Researchers from the Laboratory of Molecular Bases of Embryogenesis (Shemyakin-Ovchinnikov Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry RAS), in technical cooperation with colleagues from the Department of Metabolism and Redox Biology (Shemyakin-Ovchinnikov Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry RAS), the Laboratory of Genomics and Epigenomics of Vertebrates in the Federal Center "Fundamentals of Biotechnology" RAS, as well as with colleagues from the Cell Motility Group of the Institute of Protein Research RAS, discovered a previously unknown mechanism of the regulation of the activity of genes that determine the pluripotent status of the embryonic stem cells.

Researchers of the Laboratory of Molecular Immunology, IBCh RAS, in collaboration with Russian colleagues have shown that the strategy of targeting of anticancer toxins to two different surface antigens on the surface of a cancer cell is effective in the treatment of not only primary solid tumors, but also distant metastases.

Unlike the tightly controlled replication of DNA in living cells, PCR amplification, a “workhorse” of molecular biology, balances between simplicity and accuracy. Conventional “bulk” PCR often yields inefficient and nonuniform amplification of complex templates in DNA libraries, introducing unwanted biases.

Researchers from Laboratory of bioinformatics approaches in combinatorial chemistry and biology and Laboratory of high-performance screening of biological objects together with colleagues from Moscow State University and University College Cork (Ireland) discovered novel protein POLGARF, which is encoded in alternative reading frame of mitochondrial DNA polymerase POLG mRNA. The results of this study are published in PNAS.

The scientists from the Laboratory of biocatalysis, the Laboratory of proteolytic enzyme chemistry, the Laboratory of bioinformatics approaches in combinatorial chemistry and biology and the Laboratory of hormonal regulation proteins, together with colleagues from EMBL-Hamburg, Moscow State University. M.V. Lomonosov, the Sheffield Institute and the Scripps Research Institute have developed a universal algorithm that makes it possible to create biological antidotes based on biocatalysts, directionally increasing their reactivity, and to predict stereoselectivity.

Researchers from the Laboratory of Molecular Bases of Embryogenesis, together with a colleague from the Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution, described for the first time four genes of the Noggin family in the oldest representatives of vertebrates - lampreys, and compared their structure, expression and some functional features with those of the known genes of this family in other vertebrates.

Scientists from the IBCh RAS, Federal Scientific Research Centre “Crystallography and Photonics”, FSBSI “N.N. Blokhin Russian Cancer Research Center”, Lomonosov Moscow State University of Fine Chemical Technologies and Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University developed a method for the UCNP surface functionalization with endogenous colominic acid conferring “stealth” properties, which led to effective accumulation in the area of inflammation, as well as micro- and macro-blood vessels visualization.

Gliomas are fast growing and highly invasive brain tumors, characterized by tumor microenvironment acidification that drives glioma cell growth and migration. Channels containing Acid-sensing Ion Channel 1a subunit (ASIC1a) mediate amiloride-sensitive cation influx in late stage glioma cells, but not in normal astrocytes. Thus, selective targeting of ASIC1a can be a perspective strategy for glioma treatment.

Researchers from IBCh RAS together with their international collаborators discovered an evolutionary link between efficiency of start codons and the probability of AUG codon occurrence in the 5'-end parts of protein-coding sequences. When start codons are inefficient the next AUG codon is more likely to be found in the same reading frame. At the same time in case of highly efficient start codons, the next AUG codon is more likely to be found in alternative frames. They also have shown that weak initiation at the first starts is associated with the synthesis of shortened proteoforms as a result of initiation at the second starts.

A collaboration of scientists from the Shemyakin-Ovchinnikov Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and Prokhorov General Physics Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences have developed a breakthrough technology to resolve a key problem that has prevented the introduction of novel drugs into clinical practice for decades. The study was published in Nature Biomedical Engineering and featured in the journal’s News & Views section.

Lipids 2021 Conference, October 19-21, 2021, IBCH RAS, Moscow

Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT) invites you to take part in the International school for young scientists "Molecular mechanisms of neurodegenerative diseases", which will be held on November 26, 2020 online.