All aspects of cellular regulation and function
Yeast are a genetically tractable model system to study various aspects of cellular physiology or toxicology. In the study by Jochem and colleagues, the researchers investigated a potential mechanism for a connection between arsenic exposure and type 2 diabetes by analyzing the effects of arsenic exposure in yeast. This study is a follow up to … Read more
Scars are the body’s response to skin injury. Sometimes too much of the protein collagen is produced at the site of the injury, resulting in excessively large thick scars that can be disfiguring, uncomfortable, and compromise function by restricting mobility. These can either be hypertrophic scars, which are thickened but limited to the injured area, … Read more
Many proteins have multiple roles. Often, the key to effective therapy is specificity. Not only does the treatment need to be specific for a particular physiological target, often a protein, but the therapeutic effects involve only a single function or subset of the target’s functions or needs to affect the target only within a specific … Read more
Protein kinases are enzymes that add phosphate groups onto specific amino acids on proteins. Most of these enzymes are active within cells. Kinases are often encoded by oncogenes, and aberrant activity of these regulatory enzymes is frequently associated with cancer. Data are emerging that kinases can also be released from cells. These secreted kinases can … Read more
Secreted proteins or the parts of transmembrane proteins that are extracellular can be phosphorylated. DeRita and colleagues reported that the cytosolic tyrosine kinase c-SRC was one of several kinases released from prostate cancer cells in exosomes. Sánchez-Pozo and colleagues identified a cancer-relevant function for extracellular c-SRC: c-SRC functioned outside of cultured cells to regulate the … Read more