Sentences with phrase «as microtubules»

High calcium levels trigger a series of reactions that break down cell proteins known as microtubules (My - kro - TOOB - yuhlz).

His group's paper in the Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical describes a new theoretical approach to study the effect of intermolecular interactions on the dynamics of motor proteins that move along cytoskeletal filaments known as microtubules.

«These «fastener» proteins do not consume energy, yet they somehow maintain their positions on the filaments, known as microtubules, in spite of all the activity going on,» says Scott Forth, a postdoc in the lab who led the research.

First the oocyte constructs the scaffolding of connections known as microtubules, which allow molecules to move around inside the cell.

Antimitotic drugs, such as the microtubule poisons taxanes and vinca alkaloids, are widely used as chemotherapeutics for cancer treatment.

Numerous biochemical and structural changes occur throughout the cell as the microtubule - based spindle assembles and attaches to the condensed chromosomes, segregates them, and signals to the cell cortex to induce cleavage into two daughter cells through an actin - based contraction.

Not exact matches

Stuart Hameroff, an anesthesiologist who has spent many years studying brain functions, has collaborated with renowned Oxford University polymath Roger Penrose on a model that explains consciousness as the result of quantum processes occurring in tiny structures called microtubules in brain cells.

«Not only is our physics - based simulation and animation system as good as other data - based modeling systems, it led to the new scientific insight that the limited motion of the dynein hinge focuses the energy released by ATP hydrolysis, which causes dynein's shape change and drives microtubule sliding and axoneme motion,» says Ingber.

The researchers found that AS - 2 binds strongly to the kinesin motor, preventing it from sticking to a cell's monorails — that is, traveling along microtubules.

The protein assembly line consists of microtubules that serve as train tracks on which the raw materials — including messenger RNA (mRNA)-- are carried to the protein - making machinery, called ribosomes.

Which of these becomes dominant depends on the relative concentrations of the tubulins and the motor proteins: In a certain concentration range the dynamic equilibrium between growth and shrinkage of the microtubules operates as it would if resources were not limiting.

«A better understanding of how microtubule dynamic instability is regulated could open new opportunities for improving the potency and selectivity of existing anti-cancer drugs, as well as facilitate the development of novel agents,» Nogales says.

The team found changes in a gene encoding a previously unknown «dynein,» a protein that moves like a railroad locomotive along cytoskeletal fibers called microtubules, hauling other molecules as cargo.

This dimer gives microtubules directionality, which is key to many of their other properties, such as being able to assemble or disassemble from either end, and allowing motor proteins to walk along them in a specific direction.

Microtubules not only confer mechanical stability on cells and help to dictate their forms, they also serve as an intracellular transport network.

As the name suggests, a microtubule is a cylinder.

In a brain ravaged by Alzheimer's, microtubules, which are crucial to cell communication, disintegrate as tau proteins (blue) form tangles and amyloid proteins (green) form plaques.

They added a tubulin - binding protein known as Tau, that connects the HyPer protein to the microtubule structures.

Further, he found the signature memristor effect: When he reversed the flow of electricity, as in an alternating current, the efficiency of the conductance increased, as if the microtubule had remembered the current that previously passed through it.

However, the greater theory serves as something of a distraction from some of Hameroff's ideas: that quantum physics might play a non-trivial role in human cognition and consciousness, and that microtubules — activity inside the neuron — could house these quantum happenings.

Tuszynski's lab published a paper last summer on the conductive properties of microtubules in Nature Scientific Reports, and it is preparing a paper on microtubules as memristors.

The second is to add desensitisers such as potassium salts, which diffuse into the tooth via the microtubules and depolarise the nerve.

This particular active material, originally developed at Brandeis University, borrows elements of cellular machinery, with bundles of rod - like microtubules forming the filaments, kinesin motor proteins acting as the engines, and ATP as the fuel.

The next set of experiments was to apply various electrical charges and watch the «skin» of the neuron as well as the inside of the microtubule.

For Hudetz, the key going forward is testing whether molecular events inside microtubules actually relate to the quantum events as Hameroff proposes.

