Body

Most Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria Syndrome (HGPS) patients carry a mutation that produces a defective form of the protein lamin A, known as progerin. Normal lamin A is a key component of the matrix surrounding the DNA in the cell nucleus and plays a role in gene expression. By contrast, the defective form progerin is not functional but is nevertheless continuously synthesized. The result is that progerin accumulates in the nucleus and causes the cell to "age". Consequently, HGPS patients develop classic diseases of old age such as atherosclerosis, osteoporosis, heart attacks and strokes.

Scientists have taken microscopic images revealing that the protein ties tethering cells together are severed in lung cancer cells - meaning they can break loose and spread, according to research published in Cell Reports* today (Wednesday).

The researchers at the Cancer Research UK Manchester Institute discovered that the ties which lash cells together - controlled by a protein called TIAM1 - are chopped up when cell maintenance work goes wrong.

The first results from a nationwide project to study the genetic causes of rare developmental disorders have revealed 12 causative genes that were unidentified before. The Deciphering Developmental Disorders (DDD) project, the world's largest, nationwide genome-wide diagnostic sequencing programme, sequenced DNA and compared the clinical characteristics of over a thousand children to find the genes responsible for conditions that include intellectual disabilities and congenital heart defects, among others.

By mimicking the red and green colors of falling leaves, Bornean lizards avoid falling prey to birds while gliding, new research has found.

The work suggests that populations of the gliding lizard, Draco cornutus, have evolved extendable gliding membranes, like wings, which closely match the colors of falling leaves to disguise themselves as they glide between trees in the rainforest.

Found throughout South-East Asia, Draco is the only living genus of lizard with extendable gliding membranes - call patagia - which allow them to glide between trees in their territories.

Previous studies of hair loss have identified signals from the skin that help prompt new phases of hair growth. However, how different types of cells that reside in the skin communicate to activate hair growth has continued to puzzle biologists. A new study reveals a new way to spur hair growth.

New research shows that modern human skeletons evolved into their lightly built form only relatively recently--after the start of the Holocene about 12,000 years ago and even more recently in some human populations. The work, based on high-resolution imaging of bone joints from modern humans and chimpanzees as well as from fossils of extinct human species shows that for millions of years extinct humans had high bone density until a dramatic decrease in recent modern humans.

Paleontologists have documented the evolutionary adaptations necessary for ancient lobe-finned fish to transform pectoral fins used underwater into strong, bony structures, such as those of Tiktaalik roseae. This enabled these emerging tetrapods, animals with limbs, to crawl in shallow water or on land. But evolutionary biologists have wondered why the modern structure called the autopod--comprising wrists and fingers or ankles and toes--has no obvious morphological counterpart in the fins of living fishes.

Results of a small study show that hospitalized children given high-dose IV infusions of the antibiotic vancomycin to treat drug-resistant bacterial infections face an increased risk for kidney damage -- an often reversible but sometimes serious complication.

The findings published in Annals of Pharmacotherapy highlight the importance of prescribing the medication cautiously, the investigators say, and also underscore the need for newer, safer drugs to treat resistant infections.

Patients who were obese before developing heart failure lived longer than normal weight patients with the same condition according to a new study in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology that examined the "obesity paradox" by following obese and non-obese heart failure patients for more than a decade.

The health effects of air pollution are a major concern for urban populations all over the world. Children, the elderly, and people with impaired respiratory systems (such as asthmatics) tend to be especially sensitive to the impact of exposure to ozone, nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide, and particulate matter.

Hepatitis, steroids, birth control pills, alcohol, cancer, even gallstones can interfere with bile secretion, causing the fluid, which is made by the liver to help digest food, to stay in the liver, where it's toxic to cells, said Dr. Yisang Yoon, cell physiologist at the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Regents University.

It's called cholestasis, a sometimes tough-to-treat condition that can damage or destroy the liver.

The combination of the common antibiotic clarithromycin with some statins increases the risk of adverse events, which may require hospital admission for older people, according to a new study published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).

Statins, used to lower cholesterol, are one of the most widely prescribed drugs, with projections estimated at more than 1 billion people around the globe. Although uncommon, severe adverse events can occur in some patients when certain medications interact with the statin and affect the way it is metabolized.

NEW YORK, NY (December 22, 2014) -- People with autism have a wide range of symptoms, with no two people sharing the exact type and severity of behaviors. Now a large-scale analysis of hundreds of patients and nearly 1000 genes has started to uncover how diversity among traits can be traced to differences in patients' genetic mutations. The study, conducted by researchers at Columbia University Medical Center, was published Dec. 22 in the journal Nature Neuroscience.

Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have found that resveratrol, the red-wine ingredient once touted as an elixir of youth, powerfully activates an evolutionarily ancient stress response in human cells. The finding should dispel much of the mystery and controversy about how resveratrol really works.

Scientists have found that decreasing the levels of or blocking a specific protein commonly found in humans and many other animals allowed them to slow the spread of two different kinds of cancer to the lungs of mice. The research indicates that when the protein becomes dysregulated it helps pave the way for cancers to spread and suggests that addressing such dysregulation is a lead worth pursuing in fighting metastasis.