Word: receptor
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...Cohen, a pipe-smoking individualist, to extract the first pure samples of the protein now known as nerve growth factor. Later, working separately, Cohen discovered epidermal growth factor, which governs cell development in the skin. He also located a protein on the surfaces of cells that acts as a receptor...
...Institute Symposium at M.I.T. last week, one keynote address was a rare display of virtuosity. Michael Brown of the University of Texas Health Science Center at Dallas vividly described the twelve years of work that he and Colleague Joseph Goldstein had carried out on the low-density lipoprotein (LDL) receptor, a molecule that ferries cholesterol-rich particles from the bloodstream into the cell. His explanations were crisply organized, and his slides went beyond standard diagrams to include photographs of patients. Said one listener of Brown and Goldstein: "Their work is dazzling...
Their prize had been predicted for some time, and with good reason: the discovery of the LDL receptor has revolutionized scientists' knowledge of cholesterol metabolism and certain cardiovascular diseases. Says Goldstein: "We now understand the mechanism through which diet and exercise can help prevent a heart attack...
...inherited disorder. Children with the disease have blood-cholesterol levels six to ten times normal and can suffer heart attacks as early as age two. By comparing skin cells from victims with those of healthy people, the two scientists traced the problem to an absence or deficiency of LDL receptors, proteins that stud the outer membranes of most cells, particularly those of the liver. Then they decoded the complex minuet that takes place between the receptor and its LDL particle. Says Baltimore: "That was important for understanding how cells communicate with their environment...
...popularly regarded as an enemy, the body needs it to manufacture new cell membranes, steroid hormones and bile acids. Made primarily in the liver and also obtained through food, cholesterol travels through the bloodstream in round bundles of fat and protein called lipoproteins. Like Venus's-flytraps, vacant LDL receptors snare the passing packets. The lipoproteins are rapidly broken down in the cell, and the cholesterol is freed for use, while the receptor returns to the membrane, ready for prey...