Laboratory of Molecular Biology

About: Laboratory of Molecular Biology is a facility organization based out in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Gene & RNA. The organization has 19395 authors who have published 24236 publications receiving 2101480 citations.

Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases: The prion concept in relation to assembled Aβ, tau, and α-synuclein

Abstract: The pathological assembly of Aβ, tau, and α-synuclein is at the heart of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases. Extracellular deposits of Aβ and intraneuronal tau inclusions define Alzheimer's disease, whereas intracellular inclusions of α-synuclein make up the Lewy pathology of Parkinson's disease. Most cases of disease are sporadic, but some are inherited in a dominant manner. Mutations frequently occur in the genes encoding Aβ, tau, and α-synuclein. Overexpression of these mutant proteins can give rise to disease-associated phenotypes. Protein assembly begins in specific regions of the brain during the process of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, from where it spreads to other areas.

Human mesenchymal stem cells exert potent antitumorigenic effects in a model of Kaposi's sarcoma

Abstract: Emerging evidence suggests that both human stem cells and mature stromal cells can play an important role in the development and growth of human malignancies. In contrast to these tumor-promoting properties, we observed that in an in vivo model of Kaposi's sarcoma (KS), intravenously (i.v.) injected human mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) home to sites of tumorigenesis and potently inhibit tumor growth. We further show that human MSCs can inhibit the in vitro activation of the Akt protein kinase within some but not all tumor and primary cell lines. The inhibition of Akt activity requires the MSCs to make direct cell–cell contact and can be inhibited by a neutralizing antibody against E-cadherin. We further demonstrate that in vivo, Akt activation within KS cells is potently down-regulated in areas adjacent to MSC infiltration. Finally, the in vivo tumor-suppressive effects of MSCs correlates with their ability to inhibit target cell Akt activity, and KS tumors engineered to express a constitutively activated Akt construct are no longer sensitive to i.v. MSC administration. These results suggest that in contrast to other stem cells or normal stromal cells, MSCs possess intrinsic antineoplastic properties and that this stem cell population might be of particular utility for treating those human malignancies characterized by dysregulated Akt.

Integration of macromolecular diffraction data

Abstract: In this chapter the integration of macromolecular diffraction data from two-dimensional area detectors is described. Data integration refers to the process of obtaining estimates of diffracted intensities (and their standard deviations) from the raw images recorded by an X-ray detector. When collecting data, a decision has to be taken about the magnitude of the angular rotation of the crystal during the recording of each image: the rotation per image can be comparable to, or greater than, the angular reflection range of a typical reflection (coarse ϕ slicing), or it can be much less than the reflection width (fine ϕ slicing). The latter approach allows the use of three-dimensional profile fitting and, providing that the detector is relatively noise-free, improves the quality of the resulting data by minimizing the contribution of the X-ray background to the total measured intensity. Methods of integration are described and integration by simple summation and by profile fitting is discussed. Keywords: background; data integration; detector overloads; errors; integration of diffraction data; outliers; overloads; partially recorded reflections; profile fitting; standard profiles; summation integration