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| via fractalforums.com |
"At busy intersections, traffic signals generally favor the road with the greatest volume to keep traffic moving. In the same way, cell division in the human body is regulated by proteins that control how cells divide, move and protect themselves from stresses.
Rohit V. Pappu, the Edwin H. Murty Professor of Engineering in the School of Engineering & Applied Science at Washington University in St. Louis, and his former postdoctoral researcher Rahul Das, working in collaboration with Richard Kriwacki and his research team from St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn., made a discovery that uncovers the molecular logic of how dividing cells are stopped in their tracks. The results were published May 2 in PNAS Early Edition.
The team studied the pP27Kip1 protein, whose job is to stop a cell from dividing or to slow the division. This is an important job, because genetic mutations in p27 and other proteins like it are major culprits in cancer, Pappu said.
"Understanding how p27 functions as an inhibitor of the cell cycle is key to working out how to design mimics of p27 that can stop the proliferative growth of cells, which is a key signature in human cancer," Pappu said..."
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