Daily non-political popular news in brief.

Minuscule molecules pack a powerful punch

04-26-2007 · EurekAlert!

A role for a microRNA in the immune system has been shown by study of one of the world's first microRNA knockout mouse, reported Friday, April 27, in Science. The microRNA acts as a lynchpin to balance the response of immune defences and the researchers suggest the corresponding human gene will have a similar vital role.

Keywords: minuscule, molecules, pack, powerful, punch, molecule

« Previous | Next »

Similar news on "Minuscule molecules pack a powerful punch":

Advance in understanding of blood pressure gene could lead to new treatments
02-04-2007 · EurekAlert!
Research by scientists at UCL (University College London) has clearly demonstrated for the first time the structure and function of a gene crucial to the regulation of blood pressure. The discovery could be important in the search for new treatments for illnesses such as heart disease, the UK's biggest killer. In a paper published online today in Nature Medicine, the team, led by Professor Patrick Vallance and Dr James Leiper, UCL Department of Medicine, reveal the role of the human gene dimethylarginine dimethylaminohydrolase (DDAH), showing that loss of DDAH activity disrupts nitric oxide (NO) production. NO is critical in the regulation of blood pressure, nervous system functions and the immune system. The role of DDAH is to break down modified amino acids (Asymmetric dimethylarginine (ADMA) and monomethyl arginine (L-NMMA)) that are produced by the body and have been shown to inhibit NO synthase. These molecules accumulate in various disease states including diabetes, renal failure and pulmonary and systemic hypertension, and their concentration in plasma (the fluid component of blood) is strongly predicative of cardiovascular disease and death. In a healthy human body, the majority of ADMA is eliminated through active metabolism by DDAH. Scientists have hypothesised that if DDAH function is impaired, NO production is reduced, and that this could be an important feature of increased cardiovascular risk. To examine this pathway in more detail, the researchers deleted the DDAH gene in mice. These mice went on to develop hypertension, or high blood pressure. They also designed specific inhibitors (small molecules) which bind to the active site of human DDAH. These small molecule inhibitors also induced hypertension in mice, confirming the importance of DDAH in the regulation of blood pressure. Dr Leiper, UCL Medicine, said: “These genetic and chemical approaches to disrupt DDAH showed remarkably consistent results, and provide compelling evidence that loss of DDAH function increases the concentration of ADMA and thereby disrupts vascular NO signalling. “There has been considerable scientific interest in this pathway and the role of ADMA as a novel risk factor, but so far there's been little evidence to support the idea that it's a cause of disease, rather than just a marker. Genes and their pathways are crucial to our understanding of cardiovascular disease and a better understanding of DDAH-1 could lead to important new treatments. “It could help us to establish if genetic variation predisposes certain people to these diseases, or whether environmental factors exert some of their effects through modulation of DDAH activity. “Our research also shows that this pathway could be harnessed therapeutically to limit production of NO in certain situations where too much nitric oxide is a bad thing; for example, hypotension and septic shock. These are some of the biggest problems in intensive care medicine and there is a huge unmet need for drug treatments.” The study, which was carried out at UCL's Rayne Institute, was funded by grants from the British Heart Foundation, the Wellcome Trust and the Medical Research Council. Professor Jeremy Pearson, Associate Medical Director of the British Heart Foundation, said: "The unexpected finding in the 1980s that a simple gas, nitric oxide (NO), is made by cells in the blood vessel wall and is a powerful control of blood vessel relaxation led to the award of the Nobel Prize in 1998 to its discoverers. "More recently, there has been increasing evidence that impairment of NO production is likely to be an important factor in the development of heart and circulatory disease, but the mechanisms responsible are not fully understood. "This study suggests for the first time that the loss of the activity of the enzyme DDAH-1 leads to reduced NO production and may cause heart and circulatory disease. These findings are likely to be important in the search for new ways to optimise the health of our blood vessels." ### Notes for Editors 1. For more information, please contact Ruth Metcalfe in the UCL Media Relations Office on tel: +44 (0)20 7679 9739, mobile: +44 (0)7990 675 947, out of hours: +44 (0)7917 271 364, e-mail: r.metcalfe@ucl.ac.uk2. 