All the cells in our body contain thousands of proteins, molecular machines which carry out almost all biological processes that are essential for life. Many diseases, such as cancer and neurodegeneration, are caused when these protein machines go wrong. Thus it has been a long-term goal in science to characterise the functions of proteins within […]
Insight on Research
Spliceosome catalysis: the completed puzzle
The spliceosome is a molecular machine that plays an important role in gene expression. It cuts non-coding sequences (introns) out of messenger RNA (mRNA) precursors, and stitches together the useful coding sequences (exons). The spliceosome performs this in two steps. First, the start of an intron is recognised, cut, and joined to a specific point […]
Human wound healing is affected by the body clock
Internal body clocks, which time the length of a day in almost all organisms, control many aspects of human physiology and activity, from when we go to bed to when we perform best mentally and physically. Most importantly, these biological circadian clocks are in every single individual cell of our bodies, not just in the brain. A new study has shown for the first time that these clocks also have a role to play in the healing of wounds, by ensuring that skin cells move quickly to the damaged area.
New insights into ubiquitin phosphorylation and the development of early-onset Parkinson’s disease
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative condition caused by the loss of dopaminergic neurons in the midbrain, which manifests clinically in the form of characteristic motor defects. Most PD cases are sporadic and found in people above the age of 60. However, roughly 10% of PD cases are autosomal recessive juvenile forms (AR-JP), causing early-onset […]
The missing link between golgins and endosomal vesicles discovered
Inside our cells there are many distinct membrane compartments – organelles – which carry out the different tasks that allow the cell to function. Each organelle is like a factory that requires a constant supply of raw materials to stay active. Small transport vesicles deliver this cargo of particular proteins and lipids to each organelle. […]
How the poly(A) tail is added to the end of mRNAs
Genes are encoded in DNA and need to be copied into an intermediate mRNA molecule that contains the instructions to allow synthesis of protein. Almost every mRNA has a repetitive sequence at one end called a poly(A) tail. The length of this tail specifies the amount of time that the mRNA is present in the […]