Washington, DC - June 24, 2016 - Bacteria that have the potential to abet breast cancer are present in the breasts of cancer patients, while beneficial bacteria are more abundant in healthy breasts, where they may actually be protecting women from cancer, according to Gregor Reid, PhD, and his collaborators. These findings may lead ultimately to the use of probiotics to protect women against breast cancer. The research is published in the ahead of print June 24 in Applied and Environmental Microbiology, a journal of the American Society for Microbiology.
Body
One of the first clues pathologists look for in tissue from a newly diagnosed breast cancer patient is the estrogen receptor, a nuclear protein that converts hormonal messages in the bloodstream into instructions for the cell about how to behave. They also look for the presence of progesterone receptors, primarily to confirm that the estrogen receptor is active.
Researchers at the RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science (CSRS) in Japan along with collaborators at Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) have succeeded in decoding the genome sequence for Hevea brasiliensis, the natural rubber tree native to Brazil. Published in Scientific Reports, the study reports a draft genome sequence that covers more than 93% of expressed genes, and pinpoints regions specific to the biosynthesis of rubber.
WASHINGTON -- Obese male mice and normal weight female mice produce female pups that are overweight at birth through childhood, and have delayed development of their breast tissue as well as increased rates of breast cancer.
The findings, published online June 24 in Scientific Reports by Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center researchers, come from one of the first animal studies to examine the impact of paternal obesity on future generations' cancer risk.
Bremerhaven/Germany, 24 June 2016. The Siberian permafrost regions include those areas of the Earth, which heat up very quickly in the course of climate change. Nevertheless, biologists are currently observing only a minimal response in forest composition. In the places where, when considering the air temperature, pine and spruce forests should be growing, Siberian larch trees are still thriving. The cause of this paradox has been tracked using million-year-old bee pollen by scientists at the Alfred Wegener Institute, the University of Cologne, and international partner institutions.
Cold Spring Harbor, NY -- The genome of the corn plant - or maize, as it's called almost everywhere except the US - "is a lot more exciting" than scientists have previously believed. So says the lead scientist in a new effort to analyze and annotate the depth of the plant's genetic resources.
Doctors and scientists at Intermountain Medical Center in Salt Lake City printed and used a 3D kidney to help save a patient's organ during a complicated tumor-removal procedural.
The 3D-printed model allowed doctors to study the patient's kidney in 3D to determine how to best remove the tumor as it was located in a precarious location adjacent to vital arteries and veins.
Thanks to the 3D-printed model of the organ, doctors were able to maneuver around those sensitive areas and successfully remove the tumor and ultimately save the patient's kidney.
A team of researchers led by Dr. Friederike J. Gruhl and Professor Andrew C. B. Cato at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) are developing a three-dimensional model for prostate cancer research based on cryogels. The model will be used to reproduce natural processes and above all to examine the development and the progression of tumors. A current paper on this project published in the scientific journal Small (DOI: 10.1002/smll.201600683) has been crowned top story of the week on "Prostate Cell News", a major international platform and database for prostate cancer research.
Chemists from the Universities of Basel and Zurich in Switzerland have come one step closer to generating energy from sunlight: for the first time, they were able to reproduce one of the crucial phases of natural photosynthesis with artificial molecules. Their results have been published by the journal Angewandte Chemie (international edition).
Scientists at KIT (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology) detected an important mechanism in the evolution of plant genomes: Using Arabidopsis thaliana as a model organism, they studied the formation of tandem repeat DNA sequences and found out that these sequences form if both DNA strands are broken at a significant distance from each other. For their experiments, the scientists used CRISPR/Cas system, working like a "pair of molecular scissors." The results are presented in the PNAS journal. (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1603823113)
What used to take several weeks is now possible in two days: thanks to new molecular-based methods, mycobacterial pathogens that cause pulmonary infections or tuberculosis can now be detected much more quickly. Time-consuming bacteria cultures no longer need to be taken from the patient samples, meaning that a suitable therapy can be started quickly.
Toxic arsenic initially accumulates in the nuclei of plants' cells. This has been revealed by an X-ray examination of the aquatic plant rigid hornwort (Ceratophyllum demersum) using DESY's X-ray source PETRA III. Even at comparatively low concentrations, the arsenic also floods the vacuole, a liquid-filled cavity which takes up most of the cell.
With a surface resembling that of plants, solar cells improve light-harvesting and thus generate more power. Scientists of KIT (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology) reproduced the epidermal cells of rose petals that have particularly good antireflection properties and integrated the transparent replicas into an organic solar cell. This resulted in a relative efficiency gain of twelve percent. An article on this subject has been published recently in the Advanced Optical Materials journal (DOI: 10.1002/adom.201600046).
Those who go to a masked ball consciously slip into a different role, in order to avoid being recognized so quickly. Insects were already doing something very similar in the Cretaceous: They cloaked themselves in pieces of plants, grains of sand, or the remains of their prey, in order, for example, to be invisible to predators. An international research team, with participation from the University of Bonn, has now investigated such "invisibility cloaks" encased in amber. The custom-tailored "costumes" also permit conclusions about the habitat at the time.
One possible cause of the alarming bee mortality we are witnessing is the use of the very active systemic insecticides called neonicotinoids. A previously unknown and harmful effect of neonicotinoids has been identified by researchers at the Mainz University Medical Center and Goethe University Frankfurt. They discovered that neonicotinoids in low and field-relevant concentrations reduce the concentration of acetylcholine in the royal jelly/larval food secreted by nurse bees. This signaling molecule is relevant for the development of the honeybee larvae.