Scientists Discover a New Class of “Molecular Motors”

Cells possess a remarkable ability to organize their interiors using minuscule protein machines known as molecular motors, which generate directed motion. Most molecular motors rely on a common form of chemical energy, ATP, to function. Recently, a team of researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics (MPI-CBG), the Cluster of Excellence Physics of Life (PoL), the Biotechnology Center (BIOTEC) of TU Dresden, and the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS) in India uncovered a novel molecular system that utilizes an alternative energy source and features a new mechanism for executing mechanical tasks.



This molecular motor, which operates similarly to a traditional Stirling engine through repeated contraction and expansion, assists in distributing cargo to membrane-bound organelles. It is the first motor using two components, two differently sized proteins, Rab5 and EEA1, and is driven by GTP instead of ATP. The findings were recently published in the journal Nature Physics.

Motor proteins are remarkable molecular machines within a cell that converts chemical energy, stored in a molecule called ATP, into mechanical work. The most prominent example is myosin which helps our muscles to move. In contrast, GTPases which are small proteins have not been viewed as molecular force generators. One example is a molecular motor composed of two proteins, EEA1 and Rab5.

#Chemistry #Biology #Science#OrganicChemistry #Biochemistry #MolecularBiology#ChemicalEngineering #Biotechnology #Nanotechnology#Genetics #CellBiology #MolecularModeling

#Pharmacology #Proteomics #StructuralBiology#SyntheticChemistry #Microbiology #GeneEditing#MaterialsScience #Bioinformatics #Immunology


Website Link: https://molecularbiologist.org/

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Uncovering the molecular drivers of liver cancer

Image
  Researchers discover that inflammation and aging contribute to non-viral liver cancer development. Green tea's role in reversing some of the pathway dysregulation that may contribute to the cancer development and other therapies explored. Liver cancer can arise spontaneously from healthy liver tissue. Recently, however, researchers have discovered an increasing correlation between some liver cancers and non-viral chronic liver disease (CLD). One liver cancer, hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), is associated with CLD in about 15–25% of cases. While increasing awareness and screening of cancers has improved the ability to detect liver cancer at earlier stages when it is more effectively treated, cancer prevention is always a primary goal of both healthcare providers and biomedical researchers. The increasing prevalence of CLD with HCC suggests that this underlying condition predisposes liver tissue to cancer development. In order to investigate how healthy liver tissue differs from th...
Read more

How to determine the molecular weight of a monoclonal antibody

Image
  Protein aggregation typically results from conformational or colloidal instability. Conformational stability is the difference in free energy (ΔG) between folded and unfolded states. While not direct assessments of free energy, melting temperature value (T m ) and aggregation temperature (T Agg ) can be utilized as qualitative measurements of conformational stability. Colloidal stability is calculated by balancing repulsive and attractive intermolecular interactions among protein molecules to sustain the native folded state. Less intermolecular interaction reduces the aggregation propensity. Thus, quantifying the second virial coefficient (B 22 ) is an important screening tool for predicting aggregation propensity. ARGEN ™  is the perfect instrument for assessing quantitative and qualitative characteristics of all classes of biotherapeutics and determining T Agg , B 22 , molecular weight (M w ), alongside differences in weight, average molecular weight (aggregation)...
Read more

Pausing” Cell Death Could Be the Key to Longevity

Image
  Necrosis drives aging and disease by triggering damaging inflammation. Interrupting it may offer new treatments for chronic conditions and improve health in space travel. Necrosis, a form of uncontrolled cell death, may hold one of the most promising keys to altering the course of human aging, disease, and even space travel, according to a new study by researchers at UCL, the drug discovery company LinkGevity, and the  European Space Agency  (ESA). Challenging conventional thinking, the paper draws on evidence from cancer biology, regenerative medicine, kidney disease, and space health to argue that necrosis is not just a final stage of cell death, but a major driver of aging—and a potential target for intervention. Dr. Keith Siew, an author of the study from UCL Centre for Kidney & Bladder Health, said: “Nobody really likes talking about death, even cell death, which is perhaps why the physiology of death is so poorly understood. And in a way, necrosis is death. If...
Read more