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Showing posts from January, 2025
A New Kind of Epigenetic Gene Control is Revealed
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The expression of genes has to be carefully regulated in cells; active genes give cells their identity and ability to function. Epigenetic features are just one way that cells control gene expression, and they do so without altering the sequence of genes. These may involve chemical groups like methyl tags that adorn DNA , or structural characteristics that relate to proteins that organize DNA. But scientists have also been learning about how epigenetics affect RNA. New findings on a balancing act in epigenetics, which works on DNA and RNA, have been reported in Cell . When genes are expressed, they are transcribed into messenger RNA (mRNA) molecules . The cell can then translate those mRNA molecules into proteins, which carry out a variety of functions. Scientists have identified an epigenetic mechanism that seems to balance gene expression. One facet of the mechanism can promote the transcription and organization of genes, while the other causes m...
Molecular Dynamics Reveal Fast vs. Steady CAR T Cell Therapy Behavior
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In a new study published in Science Advances , researchers at the Baylor College of Medicine explore the cellular mechanics behind CAR T cell therapies and their varying efficacy in treating different types of cancers. While CAR T cells have revolutionized treatment for blood cancers like leukemia, their success in solid tumors has been limited. The team’s research sheds new light on the molecular interactions that drive these therapies, offering hope for improved designs in the future. “We wanted to understand the distinct mechanisms that make some CAR T cells effective in certain cancers but less so in others,” explains senior author Nabil Ahmed, professor of pediatrics—hematology and oncology at Baylor and Texas Children’s. “By delving into what happens at the molecular level, we can potentially design a new generation of CAR T cells better suited for solid tumors.” The dual nature of CAR T Cells CAR T cells, or chimeric antigen receptor T cells , are genetically ...
A New Type of System for Delivering Cargo Into Cells
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Scientists have created a new method for sending reagents and other materials into cells and embryos, in a major advance for research in this field. In this work, which was reported in Development , the investigators described Vitello ag, which can deliver reagents to cells in a totally new way. When needles are used to inject embryos or developing cells , those needles have to be really small, and they are usually made by heating and stretching tiny glass capillaries apart. As a capillary is heated, stretched, pulled, and broken, two long, thin needles are formed. These delicate, fragile microneedles then have to be used in a technique called microinjection. But the eggs of some animals have tough membranes surrounding them, which can be very difficult for the microneedles to penetrate, without breaking themselves. There are other challenges as well. For example, some eggs develop quite rapidly, so the injection window is very short. Microinjections often have low ...
Camptothecin #sciencefather #molecularbiologist #biologist #Camptotheci...
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How to determine the molecular weight of a monoclonal antibody
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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)...
Breakthrough in immunology: AbMAP’s novel approach to antibody modeling
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A novel computational framework revolutionizes antibody design, offering precise predictions and unlocking insights into the immune system’s structural and functional convergence. In a recent study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Sanofi R&D introduced a novel computational framework known as Antibody Mutagenesis-Augmented Processing, or AbMAP, to address challenges in modeling the antibody hypervariable regions using protein language models (PLMs). Background Antibodies, which are crucial for therapeutic and immune functions, owe their specificity to the hypervariable regions within them. These regions display remarkable sequence variability, making it challenging to model them using conventional methods. Traditional approaches for antibody design, such as immunization and phage display, are time-intensive and fail to explore the full structural diversity necessa...
Cell Profiling Insights #sciencefather #molecularbiologist #biologist #O...
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