Fluorescent Labeling News and Research

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Researchers identify link between immune response and blood clotting

Rice University researchers have found an unexpected link between a protein that triggers the formation of blood clots and other proteins that are essential for the body's immune system.

2 Apr 2013

Researchers develop single molecule test for detecting methylated DNA

Collaborators from Mayo-Illinois Alliance for Technology Based Healthcare have developed a new, single molecule test for detecting methylated DNA. Methylation -- the addition of a methyl group of molecules to a DNA strand -- is one of the ways gene expression is regulated.

15 Mar 2013

Schistosome stem cells could explain how the worms survive for so many years

The parasites that cause schistosomiasis, one of the most common parasitic infections in the world, are notoriously long-lived. Researchers have now found stem cells inside the parasite that can regenerate worn-down organs, which may help explain how they can live for years or even decades inside their host.

24 Feb 2013

Fluorescent molecules 'tag' DNA and monitor looping process

In a new study, UT Dallas researchers outline how they used fluorescent molecules to "tag" DNA and monitor a process called DNA looping, a natural biological mechanism involved in rearranging genetic material in some types of cells.

13 Aug 2012

Similar molecular pathways involved in intellectual disability due to Fragile X and Down syndromes

Intellectual disability due to Fragile X and Down syndromes involves similar molecular pathways report researchers in The EMBO Journal. The two disorders share disturbances in the molecular events that regulate the way nerve cells develop dendritic spines, the small extensions found on the surface of nerve cells that are crucial for communication in the brain.

3 Aug 2012

Super-resolution microscopy highlights bacterial biofilms

A multi-fluorescent labeling strategy combined with super-resolution light microscopy has allowed researchers to observe the development of a bacterial biofilm in realtime.

18 Jul 2012

Microbiologists reveal how T. brucei’s key proteins organize to replicate its mtDNA

A group of diseases that kill millions of people each year can't be touched by antibiotics, and some treatment is so harsh the patient can't survive it. They're caused by parasites, and for decades researchers have searched for a "magic bullet" to kill them without harming the patient. Now, a team of microbiologists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst has made an advance that could one day lead to a new weapon for fighting parasitic diseases such as African sleeping sickness, chagas disease and leishmaniasis.

11 Jul 2012

UMass Amherst biochemist receives NIH grant to map molecular structure of bacterial needle

Biochemist Alejandro Heuck at the University of Massachusetts Amherst recently received a five-year, $950,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health to map the molecular structure of a needle-like tool used by deadly bacteria to drill holes in mammalian cell walls.

29 Jun 2012

Paper spotlights unique developmental strategy undertaken by all mammals

Ask the average person the street how the brain develops, and they'll likely tell you that the brain's wiring is built as newborns first begin to experience the world. With more experience, those connections are strengthened, and new branches are built as they learn and grow. A new study conducted in a Harvard lab, however, suggests that just the opposite is true.

7 Jun 2012

Scientists discover how microglia detect the site of injury

Like emergency workers rushing to a disaster scene, cells called microglia speed to places where the brain has been injured, to contain the damage by 'eating up' any cellular debris and dead or dying neurons. Scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, have now discovered exactly how microglia detect the site of injury, thanks to a relay of molecular signals.

25 May 2012

Novel technology to grow new primordial lung progenitors

Researchers at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) and Boston Medical Center (BMC) have derived a population of pure lung and thyroid progenitor cells in vitro that successfully mimic the developmental milestones of lung and thyroid tissue formation.

6 Apr 2012

Insights into causes of Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis

Tracking individual cells within the lung as they move around and multiply has given Duke University researchers new insights into the causes of Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF) a disease which can only be treated now by lung transplantation.

1 Dec 2011

New fluorescent tool can track mysterious workings of cellular RNAs

The ability to tag proteins with a green fluorescent light to watch how they behave inside cells so revolutionized the understanding of protein biology that it earned the scientific teams who developed the technique Nobel Prizes in 2008.

30 Jul 2011

New technique may help scientists probe mysteries of many different stem cells

Researchers at the Salk Institute have been able to genetically incorporate "unnatural" amino acids, such as those emitting green fluorescence, into neural stem cells, which then differentiate into brain neurons with the incandescent "tag" intact.

8 Jul 2011

Synaptophysin controls replacement of vesicles

A University of Wisconsin-Madison research team has solved a 25-year mystery that may lead to better treatments for people with learning deficits and mental retardation.

9 Jun 2011

Insight into breast cancer

Measuring the transfer of tiny amounts of energy from one protein to another on breast cancer cells has given scientists a detailed view of molecular interactions that could help predict how breast cancer patients will respond to particular therapies.

5 May 2011

Researchers temporarily turn off essential gene using RNAi technology

One way of discovering a gene's function is to switch it off and observe how the loss of its activity affects an organism. If a gene is essential for survival, however, then switching it off permanently will kill the organism before the gene's function can be determined. Researchers at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) have overcome this problem by using RNA interference (RNAi) technology to temporarily turn off any essential gene in adult mice and then turn it back on before the change kills the animals.

15 Apr 2011

Oral antioxidant formulation before medical imaging may minimize cell damage

A unique formulation of antioxidants taken orally before imaging with ionizing radiation minimizes cell damage, noted researchers at the Society of Interventional Radiology's 36th Annual Scientific Meeting in Chicago, Ill.

30 Mar 2011

New investigative tool may explore intracellular processes with unprecedented clarity

Nongjian Tao and his colleagues at the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University have pioneered a new technique capable of peering into single cells and even intracellular processes with unprecedented clarity.

25 Jan 2011

Malaria parasite caught in action on film for the first time

Australian researchers have managed to take pictures of microscopic malaria parasite as it invades a human red blood cell. This will provide a deeper understanding of the parasite’s behaviour and may help fight it. Up to 10% of the world’s population contract malaria every year and a million people, mostly pregnant women and children, die as a result of the parasite transmitted by infected mosquitoes.

19 Jan 2011