A team of scientists has uncovered a surprising molecular link connecting how cells regulate growth with how they sense and make available nutrients. The findings also implicate a new protein as a potential drug target in pancreatic cancer.
In 2013, an influenza virus began circulating among poultry in China. It caused several waves of human infection and as of late July 2017, nearly 1,600 people had tested positive for avian H7N9. Nearly 40 percent of those infected had died. In 2017, Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin-Madison received a sample of H7N9 virus isolated from a patient in China who had died of the flu. He and his research team subsequently began work to characterize and understand it.
University of Pittsburgh scientists are unlocking the complexities of a recently discovered cell death process that plays a key role in health and disease, and new findings link their discovery to asthma, kidney injury and brain trauma. The results, reported today in the journal Cell, are the early steps toward drug development that could transform emergency and critical care treatment.
Melanoma, a cancer of skin pigment cells called melanocytes, will strike an estimated 87,110 people in the U.S. in 2017, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A fraction of those melanomas come from pre-existing moles, but the majority of them come from sources unknown – until now.
A new study suggests that the ability of a stem cell to differentiate into cardiac muscle (and by extension other cell types) depends on what portions of the genome are available for activation, which is controlled by the location of DNA in a cell’s nucleus.
An analysis of the complete genomes of 2,064 people reveals that multiple genetic variations could contribute to autism. The work suggests that scanning whole genomes may one day be useful for clinical diagnostics.
Yale Cancer Center scientists now have made a fundamental discovery about EGFR signaling, reported in the journal Cell, that may open the potential for new types of cancer drugs.
Using fruit flies, Johns Hopkins researchers have figured out why a particular inherited human heart condition that is almost always due to genetic mutations causes the heart to enlarge, thicken and fail. They found that one such mutation interferes with heart muscle’s ability to relax after contracting, and prevents the heart from fully filling with blood and pumping it out.
Stromal tissue may provide novel targets to disrupt tumor supply lines
Scientists at the Children’s Medical Center Research Institute at UT Southwestern (CRI) have discovered that lactate provides a fuel for growing tumors, challenging a nearly century-old observation known as the Warburg effect.
An international research effort led by Duke Cancer Institute scientists has been working to better understand the genetic underpinnings of the most prevalent form of this cancer -- diffuse large B cell lymphoma – and how those genes might play a role in patients’ responses to therapies.
New discoveries about the mechanism responsible for heat generation in the body related to fat tissue oppose classical views in the field and could lead to new ways to fight metabolic disorders associated with obesity, according to a study led by Georgia State University.
An international team including DOE Joint Genome Institute researchers analyzed the genome sequence of the common liverwort (Marchantia polymorpha) to identify genes and gene families deemed crucial to plant evolution and have been conserved over millions of years and across plant lineages.
In a new study published in Cell Reports, scientists report an unexpected finding — that the oncogene FOXQ1 suppresses the growth of melanoma cells.
The protein behind fragile X syndrome, a leading cause of autism and intellectual disability, controls a suite of genetic regulators.
Working with mouse cells, Harvard Medical School scientists have successfully recreated the segmentation clock that drives spine formation during embryonic development. Insights can illuminate normal spine development, understanding of spinal malformations such as scoliosis and spina bifida.
Scientists at the UNC School of Medicine and elsewhere are exploring ways to reprogram scar tissue cells into healthy heart muscle cells, and now UNC researchers have published the first scientific paper to compare in great detail the two leading reprogramming techniques.
Two drugs, already approved for safe use in people, may be able to improve therapy for chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), a blood cancer that affects myeloid cells, according to results from a University of Iowa study in mice.
Chronic tissue inflammation resulting from obesity is an underlying cause of insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. But the mechanism by which this occurs has remained cloaked, until now. In a paper, University of California San Diego School of Medicine researchers identified exosomes — extremely small vesicles or sacs secreted from most cell types — as the missing link.
Scientists have found that ignored pieces of DNA play a critical role in the development of immune cells (T cells). These areas activate a change in the structure of DNA that brings together crucial elements necessary for T cell formation. This “big bang” discovery may aid in combating diseases.
For years, medical investigators have tried and failed to develop vaccines for a type of staph bacteria associated with the deadly superbug MRSA. But a new study by Cedars-Sinai investigators shows how staph cells evade the body’s immune system, offering a clearer picture of how a successful vaccine would work.
Training at altitude – meaning under low-oxygen conditions – turns athletes into super-performers. Likewise, Prof. Guy Shakhar has found, oxygen-starved T cells become super-effective at attacking cancer. These T cells could provide an immediate way to improve cancer immunotherapy.
Working in mice, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified a way to convert white fat, which stores calories, into brown fat that burns them.
Researchers at the Austrian Academy of Sciences’ Institute for Molecular Biotechnology (IMBA) have discovered a means of immunising cells against the biological weapon ricin, as reported in the current issue of Cell Research.
Researchers at Duke Cancer Institute have not only untangled an unusual wiring system that cancer cells use for carbohydrate metabolism, but also identified a natural compound that appears to selectively shut down this system in laboratory studies.
In a two-year study at UCLA, nearly two-thirds of people with advanced melanoma responded positively to a treatment that combines the immunotherapy drug pembrolizumab with a herpes virus called talimogene laherpareovec, or T-VEC. Researchers led by Dr. Antoni Ribas found that the treatment's side effects were manageable, and comparable to side effects for people who took either pembrolizumab or T-VEC as a standalone treatment.
