Recent Comments

    stretchiness that allows living tissues ti expand tagged posts

    Researchers Decode Molecule that Gives Living Tissues their Flexibility

    June 28, 2018, Categories  Health/Medical, Biology/Biotechnology

    This diagram depicts the configuration of the complex tropoelastin molecule, which forms the basis for the elastin that gives tissues like skin and blood vessels their elasticity. The molecule’s atom-by-atom structure was decoded by a team of researchers from MIT, Australia and the UK. Credit: Courtesy of the researchers

    Study reveals atomic structure of tropoelastin, showing what goes wrong in some diseases. The stretchiness that allows living tissues to expand, contract, stretch, and bend throughout a lifetime is the result of a protein molecule called tropoelastin. Remarkably, this molecule can be stretched to 8X its length and always returns back to its original size.

    Now, for the first time, researchers have decoded the molecular structure of this complex molecule, as well as the details of what can go wrong with its structure in various genetically driven diseases. Tropoelastin is the precursor molecule of elastin, which along with structures called microfibrils is the key to flexibility of tissues including skin, lungs, and blood vessels...

    Read More