Yeast study yields insights into cell-division cycle
2015-09-01
(Press-News.org) ANN ARBOR--Studies using yeast genetics have provided new, fundamental insights into the cell-division cycle, researchers at the University of Michigan Life Sciences Institute report.
Findings published Aug. 31 in the journal eLife show that an organelle known as the vacuole, which performs a variety of cellular housekeeping functions, plays an essential role in the initiation of the cell-division cycle.
The cell-division cycle, also known simply as the cell cycle, is the series of events inside a cell that leads to its division.
"The yeast vacuole has a counterpart in the mammalian cell known as the lysosome," said study senior author Lois Weisman, a faculty member at the LSI, where her lab is located, and a professor of cell and developmental biology at the U-M Medical School.
"So this research raises the possibility that if the lysosome is similarly required for mammalian cell division, then the discovery of the molecular interconnection between the lysosome and nucleus may provide new insights into treatment of cancer, where cell division becomes a runaway train."
Because yeast grow quickly and have well-mapped genetics, it is an ideal model for opening new avenues of research in more complex systems, including humans, Weisman said.
Weisman and first author Yui Jin, a research fellow at the LSI, looked at how yeast daughter cells are still able to create a new vacuole when vacuole inheritance from the mother is blocked.
Importantly, the research also showed that the signal from a functional vacuole is required before a new cycle of cell division can be initiated.
"These findings suggest that this may be a 'checkpoint mechanism' that prevents cell-cycle progression if essential organelles aren't present," Jin said.
INFORMATION:
The work was supported by National Institutes of Health grant R37 GM062261.
Study: myumi.ch/a8GxK
Lois Weisman Lab
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2015-09-01
In use for more than a century, inhaled anesthetics like nitrous oxide and halothane have made modern surgery possible. Now, in experiments in mice, researchers at Johns Hopkins and elsewhere have added to evidence that certain so-called "volatile" anesthetics -- commonly used during surgeries -- may also possess powerful effects on the immune system that can combat viral and bacterial infections in the lung, including influenza and pneumonia.
A report on the experiments is published in the September 1 issue of the journal Anesthesiology.
The Johns Hopkins and University ...
2015-09-01
Tropical Depression 14E was born in the Eastern Pacific Ocean early on September 1 when NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite passed overhead and looked at it in infrared light.
Infrared light shows temperature, which is helpful in determining cloud top temperatures of the thunderstorms that make up a tropical cyclone line Tropical Depression 14E (TD 14E). The colder the storm, the higher they stretch into the troposphere (lowest layer of the atmosphere) and the stronger the storms tend to be.
On September 1 at 0900 UTC (5 a.m. EDT), NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite passed ...
2015-09-01
Hurricane Ignacio is staying far enough away from the Hawaiian Islands to not bring heavy rainfall or gusty winds, but is still causing rough surf. Infrared satellite data on September 1 shows that wind shear is adversely affecting the storm and weakening it.
The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder or AIRS instrument that flies aboard NASA's Aqua satellite gathers infrared data that reveals temperatures. When NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Ignacio on September 1 at 11:41 UTC (7:41 a.m. EDT), the AIRS data and showed some high, cold, strong thunderstorms surrounded the center ...
2015-09-01
EUGENE, Ore. - Sept. 1, 2015 - The University of Oregon's Kelly Sutherland has seen the future of under-sea exploration by studying the swimming prowess of tiny jellyfish gathered from Puget Sound off Washington's San Juan Island.
In a paper with four colleagues in the Sept. 2 issue of the journal Nature Communications, Sutherland details how a tiny type of jellyfish - colonial siphonophores - swim rapidly by coordinating multiple water-shooting jets from separate but genetically identical units that make up the animal.
Information on the biomechanics of a living organism ...
2015-09-01
WOODS HOLE, MASS.--Marine animals that swim by jet propulsion, such as squid and jellyfish, are not uncommon. But it's rare to find a colony of animals that coordinates multiple jets for whole-group locomotion. This week in Nature Communications, scientists report on a colonial jellyfish-like species, Nanomia bijuga, that uses a sophisticated, multi-jet propulsion system based on an elegant division of labor among young and old members of the colony. This locomotive solution, the team suggests, could illuminate the design of underwater distributed-propulsion vehicles.
"This ...
2015-09-01
Here's another discovery to bolster the case for medical marijuana: New research in mice suggests that THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, may delay the rejection of incompatible organs. Although more research is necessary to determine if there are benefits to humans, this suggests that THC, or a derivative, might prove to be a useful antirejection therapy, particularly in situations where transplanted organs may not be a perfect match. These findings were published in the September 2015 issue of The Journal of Leukocyte Biology.
"We are excited to demonstrate for ...
2015-09-01
COLUMBIA, Mo. - Forgiveness is a complex process, one often fraught with difficulty and angst. Now, researchers in the University of Missouri College of Human Environmental Sciences studied how different facets of forgiveness affected aging adults' feelings of depression. The researchers found older women who forgave others were less likely to report depressive symptoms regardless of whether they felt unforgiven by others. Older men, however, reported the highest levels of depression when they both forgave others and felt unforgiven by others. The researchers say their ...
2015-09-01
Police officers face an elevated risk of being injured in a collision when they are sitting in a stationary car as compared to low-speed driving, as well as when they are responding to an emergency call with their siren blaring as compared to routine patrol, according to a new RAND Corporation study.
In addition, officers face a higher risk of being injured in a crash when they are riding a motorcycle compared to a driving a car, driving solo compared to having a second officer in the car, or not wearing a seatbelt compared to wearing a seatbelt.
The findings provide ...
2015-09-01
With a name like "Alcoholic Liver Disease," you may not think about vitamin A as being part of the problem. That's exactly what scientists have shown, however, in a new research report appearing in the September 2015 issue of The FASEB Journal. In particular, they found that chronic alcohol consumption has a dramatic effect on the way the body handles vitamin A. Long-term drinking lowers vitamin A levels in the liver, which is the main site of alcohol breakdown and vitamin A storage, while raising vitamin A levels in many other tissues. This opens the doors for novel treatments ...
2015-09-01
The study, published today at Nature Methods (the most prestigious journal for the presentation of results in methods development), proposes the use of two plant protein epitopes, named inntags, as the most innocuous and stable tagging tools in the study of physical and functional interactions of proteins.
Proteins and peptides of various sizes and shapes have been used since the early 80s to tag proteins with many different purposes, ranging from affinity purification to fluorescence-based microscopic detection in whole organisms. However, tagging strategies used nowadays ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] Yeast study yields insights into cell-division cycle
