'Non-essential' building block proves vital to a healthy protein diet

A "non-essential" amino acid—so-called because the body can make it from other nutrients—can act as a nutritional cue to guide the body's responses to a low-protein diet, a RIKEN-led team has found in a study on fruit ...

Molecular scissors stabilize the cell's cytoskeleton

Researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI in Villigen, Switzerland, have for the first time elucidated the structure of important enzymes in human cells that alter essential building blocks of the cellular cytoskeleton. ...

Making the oxygen we breathe, a photosynthesis mechanism exposed

Arguably, the greatest fueler of life on our planet is photosynthesis, but understanding its labyrinthine chemistry, powered by sunlight, is challenging. Researchers recently illuminated some new steps inside the molecular ...

Unexpected finding solves 40-year old cytoskeleton mystery

Scientists have been searching for it for decades: the enzyme that cuts the amino acid tyrosine off an important part of the cell's skeleton. Researchers of the Netherlands Cancer Institute have now identified this mystery ...

Incorporation of DOPA into engineered mussel glue proteins

Mussels can do it, but we haven't been able to: gluing under water. In the journal Angewandte Chemie, a team consisting of Korean, Indian, and Canadian scientists has now introduced a new method that makes it possible to ...

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