Culture
Pufferfish are known for their strange and extreme skin ornaments, but how they came to possess the spiky skin structures known as spines has largely remained a mystery. Now, researchers have identified the genes responsible for the evolution and development of pufferfish spines in a study publishing July 25 in the journal iScience. Turns out, the process is pretty similar to how other vertebrates get their hair or feathers--and might have allowed the pufferfish to fill unique ecological niches.
Human artificial chromosomes (HACs) could be useful tools for both understanding how mammalian chromosomes function and creating synthetic biological systems, but for the last 20 years, they have been limited by an inefficient artificial centromere. In the journal Cell on July 25th, researchers announce that they have made progress on this key component.
PITTSBURGH, July 25, 2019 - Pinch yourself. If you feel pain, it's thanks to specialized nerve endings in the skin. And, in a surprising discovery, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine demonstrated that pain-sensing nerves also help fight skin infections and prevent its spread, suggesting a new type of immunity. The findings, based on studies in mice, were published today in the journal Cell.
When metabolism is slowed, fruit flies without any microRNAs survive to become normal adults
Slowed metabolism gives developing organisms time to adjust to mistakes
Study could explain why caloric restriction is linked to longevity and why animals bred for hyper-growth have developmental problems
EVANSTON, Ill. -- Just by slowing their metabolism, mutant fruit flies can go from zero to hero.
Researchers have long known that dozens of inherited diseases, called toxic proteinopathies, are caused by the build-up of specific misfolded proteins in cells. But, the molecular mechanisms responsible for this accumulation have remained a mystery -- hampering efforts to develop therapies.
(PHILADELPHIA) - For the past 20 years, researchers have been trying to perfect the construction of human artificial chromosomes, or HACs for short. In a paper published today in Cell, Penn researchers describe a new way to form an essential part of the artificial chromosome, called the centromere, by bypassing the biological requirements needed to form a natural one. Simply put, they biochemically delivered a protein called CENP-A directly to HAC DNA to simplify the building of a HAC in the lab.
Bottom Line: This research letter reports on the association of BRCA2 gene mutations and potential risk for pediatric or adolescent lymphoma. The study used whole-genome sequencing data for 1,380 survivors of pediatric or adolescent lymphoma (815 survivors of Hodgkin lymphoma and 565 survivors of non-Hodgkin lymphoma), of which 13 survivors had BRCA2 mutations (five survivors of Hodgkin lymphoma and eight survivors of non-Hodgkin lymphoma).
Researchers led by Pierre Vanderhaeghen and Jérôme Bonnefont (VIB-KU Leuven and ULB) have unraveled a new mechanism controlling the switch between growth and differentiation of neural stem cells during brain development. They discovered a specific factor that makes stem cells 'deaf' to proliferative signals, which in turn causes them to differentiate into neurons and shape the marvelous complexity of our brain.
What The Study Did: This observational study examined at what point an increasing number of operations to remove the thyroid performed annually by a surgeon is associated with a lower rate of complications among patients.
Authors: Charles Meltzer, M.D., of the Permanente Medical Group in Santa Rosa, California, is the corresponding author.
(doi:10.1001/jamaoto.2019.1752)
Editor's Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, financial disclosures, funding and support, etc.
A report from St. Jude Children's Research Hospital links inherited mutations in the BRCA2 gene with an increased risk of developing non-Hodgkin lymphoma in children and adolescents. The work appears as an advance online publication today in JAMA Oncology.
LEXINGTON, Ky (July 25, 2019) -- A team of scientists have designed and tested in mice a novel and promising therapeutic strategy for treating Lafora Disease (LD), a fatal form of childhood epilepsy. This new type of drug - called an antibody-enzyme fusion or AEF -- is a first-in-class therapy for LD and an example of precision medicine that has potential for treating other types of aggregate-based neurological diseases.
Future wireless data networks will have to reach higher transmission rates and shorter delays, while supplying an increasing number of end devices. For this purpose, network structures consisting of many small radio cells will be required. To connect these cells, high-performance transmission lines at high frequencies up to the terahertz range will be needed. Moreover, seamless connection to glass fiber networks must be ensured, if possible.
After nerve injury, the protein complex mTORC1 takes over an important function in skeletal muscle to maintain the neuromuscular junction, the synapse between the nerve and muscle fiber. Researchers at the University of Basel's Biozentrum have now shown that the activation of mTORC1 must be tightly balanced for a proper response of the muscle to nerve injury. The study published in Nature Communications opens new insights into muscle weakness related to neuromuscular diseases or caused by ageing.
A research team led by experts at the Bloomberg~Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center reports favorable five-year survival rates from the first multidose clinical trial of the immunotherapy drug nivolumab (anti-PD-1) as a treatment for patients whose previous therapies failed to ste
The large, error-correcting quantum computers envisioned today could be decades away, yet experts are vigorously trying to come up with ways to use existing and near-term quantum processors to solve useful problems despite limitations due to errors or "noise."
A key envisioned use is simulating molecular properties. In the long run, this can lead to advances in materials improvement and drug discovery. But not with noisy calculations confusing the results.