Pyruvate is a starting material for synthesizing a variety of biofuels and chemicals. It can be readily converted into more than 60 commercial chemicals, including ethanol and several active pharmaceu...
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As the industrial uses of yeast and other fungi expand, new systems are needed to genetically optimize strains for their intended use. In particular, the ability to manipulate prototrophic and diploid...
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Enzymes called ribonucleotidyl transferases (NTases) add nucleotides to the ends of RNAs. At present only a few such enzymes are known, such as poly(A) polymerases and poly(U) polymerases. The selecti...
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Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are cells shed from tumor deposits that flow into the bloodstream. They are detected at a frequency of about one CTC per one billion surrounding blood cells. The great h...
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Metabolomics, or the systematic study of all metabolites in an organism, is one of the fastest growing areas of scientific research. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy is one tool used to a...
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Biomarker engineering and development has evolved to answer infinitely complex biological questions and the discovery of novel molecules could provide additional tools for biotechnology. Fluorescent r...
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‘Nanopore sequencing’ allows a single molecule such as DNA to be analyzed without conventional tools like chemical labels or costly optical instruments. In the process, DNA strands and a stream of...
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Mass spectrometers are analytical instruments that can precisely measure the mass of molecules to determine their composition and identity. Generally, the molecules are ionized and then accelerated by...
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In the past decade, cataloguing the thousands of proteins present in a cell using mass spectrometry (MS) has matured into a procedure both deeply vital and straightforward. Yet discovering how such mo...
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Reprogramming blood cells to induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) provides a novel tool for studying hematopoietic development in vitro.
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Reprogramming blood cells to induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) provides a novel tool for studying blood development in vitro.
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To save time and costs, many alternatives to conventional DNA sequencing have been proposed. One approach utilizes an array of oligonucleotide probes (short nucleic acid chains) synthesized by photoli...
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Disulfide bonds between cysteine residues are the most common crosslinking agents in proteins. Reducing these bonds is an ordinary procedure in biochemistry and biotechnology. The most commonly used r...
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Most biological processes involve multiple proteins interacting with each other. While the principles governing protein-protein interactions are not fully understood, it is known that a small subset o...
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In animals, plants and other eukaryotic organisms, typically one protein is translated from each mRNA. Usually, translation can start only at one end of the mRNA strand. In contrast, several viruses ...
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Restriction enzymes are commonly used to cleave double-stranded DNA. These enzymes bind to specific sequences of DNA (the ‘restriction site’) and cleave the DNA either at the recognition site or a...
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The substrate on which cells are cultured is key to successful growth and tissue generation. For example, it has been shown that attachment to a substrate by human embryonic stem cells influences whet...
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While extensive research has been devoted to understanding the influence of medium conditions on cell development, researchers have only recently begun to understand the role of culture surface proper...
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Every year about two million cases of traumatic brain injury (TBI) occur in the United States, caused by falls, car crashes, sports collisions and other injuries. TBI can lead to a host of health prob...
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Fungi produce a variety of chemical compounds called secondary metabolites that possess useful pharmaceutical properties. These compounds are invaluable platforms for developing front-line drugs. They...
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While extensive research has been devoted to understanding the influence of medium conditions on cell development, researchers have only recently begun to understand the role of culture surface proper...
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Boronic acids (i.e., compounds that have a single boron-carbon bond) are one of the most useful functional groups in organic chemistry and chemical biology. They have applications in polymer sciences,...
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Rodents and other small animals are extensively used as models to study human health and disease, but there are increasing concerns about their relevance. Research funding and regulatory agencies are ...
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Rodents and other small animals are extensively used as models to study human health and disease, but there are increasing concerns about their relevance. Research funding and regulatory agencies are ...
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Presently, there are no good rodent models for mania, which is a critical component of bipolar disorder. The most commonly used approach is to inject normal mice with amphetamines to produce hyperacti...
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