemistry and Biochemistry/PNAS
Telomerase is an enzyme that maintains the DNA at the ends of our chromosomes, known as telomeres. In the absence of telomerase activity, every time our cells divide, our telomeres get shorter. This is part of the natural aging process, as most cells in the human body do not have much active telomerase. Eventually, these DNA-containing telomeres, which act as protective caps at the ends of chromosomes, become so short that the cells die.
But in some cells, such as cancer cells, telomerase, which is composed of RNA and proteins, is highly active and adds telomere DNA, preventing telomere shortening and extending the life of the cell.
UCLA biochemists have now produced a three-dimensional structural model of the RNA “core domain” of the telomerase enzyme. Because telomerase plays a surprisingly important role in cancer and aging, understanding its structure could lead to new approaches for treating disease, the researchers say.(more…)
