News & Opinion Articles | The Scientist Magazine®| Page 542

Inflammation linked to reduced vasodilatation

By (medwire@sciencenow.com) | September 12, 2000

LONDON, September 11 (SPIS MedWire). Elevated levels of serum C-reactive protein (CRP) - indicative of systemic inflammation - are associated with a blunted systemic endothelial vasodilatation, report a team from Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt. Their findings, published in Circulation, add further credibility to the theory that the link between inflammation and cardiovascular risk is mediated by endothelial dysfunction. Fichtlschere et al measured forearm blood flow responses to

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Origin of AIDS: debate intensifies

By Robert Walgate | September 12, 2000

Claims that AIDS originated from trials of a polio vaccine in the 1950s are repudiated, but just won't go away.

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Herbal remedies on trial

By (medwire@sciencenow.com) | September 11, 2000

Two herbal remedies are about to undergo controlled clinical trials to test their effectiveness in treating memory loss and dysmenorrhoea.

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Alzheimer's disease protein isolated

By (medwire@sciencenow.com) | September 7, 2000

A new protein that might be involved in generating the amyloid plaques in Alzheimer's disease has been identified.

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Cyanide used to attack tumours

By (medwire@sciencenow.com) | September 7, 2000

An enzyme derived from the cassava plant could be used to selectively destroy cancer cells.

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Antibody arrays

By William Wells(wells@biotext.com) | September 6, 2000

Protein arrays are lagging behind in their implementation relative to DNA arrays because proteins are harder to produce and keep active. But in the September Nature Biotechnology de Wildt et al. describe the use of robotic spotting to produce antibody arrays, using bacterial colonies that produce single-chain antibodies (Nat. Biotechnol. 2000, 18:989-994). Up to 18,342 antibody clones can be screened at one time, and the same antibody-producing cells can easily be spotted onto up to 15 replicate

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Double-duplication evolution

By William Wells(wells@biotext.com) | September 6, 2000

In the 1 September Science Lang et al. argue that two single-domain biosynthetic enzymes appear to have evolved from gene duplication, followed by fusion, followed by a second gene duplication (Science 2000, 289:1546-1550). Both of the proteins, HisA and HisF, can be broken down into two half beta/alpha barrels. The four half barrels can be superimposed on each other, revealing 22% identical or similar residues. As both enzymes bind biphosphate substrates, each half barrel has a phosphate-bindin

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Repair polymerases in a double act

By William Wells(wells@biotext.com) | September 6, 2000

Two eukaryotic DNA polymerases act sequentially to repair DNA lesions.

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A potential therapeutic mechanism for regulating cholesterol uptake

By (medwire@sciencenow.com) | September 5, 2000

Retinoid receptors play a key part in cholesterol homeostasis.

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Parkinson's disease not restricted to the brain

By (medwire@sciencenow.com) | September 5, 2000

LONDON, September 5 (SPIS MedWire). Parkinson's disease may not be restricted to the brain; it could also cause the loss of nerve terminals in the heart, according to new research. Scientists at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), Maryland, USA, carried out positron emission tomography scans on 29 Parkinson's disease patients. Nearly all had reduced numbers of norepinephrine-producing nerve endings in the heart. This decrease was not related to whether the patien

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