'Disruption of methylarginine metabolism impairs vascular homeostasis' is published in the February issue of the journal Nature Medicine. Advance online publication is embargoed to 18.00 GMT (13.00 US Eastern) Sunday 4 February 2007. Journalists can obtain copies of the paper by contacting the UCL Media Relations Office.3. The study was funded by the British Heart Foundation, the Wellcome Trust and the Medical Research Council. About UCL Founded in 1826, UCL was the first English university established after Oxford and Cambridge, the first to admit students regardless of race, class, religion or gender, and the first to provide systematic teaching of law, architecture and medicine. In the government's most recent Research Assessment Exercise, 59 UCL departments achieved top ratings of 5* and 5, indicating research quality of international excellence. UCL is the fourth-ranked UK university in the 2006 league table of the top 500 world universities produced by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University. UCL alumni include Mahatma Gandhi (Laws 1889, Indian political and spiritual leader); Jonathan Dimbleby (Philosophy 1969, writer and television presenter); Junichiro Koizumi (Economics 1969, Prime Minister of Japan); Lord Woolf (Laws 1954, Lord Chief Justice of England & Wales); Alexander Graham Bell (Phonetics 1860s, inventor of the telephone), and members of the band Coldplay.
Similar news · Read more »
Botched production of insulin molecule may lead to diabetes
10-01-2007 · EurekAlert!
A glitch in the production and folding of molecules deep within the insulin-producing cells of the pancreas may be responsible for the death of those cells and the onset of diabetes, new animal research suggests.
Similar news · Read more »
Scientists genetically engineer tomatoes with enhanced folate content
03-06-2007 · EurekAlert!
Leafy greens and beans aren't the only foods that pack a punch of folate, the vitamin essential for a healthy start to pregnancy.
Similar news · Read more »
Technique monitors thousands of molecules simultaneously
05-02-2007 · EurekAlert!
A chemist at Washington University in St. Louis is making molecules the new-fashioned way -- selectively harnessing thousands of minuscule electrodes on a tiny computer chip that do chemical reactions and yield molecules that bind to receptor sites. Kevin Moeller, Ph.D., Washington University professor of chemistry in Arts & Sciences, is doing this so that the electrodes on the chip can be used to monitor the biological behavior of up to 12,000 molecules at the same time.
Similar news · Read more »
Clemson scientists shed light on molecules in living cells
08-21-2007 · EurekAlert!
Clemson University chemists have developed a method to dramatically improve the longevity of fluorescent nanoparticles that may someday help researchers track the motion of a single molecule as it travels through a living cell. The chemists are exploiting a process called "resonance energy transfer."
Similar news · Read more »
Using musical chords to analyze and illustrate hydrogen molecule's response to laser pulses
01-31-2008 · EurekAlert!
For Kansas State University physics professor Uwe Thumm, confirmation of a theory about the behavior of small molecules became music to his ears -- literally. He and colleagues in Heidelberg, Germany, have shown how a hydrogen molecule responds to laser pulses by using the changing musical chord created by the molecule's vibrational motion.
Similar news · Read more »
Loss of a universal tRNA feature reported
02-07-2007 · EurekAlert!
Scientists at the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute (VBI) report that two alphaproteobacteria lack the universal extra guanylate nucleotide typically found in the transfer RNA molecule tRNAHis. tRNAs are the molecules responsible for decoding sequence information specified by messenger RNA molecules, information which is ultimately encoded by the DNA template.
Similar news · Read more »
Selecting life: Scientists find new way to search for origin of life
11-09-2006 · EurekAlert!
Over the last half century, researchers have found that mineral surfaces may have played critical roles activating molecules that would become essential ingredients to life. Identifying which biomolecule/ mineral surface pairs, however, has stumped scientists for years because of countless possible combinations. Now a team of researchers, led by Robert Hazen of the Carnegie Institution's Geophysical Laboratory, has developed new protocols and procedures for adapting DNA microarray technology to rapidly identify promising molecule/mineral pairs.
Similar news · Read more »
Biting discovery: MU entomologist finds host of new aquatic insect species in Thailand
05-22-2007 · EurekAlert!
While in Thailand, a University of Missouri-Columbia researcher found a treasure-trove of previously unknown information about aquatic insects in the country. In the process, he learned firsthand that a few of these little critters pack quite a punch when they bite.
Similar news · Read more »
Rice scientists make breakthrough in single-molecule sensing
02-06-2008 · EurekAlert!
In a study that could lay the foundation for mass-produced single-molecule sensors, physicists and engineers at Rice University have demonstrated a means of simultaneously making optical and electronic measurements of the same molecule. While scientists have used electronic and optical instruments to measure single molecules before, Rice's system is the first that allows both simultaneously -- a process known as "multimodal" sensing -- on a single small molecule. The results appear in Nano Letters.
Similar news · Read more »