heat shock protein – Shamskm: A site to exchange knowledge and solutions

UCLA Findings Buck Conventional Wisdom about How Stress-Response Protein Works

By Guest PostFebruary 11, 2013Health, Scienceage related, biomarker, cell stress, cell types, chaperones, class of molecules, clouding, conventional wisdom, environmental conditions, epithelial cells, eye institute, eye lens, fibroblast cells, gene, heart muscle degeneration, heat shock factor, heat shock factor4, heat shock protein, hsf1, hsf4, infection, inflammation, jules stein, macular degeneration, monitor for diseases, multiple sclerosis, stress response protein, toxins, transcription factors, ucla researchers, zhe jing, αb crystallin

UCLA researchers, in a finding that runs counter to conventional wisdom, have discovered for the first time that a gene thought to express a stress-response protein in all cells that come under stress instead expresses the protein only in specific cell types.

The research team, from the Jules Stein Eye Institute at UCLA and the UCLA Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, focused on αB-Crystallin, one of a class of molecules known as heat shock proteins, which are involved in the folding and unfolding of other proteins, helping them recover from stress so they can do their job. (more…)

UMass Amherst Biochemists Trap a Chaperone Machine in Action, Opening Pathway to Possible New Cancer Treatment

By Guest PostJanuary 2, 2013Scienceadp, amino acid chains, anastasia zhuravleva, atp, bacteria, cancer cell, chemical environments, cycle, dnak, drug target, e coli bacteria, Environment, eugenia clerico, folding of proteins, heat shock protein, holding pattern, hsp, hsp70, humans, key step, lila gierasch, massachusetts amherst, mechanism, molecular chaperones, molecular machine, nanofactories, neurodegenerative diseases, nmr methods, nuclear magnetic resonance, origami like, ribosomes, stress, uncontrolled growth, university

AMHERST, Mass. – Molecular chaperones have emerged as exciting new potential drug targets, because scientists want to learn how to stop cancer cells, for example, from using chaperones to enable their uncontrolled growth. Now a team of biochemists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst led by Lila Gierasch have deciphered key steps in the mechanism of the Hsp70 molecular machine by “trapping” this chaperone in action, providing a dynamic snapshot of its mechanism.

She and colleagues describe this work in the current issue of Cell. Gierasch’s research on Hsp70 chaperones is supported by a long-running grant to her lab from NIH’s National Institute for General Medical Sciences. (more…)

Tag Archives: heat shock protein

UCLA Findings Buck Conventional Wisdom about How Stress-Response Protein Works

UMass Amherst Biochemists Trap a Chaperone Machine in Action, Opening Pathway to Possible New Cancer Treatment