In animal cells (as well as yeast cells), the microtubules that act to separate chromosomes during cell division are usually organized around a central structure.

As this happens, new microtubules radiate out from a common center, extending in all directions as they lengtheAs this happens, new microtubules radiate out from a common center, extending in all directions as they lengtheas they lengthen.

Responsible for the assembly of microtubules in a cell, a protein called tau plays a large role in the structure of the neurons, as well as their function.

If you imagine the female egg cell (and later, the fertilized egg) as a spherical planet with its own intrinsic biological geography, then certain characteristics of that cell — the location of protein molecules or RNA messages or biochemical traits like pH or even the internal connective structures called microtubules — will be more prominent in certain regions, like one hemisphere as opposed to the other, or near the surface rather than near the core.

The EB family of proteins helps regulate this process and can act as a scaffold for other proteins involved in pushing the microtubule chain forward.

As a result, the motor protein draws the minus ends of microtubules together, creating star - like clusters called asters.

Experiments also revealed that as pairs of microtubules were jiggled, these proteins shuffled along them in the direction of least resistance, toward either the plus or minus end of the microtubules.

The research group working at IBMC focused on the exact moment of cell division, when cells assemble a new microtubule network, which is then arranged as a very well - known structure: the mitotic spindle.

Microtubules, which can be stable for minutes or even hours, were a good first target, Kolomeisky said, because many experimentalists saw their growth, stability and dissolution as a one - way process and were hard - pressed to explain signs of shrinking along the way.

The tip - tracking TOG - TACC machinery acts as a catalyst of microtubule assembly, and it turns out, based on the new results, that TOG - TACC is a very unusual type of catalyst that stabilises its product (the microtubule railway) as well as speeding up its growth.

The IBMC researchers (Porto University, Portugal) reveal that the existence of specific signals on microtubules — which work as intracellular highways — give directions to chromosomes of which route to take in the course of cell division.

The research group has ascertained that a molecule known as MAP1A connects NMDA glutamate receptors as they are being transported to the synapses to the microtubules, stabilizing the receptors and preventing them from becoming «derailed,» and playing a role in improving the overall efficiency and stability of the transport process.

The researcher explains that «if the microtubule has traces of tyrosine, the CENP - E carrier rests and doesn't transport any chromosomes from the pole; but should the microtubules have no tyrosine signal, as it happens with the system's main microtubules, the CENP - E tows the chromosomes to the spindle equator.»

All this requires a bridge - like protein structure called the kinetochore that maintains the proper force or tension, like bridge cables stabilizing the chromosomes as they interact with spindle filaments called microtubules.

The microtubules also take an active role in the process, pulling away like a banana peel as division progresses.

As of now, several drugs able to alter the microtubules» code are being used.

In research detailed last week in Cell, the Rockefeller team discovered some of these fastener proteins, known as non-motor microtubule associated proteins, or MAPs, experience different degrees of friction depending on the direction in which they are being moved along a microtubule.

The microtubule tracks are vital for functions such as cell division and are a key target for key cancer drugs.

Since its development, lattice light - sheet microscopy has been used to image numerous important events, such as single transcription factor molecules binding to DNA, hotspots of transcription, microtubule instability, protein distributions in embryos, and much more.

As many kinesin - 5 molecules work together directing microtubules, they become the governing force of the spindle formation.

The researchers found that the motor protein kinesin - 5 (green) helps prepare the spindle by organizing its filaments, or microtubules, (red) by pushing them or acting as a brake.

Miniscule carriers, the motor proteins, slide along the microtubules with great volumes such as chromosomes, vesicles and other subcellular components — like mitochondria — latched onto them.

By contrast, other proteins involved in this process, known as motor proteins, consume chemical energy to move the microtubules around.

While reaching for their stationary state, which can take as little as 10 seconds, microtubules are in constant flux — either in a state of «catastrophe» (shrinking) or «rescue» (growing)-- until they are capped.

Originally identified as a protein essential for mitosis in fungi, kinesin - 5 was first purified about 20 years ago by Scholey's lab who found that it is unusual because it has motor units at both ends, allowing it to link two microtubules and walk them past each other.