Writer: Blair Fannin, 979-845-2259, b-fannin@tamu.edu Contact: Dr. Vlad Panin, 979-845-9274, panin@tamu.edu COLLEGE STATION – Using fruit flies, Texas A&M AgriLife Research scientists may be one step closer to better understanding the pathological mechanisms of muscular dystrophy. The researchers say they hope their work could assist medical doctors in prescribing effective therapies in the future. According… Read More →
New cryo-EM structures of Mtb ribosomes from Junjie Zhang’s group
Tuberculosis is a life-threatening disease that leads to ∼1.5 million annual human deaths, caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb). A common practice to treat this disease is to use antibiotics, half of which target the ribosome. To design ribosome-targeting antibiotics that potently and selectively kill Mtb without affecting the host, researchers need information on the structure… Read More →
Pingwei Li’s lab solves the structure of a Zika Virus RNA polymerase
The March 27 issue of Nature Communications will include an important structure from the lab of Prof. Pingwei Li in the Dept. of Biochemistry and Biophyics at Texas A&M. Zika virus (ZIKV) is causing a global public health emergency. ZIKV infection, spread by mosquitos, is linked to severe congenital diseases and high incidence of Guillan-Barré syndrome. Currently,… Read More →
Cell-cycle control of lipogenic enzymes at the level or protein synthesis
A new paper, spearheaded by Michael Polymenis’ lab here in Bio/Bio, has recently appeared in The EMBO Journal. Underscoring the collaborative nature of research at Texas A&M, critical contributors to the study include Brian Kennedy’s lab at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging, Prof. Rodolfo Aramayo’s lab from the Texas A&M Department of Biology,… Read More →
Single cell analysis of cell fate decisions in phage infection of bacteria
A new paper from Lanying Zeng, a member of the Center for Phage Technology and the Texas A&M Biochemistry and Biophysics Department has just appeared in Nature Communications. First author on the paper titled “Cell fate decisions emerge as phages cooperate or compete inside their host” is Jimmy Trinh, a Bio/Bio grad student. Critical contributions… Read More →
PCL Expands to Include Metabolomic Analysis
There are new metabolomics services available at Texas A&M. Larry Dangott (Dept of Biochemistry & Biophysics and The Protein Chemistry Laboratory (PCL)) and Arul Jayaraman (Dept of Chemical Engineering) were recently awarded $1.55M by the Research Development Fund (of the OVPR) to expand the PCL capabilities and establish the Integrated Metabolomics Analysis Core (IMAC) for… Read More →
Structure of an ssRNA virus from J. Zhang’s lab
A new cryo-EM structure from Junjie Zhang’s group in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics is highlighted and on the cover of the October 11 2016 issue of PNAS. Bacteriophage Qβ is a single-stranded RNA virus that infects bacteria that have F-pili. In collaboration with the Young group at Texas A&M, two graduate students, Karl Gorzelnik and Zhicheng… Read More →
Research from Devarenne lab in Nature Communications
On April 6, 2016 the Devarenne Lab published a paper in Nature Communications describing the isolation and characterization of an enzyme from the green alga Botryococcus braunii responsible for the production of hydrocarbons in this alga. This enzyme, known as lycopaoctaene synthase (LOS), initiates the production of a hydrocarbon known as lycopadiene. LOS is unique… Read More →
Cutting edge research from Junjie Zhang’s group
New cryo-EM structures from Junjie Zhang’s group in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics were highlighted in the January 2016 issue of Structure. Phosphorus is an important nutrient in all forms of life, and phosphorus availability is often limited for agriculture. The C-P lyase from bacteria recycles phosphorus-containing compounds by cleaving a wide variety compounds containing… Read More →
A TrAP for KRYPTONITE
Hosts and viruses fight for survival has resulted in a great arsenal of molecular weapons. The host combats DNA viruses by preventing expression of their genomes and by destroying their transcripts. These tactics are known as transcriptional and post-transcriptional gene silencing (TGS and PTGS), respectively. On the other side, surviving viruses must have evolved strategies… Read More →