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Effector (biology)
In biology, an effector is a general term that can refer to several types of molecules or cells depending on the context: Small molecule effectors * A small molecule that selectively binds to a protein to regulate its biological activity can be called an effector. In this manner, effector molecules act as ligands that can increase or decrease enzyme activity, gene expression, influence cell signaling, or other protein functions. An example of such an effector is oxygen, which is an allosteric effector of hemoglobin - oxygen binding to one of the four hemoglobin subunits greatly increases the affinity of the rest of the subunits to oxygen. Certain drug molecules also fall into this category - for example the antibiotic rifampicin used in the treatment of tuberculosis binds the initiation σ factor subunit of the bacterial RNA polymerase, preventing the transcription of bacterial genes. * The term can also be used to describe small molecules that can directly bind to and regul ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Serrate Rna Effector Molecule
Serration is a saw-like appearance or a row of sharp or tooth-like projections. A serrated cutting edge has many small points of contact with the material being cut. By having less contact area than a smooth blade or other edge, the applied pressure at each point of contact is greater and the points of contact are at a sharper angle to the material being cut. This causes a cutting action that involves many small splits in the surface of the material being cut, which cumulatively serve to cut the material along the line of the blade. In nature, serration is commonly seen in the cutting edge on the teeth of some species, usually sharks. However, it also appears on non-cutting surfaces, for example in botany where a toothed leaf margin or other plant part, such as the edge of a carnation petal, is described as being serrated. A serrated leaf edge may reduce the force of wind and other natural elements. Probably the largest serrations on Earth occur on the skylines of mountains (th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
MAPK/ERK Pathway
The MAPK/ERK pathway (also known as the Ras-Raf-MEK-ERK pathway) is a chain of proteins in the cell that communicates a signal from a receptor on the surface of the cell to the DNA in the nucleus of the cell. The signal starts when a signaling molecule binds to the receptor on the cell surface and ends when the DNA in the nucleus expresses a protein and produces some change in the cell, such as cell division. The pathway includes many proteins, such as mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs), originally called extracellular signal-regulated kinases (ERKs), which communicate by adding phosphate groups to a neighboring protein ( phosphorylating it), thereby acting as an "on" or "off" switch. When one of the proteins in the pathway is mutated, it can become stuck in the "on" or "off" position, a necessary step in the development of many cancers. In fact, components of the MAPK/ERK pathway were first discovered in cancer cells, and drugs that reverse the "on" or "off" switch are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Enzyme Activator
Enzyme activators are molecules that bind to enzymes and increase their activity. They are the opposite of enzyme inhibitors. These molecules are often involved in the allosteric regulation of enzymes in the control of metabolism. An example of an enzyme activator working in this way is fructose 2,6-bisphosphate, which activates phosphofructokinase 1 and increases the rate of glycolysis in response to the hormone glucagon. In some cases, when a substrate binds to one catalytic subunit of an enzyme, this can trigger an increase in the substrate affinity as well as catalytic activity in the enzyme's other subunits, and thus the substrate acts as an activator. Examples Hexokinase-I Hexokinase-I (HK-I) is an enzyme activator because it draws glucose into the glycolysis pathway. Its function is to phosphorylate glucose releasing glucose-6-phosphate (G6P) as the product. HK-I not only signals the activation of glucose into glycolysis but also maintains a low glucose concentration ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Immune Response
An immune response is a reaction which occurs within an organism for the purpose of defending against foreign invaders. These invaders include a wide variety of different microorganisms including viruses, bacteria, parasites, and fungi which could cause serious problems to the health of the host organism if not cleared from the body. There are two distinct aspects of the immune response, the innate and the adaptive, which work together to protect against pathogens. The innate branch—the body's first reaction to an invader—is known to be a non-specific and quick response to any sort of pathogen. Components of the innate immune response include physical barriers like the skin and mucous membranes, immune cells such as neutrophils, macrophages, and monocytes, and soluble factors including cytokines and complement. On the other hand, the adaptive branch is the body's immune response which is catered against specific antigens and thus, it takes longer to activate the components involv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adaptive Immune System
The adaptive immune system, also known as the acquired immune system, is a subsystem of the immune system that is composed of specialized, systemic cells and processes that eliminate pathogens or prevent their growth. The acquired immune system is one of the two main immunity strategies found in vertebrates (the other being the innate immune system). Like the innate system, the adaptive immune system includes both humoral immunity components and cell-mediated immunity components and destroys invading pathogens. Unlike the innate immune system, which is pre-programmed to react to common broad categories of pathogen, the adaptive immune system is highly specific to each particular pathogen the body has encountered. Adaptive immunity creates immunological memory after an initial response to a specific pathogen, and leads to an enhanced response to future encounters with that pathogen. Antibodies are a critical part of the adaptive immune system. Adaptive immunity can provide l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Innate Immune System
