Formal Cellular Machinery

Select: Manipulating Cellular Machinery

Taxol (paclitaxel) is a potent anticancer therapeutic typically used to treat breast, lung, and ovarian cancers. Historically it has been produced by synthetic or semisynthetic routes, requiring as many as 51 synthesis steps or the use of a plant-derived intermediate, baccatin III, respectively. Ajikumar et al. (2010) introduce a new approach to produce Taxol: engineering the isoprenoid pathway...

Viruses and the cellular RNA decay machinery.

The ability to control cellular and viral gene expression, either globally or selectively, is central to a successful viral infection, and it is also crucial for the host to respond and eradicate pathogens. In eukaryotes, regulation of message stability contributes significantly to the control of gene expression and plays a prominent role in the normal physiology of a cell as well as in its res...

Word Order, Clause Union, and the Formal Machinery of Syntax

Impairment of Cellular Transcriptional Machinery in Poly(Q) Disorders

Polyglutamine or poly(Q) diseases represent a group of fatal human disorders which exhibit some common neurodegenerative symptoms and share somewhat similar mechanism of pathogenesis. Some of the common clinical symptoms of poly(Q) diseases include progressive loss of body coordination, memory, difficulty in speech and intellectual disabilities [1]. Most forms of the poly(Q) disorders are domin...

The ESCRT machinery: a cellular apparatus for sorting and scission.

The ESCRT (endosomal sorting complex required for transport) machinery is a group of multisubunit protein complexes conserved across phyla that are involved in a range of diverse cellular processes. ESCRT proteins regulate the biogenesis of MVBs (multivesicular bodies) and the sorting of ubiquitinated cargos on to ILVs (intraluminal vesicles) within these MVBs. These proteins are also recruited...