Tanpaku News Watch (TPRP)

Resolving Confusion about Resveratrol

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0900

Researchers showed that the red wine compound resveratrol increases levels of cyclic AMP, one of the first molecule produced when cells are low on energy, by blocking phosphodiesterase enzymes that break down cyclic AMP (Cell)
February 2, 2012, Chemical & Engineering News, © 2012 ACS

Japan plans to merge major science bodies

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0900

Drive to save money could increase bureaucracy
February 1, 2012, Nature New, © 2012 NPG

Faulty Protein Is Like a Virus in Alzheimer’s

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0900

Alzheimer’s disease seems to spread like an infection from brain cell to brain cell, two new studies have found in genetically engineered mice that expressed abnormal human tau, but only in their entorhinal cortexes. But instead of viruses or bacteria, what is being spread is a distorted protein known as tau (PLoS One and Neuron)
February 1, 2012, New York Times, © 2012 The New York Times

Massage’s Mystery Mechanism Unmasked

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0900

The massaged legs had 30% more PGC-1alpha, a gene that helps muscle cells build mitochondria, the "engines" that turn a cell's food into energy. They also had three times less NFkB, which turns on genes associated with inflammation (Sci. Transl. Med.)
February 1, 2012, Science Now, © 2012 AAAS/Science

The low-level nuclear threat

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0900

Europe is making a good start on learning about the health risks of low-dose radiation with a program MELODI to share cold-war data and set research priorities. But the effort needs to be global
February 1, 2012, Nature Editorial, © 2012 NPG

Road map unveiled to tackle neglected diseases

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0900

Thirteen drug companies, the governments of the United States, Britain and the United Arab Emirates, the World Bank, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Lions Club and other smaller charitable organizations on Monday announced a joint effort to tackle 10 neglected tropical diseases in a coordinated fashion.
January 30, 2012, Nature New, © 2012 NPG

Prostate Cancer Target Analyzed

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0900

To understand better how two new anticancer agents work, researchers have obtained the first X-ray structures of a key cytochrome P450 enzyme CYP17A1 to which they bind (Nature)
January 30, 2012, Chemical & Engineering News, © 2012 ACS

Biological Time-Keeper Linked to Diabetes

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0900

Researchers demonstrated that mutations in the melatonin receptor MTNR1B lead to an almost sevenfold increase in the risk of developing type 2 diabetes (Nature Genetics)
January 30, 2012, Science Daily, © 2012 ScienceDaily

Genetic Screens Bring New Hope for Tackling Sleeping Sickness

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0900

Researchers tested all five current African trypanosomiasis drugs for genome-scale RNA interference target sequencing (RIT-seq) screens in Trypanosoma brucei and found a total of 50 genes, and therefore 50 proteins, that are linked to drug action and resistance (Nature)
January 25, 2012 , Science Daily, © 2012 ScienceDaily

New Compound Corrects Badly Behaved RNA

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0900

Targeting RNA: Small molecule selectively binds to CAG trinucleotide repeats associated with Huntington’s disease (ACS Chem. Biol.)
January 26, 2012, Chemical & Engineering News, © 2012 ACS

Entry Point for Hepatitis C Virus

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0900

Researchers showed that the Niemann-Pick C1-like 1 (NPC1L1) cholesterol receptor is an HCV entry factor and the clinically available FDA-approved NPC1L1 antagonist ezetimibe potently blocks HCV uptake (Nat. Med.)
January 24, 2012, Science Daily, © 2012 ScienceDaily

Brown Fat Burns Calories in Adult Humans

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0900

Researchers showed that when healthy adult men are exposed to cold their brown fat burns energy to generate body heat (J. Clin. Invest.)
January 24, 2012, Science Daily, © 2012 ScienceDaily

First Airborne Amphibian Pheromon

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0900

Chemical Ecology: Madagascar frogs use volatile small molecules to communicate (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed.)
January 24, 2012, Chemical & Engineering News, © 2012 ACS

Crowdsourced biomolecule design

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0900

The online game Foldit has 240,000 registered players, 2,200 of whom were active last week. By posing a series of puzzles to Foldit players and then testing variations on the players’ best designs in the lab, researchers have created an enzyme that catalyses Diels-Alder reaction with more than 18-fold higher activity than the original (Nat. Biotech.)
January 22, 2012, Nature New, © 2012 NPG

Structure of the Cellular Protein Degradation Machinery

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0900

Researchers determined the molecular architecture of the 26S proteasome by an integrative approach (PNAS)
January 23, 2012, Science Daily, © 2012 ScienceDaily

Sweeping Genetic Analysis of Rare Disease Yields Common Mechanism of Hypertension

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0900

Researchers identified that mutations in kelch-like 3 (KLHL3) and cullin 3 (CUL3) cause hypertension and electrolyte abnormalities (Nature)
January 22, 2012, Science Daily, © 2012 ScienceDaily

Rat helps pinpoint pain molecule

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0900

Random screen of metabolites in rats with surgically damaged paws could offer new routes to drug targets for pain relief (Nat. Chem. Biol.)
January 22, 2012, Nature New, © 2012 NPG

New Study Sheds Light On Evolutionary Origin of Oxygen-Based Cellular Respiration

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0900

Researchers at the RIKEN have clarified the crystal structure of quinol dependent nitric oxide reductase (qNOR), a bacterial enzyme that offers clues on the origins of our earliest oxygen-breathing ancestors (Nat. Struct. Mol. Biol.)
January 22, 2012, Science Daily, © 2012 ScienceDaily

Manganese May Have Potential in Neutralizing Deadly Shiga Toxin

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0900

Researchers found that the widely available manganese cation blocked endosome-to-Golgi trafficking of Shiga toxin and caused its degradation in lysosomes by targeting the cycling Golgi protein GPP130 (Science)
January 19, 2012, Science Daily, © 2012 ScienceDaily

Biofuels from Seaweed

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0900

Using seaweed as a raw material for biofuels has received little attention, because their primary sugar constituent, alginate, is not readily fermented by industrially tractable microbes. Researchers demonstrated that metabolically engineered bacteria can degrade seaweed and subsequently ferment the sugars into ethanol at laboratory scale (Science)
January 20, 2012, This Week in Science, © 2012 AAAS/Science