Cell Membrane News and Research

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Potential drug treatment for AXL-low expressing EGFR-mutated lung cancer

Researchers at Kanazawa University report in Nature Communications the mechanism making some lung-cancer patients resistant to the drug osimertinib.

5 Oct 2020

New approach transforms oldest antibiotics into safer, stronger drugs

Physicians and scientists have long searched the natural world for chemicals that can improve human health. However, evolutionary selection optimized natural chemicals to benefit their host, not for safety or efficacy in humans.

5 Oct 2020

Furin cleavage site of SARS-CoV-2 spike glycoprotein enhances viral replication in the lungs

In a new bioRxiv* preprint paper, researchers from the Imperial College London, King's College London, and the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom show that the furin cleavage site of SARS-CoV-2 spike glycoprotein represents a key determinant for transmission among humans, as it substantially facilitates replication in airway cells - opening the door for the development of novel therapeutics.

4 Oct 2020

Researchers elucidate the impact of genetic mutations in cocaine addiction

Cocaine addiction is a chronic disorder with a high rate of relapse for which no effective treatment is currently available.

26 Sep 2020

New approach uses AI to identify which early stage breast cancers will spread

About 1 in 5 new breast cancers are caught at their earliest stages, before they've spread from milk ducts into the surrounding breast tissue.

25 Sep 2020

UNH awarded $1.8 million NIH grant to advance molecular research in diabetes and cancer

The University of New Hampshire will receive $1.8 million from the National Institutes of Health that will further molecular research to better understand drug interactions at the cellular level and help lead to the development of new targeted drugs to treat wide-spread metabolic, growth, neurological and visual disorders including diabetes and cancer.

24 Sep 2020

Research sheds light on how membrane proteins could be influenced by lipid environments

The cell membrane, the wall-like boundary between the cell interior and its outside environment, is primarily made up of two kinds of biomolecules: lipids and proteins. Different

24 Sep 2020

Molecular dynamic simulations reveal detailed spike-ACE2 interactions

The current COVID-19 pandemic has spread throughout the world. Caused by a single-stranded RNA betacoronavirus, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which is closely related to but much more infectious than the earlier highly pathogenic betacoronaviruses SARS and MERS-CoV, has impacted social, economic, and physical health to an unimaginable extent.

23 Sep 2020

Common genetic variants may influence susceptibility to COVID-19

Researchers in the United States and Japan have conducted a study suggesting that a commonly occurring genetic variant influences susceptibility to infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the agent that causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

23 Sep 2020

Research identifies new alteration in the brain of people with Alzheimer's

Despite the important advances in research in recent years, the etiopathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease is still not fully clarified. One of the key questions is to decipher why the production of beta amyloid, the protein that produces the toxic effect and triggers the pathology, increases in the brain of people with Alzheimer's.

19 Sep 2020

Genetic variants of human ACE2 are differentially recognized by SARS-CoV-2

Scientists at the University of Wisconsin reveals that the genetic variants of human angiotensin 2 (ACE2) receptors can have altered recognition by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the causative agent of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. The study is currently available on the bioRxiv* preprint server.

18 Sep 2020

Researchers develop non-infectious nanoparticle probes to study SARS-CoV-2

Scientists and researchers at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory and National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, submitted their findings to ACS Nano, a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal, on their collaboration to develop SARS-CoV-2 nanoparticle probes that are used to study fundamental interactions between SARS-CoV-2 Spike proteins and human cells.

18 Sep 2020

Study sheds new light on the mechanism of COVID-19 infection

The spike protein on the surface of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus can adopt at least ten distinct structural states, when in contact with the human virus receptor ACE2, according to research from the Francis Crick Institute published in Nature today.

18 Sep 2020

Flexibility of glycosylated membrane-bound ACE2 suggests mechanical energy source in opening of SARS-CoV-2 spike

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17 Sep 2020

Ceftazidime flagged as a potential inhibitor of the SARS-COV-2 virus

After screening more than 3,500 FDA-approved drugs and small molecules, researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences found that ceftazidime, an antibiotic approved for use in treating pneumonia, binds to the receptors that the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) binds to in human cells.

17 Sep 2020

New mechanism could explain how immune cancer cells migrate in various fluid-filled niches

Human white blood cells, known as leukocytes, swim using a newly described mechanism called molecular paddling, researchers report in the September 15th issue of Biophysical Journal.

16 Sep 2020

SARS-CoV-2 N protein forms biomolecular condensates with viral RNA

Now, a study by researchers from the University of California has shown that the N protein forms biomolecular condensates with the viral RNA in both in vitro and in vivo studies. The research titled, ‘SARS CoV-2 nucleocapsid protein forms condensates with viral genomic RNA’, was published on the preprint server bioRxiv on September 14th, 2020.

15 Sep 2020

Scientists unravel the molecular mechanism underlying the causes of colorectal cancer

A team of scientists has unraveled the molecular mechanism behind one of the causes of colorectal cancer, and a treatment target.

15 Sep 2020

Computational models screen for coronaviruses likely to infect humans

The researchers from Rochester Institute of Technology and the Hauptmann-Woodward Medical Research Institute produced models of the receptor-binding domain (RBD) found on outbreak strains of betacoronaviruses and its interaction with the host cell receptor angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2).

14 Sep 2020

TRESK regulates the brain's circadian clock to differentiate behavior between day and night

Research from the University of Kent has found that TRESK, a calcium regulated two-pore potassium channel, regulates the brain's central circadian clock to differentiate behavior between day and night.

14 Sep 2020