The technology can also find cases in which different proteins are produced by a single gene.
But a few years ago, researchers noticed that amyloid fibrils made from different proteins had very similar structures.
Cholesterol, the fat that clogs arteries and causes heart attacks, is ferried around the body by two different proteins.
Otten now buys high-protein whey concentrate from cheesemakers, refines it in his plant and extracts different proteins for various customers.
Also, since it produces three different proteins--beef, pork and chicken--it can hedge.
It suggests that once a complicated mechanism involving a lot of different proteins has evolved, it is then difficult to change one bit without upsetting the rest.
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The researchers measured levels of more than 3, 000 different proteins.
Using tumor samples from wo-men with breast cancer, he used a gadget called a cell sorter to sift through dozens of different proteins on the surface of breast cancer cells, searching for patterns that might identify stem cells.
Looking at skin lesions in leprosy patients, the team found that two different immune proteins were present.
HINT, crops up in 11 different genes for receptor proteins that sit on a cell's surface waiting for messenger molecules from other cells.
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Prof Wendy Barclay, chair in influenza virology at Imperial College London, said other more complex viruses make proteins at different times during replication, but what is clever is that influenza can do this in such a simple way.
Mr. AMARAL: Of those, over 500 proteins were significantly different in the two groups of kids, and 117 or so were very significantly different.
Phylogenetic analyses show that these proteins belong to different keratin lineages that originated in an early tetrapod ancestor and in mammals evolved to become the major keratin types of hair.
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Biogen and ZymoGenetics took a slightly different tack, creating therapeutic proteins that soak up excess amounts of BLYS. ZymoGenetics, working with partner Serono, has just begun human trials of its drug, TACI-IG, while Biogen and partner Genentech hope to begin human testing of their compound in 2005.
Knowing the weights of different sorts of atoms (and of groups of atoms that show up regularly in larger molecules, such as the 20 different amino acids from which proteins are assembled) it is usually possible to piece together fragments to form the profile of an entire protein.
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Since 1991, working separately, the two have found how each protein can be sensitive to more than one smelly chemical, in different amounts, and how any given chemical activates several proteins at once, much like a unique musical chord which the brain then identifies as a smell.
The drugs work through different mechanisms to slow the growth of tumors by hitting crucial growth-promoting proteins.
This is enough to produce a completely different sequence of genetic chunks - and results in the cell beginning to produce proteins that the virus can use to reproduce itself.
But these different modes of action allow for the possibility that, in combination, the proteins might enhance each other's activities, so the three researchers tested them together as well as separately.
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