New discovery in living cell signaling
This gif of membrane-anchored Ras (red) and individual SOS molecules (green) shows individual SOS molecules corralled into nanofabricated patches where all the membrane-associated Ras molecules they activate can be trapped. A breakthrough discovery into how living cells process and respond to chemical information could help advance the development of treatments for a large number of cancers and other cellular disorders that have been resistant to therapy. An international collaboration of researchers, led by scientists with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California (UC) Berkeley, have unlocked the secret behind the activation of the Ras family of proteins, one of the most important components of cellular signaling networks in biology and major drivers of cancers that are among the most difficult to treat.