The innate, or nonspecific, immune system is one of the two main immunity strategies (the other being the adaptive immune system) in vertebrates. The innate immune system is an older evolutionary defense strategy, relatively speaking, and is the dominant immune system response found in plants, fungi, insects, and primitive multicellular organisms (see Beyond vertebrates).. The major functions of the innate immune system are to: * recruit immune cells to infection sites by producing chemical factors, including chemical mediators called cytokines * activate the complement cascade to identify bacteria, activate cells, and promote clearance of antibody complexes or dead cells * identify and remove foreign substances present in organs, tissues, blood and lymph, by specialized white blood cells * activate the adaptive immune system through antigen presentation * act as a physical and chemical barrier to infectious agents; via physical measures such as skin and chemical measures such a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
RNA Interference
RNA interference (RNAi) is a biological process in which RNA molecules are involved in sequence-specific suppression of gene expression by double-stranded RNA, through translational or transcriptional repression. Historically, RNAi was known by other names, including ''co-suppression'', ''post-transcriptional gene silencing'' (PTGS), and ''quelling''. The detailed study of each of these seemingly different processes elucidated that the identity of these phenomena were all actually RNAi. Andrew Fire and Craig C. Mello shared the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their work on RNAi in the nematode worm '' Caenorhabditis elegans'', which they published in 1998. Since the discovery of RNAi and its regulatory potentials, it has become evident that RNAi has immense potential in suppression of desired genes. RNAi is now known as precise, efficient, stable and better than antisense therapy for gene suppression. Antisense RNA produced intracellularly by an expression vector m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Small RNA
Small RNA (sRNA) are polymeric RNA molecules that are less than 200 nucleotides in length, and are usually non-coding Non-coding DNA (ncDNA) sequences are components of an organism's DNA that do not encode protein sequences. Some non-coding DNA is transcribed into functional non-coding RNA molecules (e.g. transfer RNA, microRNA, piRNA, ribosomal RNA, and regula .... RNA silencing is often a function of these molecules, with the most common and well-studied example being RNA interference (RNAi), in which endogenously expressed microRNA (miRNA) or exogenously derived small interfering RNA (siRNA) induces the degradation of complementarity (molecular biology), complementary messenger RNA. Other classes of small RNA have been identified, including piwi-interacting RNA (piRNA) and its subspecies rasiRNA, repeat associated small interfering RNA (rasiRNA). Small RNA "is unable to induce RNAi alone, and to accomplish the task it must form the core of the RNA–protein complex termed the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spitzenkörper
The Spitzenkörper (German for pointed body, SPK) is a structure found in fungal hyphae that is the organizing center for hyphal growth and morphogenesis. It consists of many small vesicles and is present in growing hyphal tips, during spore germination, and where branch formation occurs. Its position in the hyphal tip correlates with the direction of hyphal growth. The Spitzenkörper is a part of the endomembrane system in fungi. The vesicles are organized around a central area that contains a dense meshwork of microfilaments. Polysomes are often found closely to the posterior boundary of the Spitzenkörper core within the ''Ascomycota'', microtubules extend into and often through the Spitzenkörper and within the Ascomycota Woronin bodies are found in the apical region near the Spitzenkörper. The cytoplasm of the extreme apex is occupied almost exclusively by secretory vesicles. In the higher fungi (Ascomycota and Basidiomycota), secretory vesicles are arranged into a dense, s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fungal Effectors
Fungal effectors are proteins or non-proteinaceous molecules (such as RNAs or small molecules) secreted by pathogenic fungi into a host organism in order to modulate the host's immune response. Plant pathogenic fungi In the first stages of infection, conserved molecules from the fungal pathogen's cell wall, such as polysaccharides and chitin, are recognised by membrane-localised pattern recognition receptors (PRRs) on the plant host's side. Such conserved molecules are generally described as pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs) or microbe-associated molecular patterns (MAMPs) and the initial innate immune response that their recognition triggers is known as PAMP-triggered immunity (PTI). In order to counteract PTI, fungal pathogens secrete effector proteins into the host, some of which may directly inhibit components of the innate immune response cascade. One example is the conserved effector NIS1, present in fungal pathogens from the Ascomycota and Basidiomycota phyla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Transcription Activator-like Effector
TAL (transcription activator-like) effectors (often referred to as TALEs, but not to be confused with the three amino acid loop extension homeobox class of proteins) are proteins secreted by some β- and γ-proteobacteria. Most of these are Xanthomonads. Plant pathogenic ''Xanthomonas'' bacteria are especially known for TALEs, produced via their type III secretion system. These proteins can bind promoter sequences in the host plant and activate the expression of plant genes that aid bacterial infection. The TALE domain responsible for binding to DNA is known to have 1.5 to 33.5 short sequences that are repeated multiple times (tandem repeats). Each of these repeats was found to be specific for a certain base pair of the DNA. These repeats also have repeat variable residues (RVD) that can detect specific DNA base pairs. They recognize plant DNA sequences through a central repeat domain consisting of a variable number of ~34 amino acid repeats. There appears to be a one-to-one ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pathogen
In biology, a pathogen ( el, πάθος, "suffering", "passion" and , "producer of") in the oldest and broadest sense, is any organism or agent that can produce disease. A pathogen may also be referred to as an infectious agent, or simply a germ. The term ''pathogen'' came into use in the 1880s. Typically, the term ''pathogen'' is used to describe an ''infectious'' microorganism or agent, such as a virus, bacterium, protozoan, prion, viroid, or fungus. Small animals, such as helminths and insects, can also cause or transmit disease. However, these animals are usually referred to as parasites rather than pathogens. The scientific study of microscopic organisms, including microscopic pathogenic organisms, is called microbiology, while parasitology refers to the scientific study of parasites and the organisms that host them. There are several pathways through which pathogens can invade a host. The principal pathways have different episodic time frames, but soil has the longest ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