Researchers associated with the Tulane Brain Institute say they have moved a step closer to improving treatment for chronic depression.
In new research, scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have converted skin cells from healthy adults directly into motor neurons without going through a stem cell state. The technique makes it possible to study motor neurons of the human central nervous system in the lab. Unlike commonly studied mouse motor neurons, human motor neurons growing in the lab would be a new tool since researchers can’t take samples of these neurons from living people but can easily take skin samples.
Researchers interested in the evolution of multicellular life were looking for bacteria that stimulate Salpingoeca rosetta, single-cell saltwater dwellers that are the closest living relatives of animals, to form the rosette-shaped colonies that give them their name. But one bacterium had quite a different stimulating effect: It motivated S. rosetta to have sex.
A surprising discovery that immune cells possess an internal warehouse of glycogen used to activate immune responses could help to increase immune activity in vaccines or suppress immune reactions in autoimmune disease or hyper-inflammatory conditions.
Humans, like other animals, become more sensitive to cold with age. Now, scientists from University of Utah Health report that delivering a single dose of a nutritional supplement called L-carnitine to older mice restores a youthful ability to adapt to the cold. After treatment, they tolerate chilly conditions that would ordinarily trigger hypothermia. As reported online in Cell Metabolism, the supplement works by boosting levels of a newly discovered fuel source for brown fat, or “good fat”.
Scientists have known that abnormal protein deposits and swarms of activated immune cells accumulate in brains of people with Alzheimer’s. Now researchers have untangled how these proteins and inflammation interact in lab experiments to reveal how therapies might reverse the disease process.
If our microbiome overindulges, we might not have access to the nutrients we need. That’s the suggestion from new research conducted by University of Wisconsin-Madison Professor Federico Rey’s group that shows mice that harbor high levels of microbes that eat choline are deprived of this essential nutrient.
Scientists from the Children’s Medical Center Research Institute at UT Southwestern (CRI) have developed an innovative system to identify and characterize the molecular components that control the activities of regulatory DNA sequences in the human genome.
New research from Harvard Medical School casts doubt on the prevailing model of memory formation, suggesting that the brain may be far more flexible and less rigid in the way it incorporates, stores and recalls information.
After creating mutant Indian jumping ants with no sense of smell, HHMI Investigator Danny Reinberg and colleagues saw profound abnormalities in the ants’ behavior and brains. The results show that the sense of smell is fundamental to maintaining colony harmony.
An international team of scientists, led by University of California San Diego School of Medicine researchers, has created a human stem cell-based model of a rare, but devastating, inherited neurological autoimmune condition called Aicardi-Goutieres Syndrome (AGS). In doing so, the team was able to identify unusual and surprising underlying genetic mechanisms that drive AGS and test strategies to inhibit the condition using existing drugs.
Until recently, CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing could only be used to manipulate DNA. In 2016, University of California San Diego School of Medicine researchers repurposed the technique to track RNA in live cells in a method called RNA-targeting Cas9. In a study published August 10 in Cell, the team took RCas9 a step further: they corrected molecular mistakes that lead to microsatellite repeat expansion diseases, which include a type of ALS and Huntington's disease.
UCI scientists studying how aging affects the biological clock’s control of metabolism have discovered that a low-calorie diet helps keep these energy-regulating processes humming and the body younger.
A research team has overcome challenges that have limited gene therapy. They demonstrate how their novel approach with skin transplantation could enable a wide range of gene-based therapies to treat human diseases. The researchers provide “proof-of-concept,” treating mice with two common related human ailments: type-2 diabetes and obesity.
Researchers at Michigan Medicine and in China showed that a type of bacterium is associated with the recurrence of colorectal cancer and poor outcomes. They found that Fusobacterium nucleatum in the gut can stop chemotherapy from causing a type of cancer cell death called apoptosis.
Antibody’s molecular structure reveals how it recognizes the Zika virus
An international research team has discovered a central mechanism that accelerates the development of metastases after surgery for cancerous tumors in the abdominal area. This study provides a possible treatment modality for cancer patients that can decrease incidence of deadly metastatic disease.
A new high-precision feeding system for lab mice reinforces the idea that the time of day food is eaten is more critical to weight loss than the amount of calories ingested.
Scientists have linked specific wiring in the brain to distinct behavioral symptoms of depression. In a study published in Cell, researchers at UC San Diego found brain circuits tied to feelings of despair and helplessness and were able to alleviate and even reverse such symptoms in mice studies.
A new study in mice shows that females vaccinated before pregnancy and infected with Zika virus while pregnant bear pups who show no trace of the virus. The findings offer the first evidence that an effective vaccine can protect vulnerable fetuses from Zika infection and resulting injury.
Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago have identified an enzyme present in the cornea that becomes dramatically upregulated and triggers inflammation during and even after a herpes virus infection has cleared.
A study by researchers at the University of Chicago Medicine shows that when mice that are genetically susceptible to developing inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) were given antibiotics during late pregnancy and the early nursing period, their offspring were more likely to develop an inflammatory condition of the colon that resembles human IBD.
After 12 weeks of taking an anti-asthma drug, a subset of patients with type 2 diabetes showed a clinically significant reduction in blood glucose during a randomized, double blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial, report University of California San Diego School of Medicine and University of Michigan researchers.
St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital discovery of the mechanism of T cell exhaustion will lead to treatments to enhance immunotherapies against cancers and such viruses as HIV
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