The enzyme is the calcium-pumping Ca2+-ATPase - an ion pump protein that maintains a concentration of calcium inside the cell, which is about 20,000 times lower than outside. Only, it does not pump ...

We've all heard the advice: "Drink your milk and you will have strong bones and healthy teeth." It's supposed to help us meet our bodies' high calcium requirements. However, our cells keep calcium ...

When animals and plants are exposed to influences such as bacterial attack, odour and cold, calcium ions flow into the cells. The calcium provides the cells with a signal about what is going on ...

High-speed pumps: Cells use high-speed pumps to pump calcium ions out of their interior. A team has created the first comprehensive transport model of plasma membrane CaATPase (PMCA) to study calcium ...

Cells have to invest a lot of energy to maintain this concentration gradient, especially when it comes to getting rid of calcium. 'It's like being on a rush-hour train in a city like Tokyo. When the ...

Like entrance and exit doors on a building, a cell's outer surface has doors -- channels, pumps, and transporters that selectively control what molecules enter or exit. In the immune system, T cells ...

Parasitic wasps switch off the immune systems of fruit flies by draining calcium from the flies' blood cells, a finding that offers new insight into how pathogens break through a host's defenses.