Posted on 01/09/2021 3:12:49 PM PST by BenLurkin
DNA usually forms the classic double helix shape of two strands wound around each other. While DNA can form some more exotic shapes in test tubes, few are seen in real living cells.
However, four-stranded DNA, known as G-quadruplex, has recently been seen forming naturally in human cells. Now, in new research published today in Nature Communications, a team led by Imperial College London scientists have created new probes that can see how G-quadruplexes are interacting with other molecules inside living cells.
G-quadruplexes are found in higher concentrations in cancer cells, so are thought to play a role in the disease. The probes reveal how G-quadruplexes are 'unwound' by certain proteins, and can also help identify molecules that bind to G-quadruplexes, leading to potential new drug targets that can disrupt their activity.
G-quadruplexes are rare inside cells, meaning standard techniques for detecting such molecules have difficulty detecting them specifically.
They used a chemical probe called DAOTA-M2, which fluoresces (lights up) in the presence of G-quadruplexes, but instead of monitoring the brightness of fluorescence, they monitored how long this fluorescence lasts. This signal does not depend on the concentration of the probe or of G-quadruplexes, meaning it can be used to unequivocally visualize these rare molecules.
(Excerpt) Read more at phys.org ...
That’s quadtastic!!!
I’ve gotten the glowing probes. Nothing I can discuss here.
Species 8472 - better eliminate them now.
How dare they post my dick pics
Mutants. Has anyone seen Wolverine?
“This signal does not depend on the concentration of the probe or of G-quadruplexes, meaning it can be used to unequivocally visualize these rare molecules.”
These science writers always fail. Of course it depends on the concentration - unless the laws of physics don’t apply.
I am sure the writer was trying to say something that makes sense that is key to the study, but got it wrong.
“I’ve gotten the glowing probes. Nothing I can discuss here.”
Was the ‘Therapists’ name Bambi?
And Thumper?
“And Thumper?”
LOL!!!
They can be found at the Elrod House in Palm Springs
http://archoffilm.blogspot.com/2012/10/architecture-of-diamonds-are-forever.html
I’ve gotten the glowing probes. Nothing I can discuss here.Visiting Uranus?
Over a 9 year period at the start of my career, I was in R&D doing industrial environmental research and process design. Weird niche for a ChE but I also have a degree in microbiology. This was 1979 onwards. About 4 or 5 months out of college, the corporate VP over R&D was touring our departments (800 persons in the TX facility) and pulled me aside privately for 30 seconds. Hoot he said to me, I've got this several hundred thousand in capital $$$ to spend before the end of the year. Can you spend every nickel of it? Yes sir, I will do my best to help you.
In my building, there was a littler used 1000sqft lab that was out of service and I remodeled and reequipped it for new service. Most of the $$$ went for equipment both new and surplus that I scavenged from other corporate wide facilities. Completed, my setup was similar to and in some respects superior in capabilities to what you would find in a major university.
Along the way, I worked on developing a more accurate toxicity test that was then and still is used in industrial wastewater treatment. This is simply oxygen uptake rate and uses a dissolved oxygen meter and stopwatch. Low tech, which is fine, but I do not like it at all because you can get misleading data in that it can be measuring inhibition and not toxicity. Toxicity by definition is death. That's kind of irreversible.
So, along comes a new analytical technology using a fluorescent chemical very specific to living cells. The key to it was an enzyme extracted out of firefly tails. This reacts with a specific protein in living bacteria cells thus when a cell dies no fluorescence. Funny thing (I'm a geek, okay?) and I kid you not, the instrument company would hire HS and college kids in the summer to run at night through rows of Midwest farm fields with butterfly nets to harvest fireflies.
The microscope I used at the time could have been used for the picture illustrated in the article. It was a Zeiss Photomicroscope III and had the lenses and outrageous resolution for the job. What would have been lacking in the 1980s though was the computer horsepower required to capture and process the image. It looks like they could have been using a Nomarski Interference Contrast lens.
So *that’s* what the aliens were probing for.
That’s kind of ugly, and I don’t think it’s needed here.
Everything is so over the top serious these days I felt we needed something that wasn’t. That guy’s Chevy commercial parodies are hilarious.
You’re correct that we need things that are more light-hearted.
I just thought that you could have made a better choice. Too much - even some of the regular discourse here on FR - has become very coarse.
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