There’s a small fatty gland that sits behind your sternum and is often said to be ‘useless’ in adulthood.
Research, however, suggests the thymus gland is not nearly as expendable as experts once thought.
Although not all scientists agree on this.
In a study in 2023, US researchers found that those who get their thymus removed face an increased risk of death from any cause in the five years following the surgery.
A new single-protein analysis technique gives researchers an unprecedented ability to study proteins called scramblases, which have critical roles in biology. The development of the new technique, in a study led by investigators at Weill Cornell Medicine and Ruhr University Bochum in Germany, expands the toolkit available to cell biologists and biophysicists and could someday be useful in devising new strategies against multiple diseases.
Scramblases operate within cell membranes to rearrange the fat-related molecules, known as lipids, that make up those membranes. Their disruption of the usual layered organization of the membrane is essential for many important biological processes. In the study, published in Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, the researchers developed a fluorescence imaging-based technique—the first of its kind—for measuring the activity rates of individual scramblase proteins. Their demonstrations of the technique uncovered new findings on key scramblases and showcased the technique’s broad applicability.
“I’m excited about this new platform as it is versatile and provides unprecedented information on exactly how fast a single scramblase works,” said study co-senior author Dr. Anant Menon, professor of biochemistry and biophysics at Weill Cornell Medicine.
BACKGROUND: SGLT2 (sodium-glucose cotransporter 2) mediates renal glucose reabsorption, and its pharmacological inhibition exerts cardio-and renoprotective benefits. Despite widespread clinical interest, reliable detection of SGLT2 protein remains challenging due to concerns regarding antibody specificity. METHODS: Eight commercially available anti-SGLT2 antibodies were evaluated by immunohistochemistry and Western blotting using kidneys and hearts from genetically engineered Sglt2-deficient mice and rats. Human kidney tissues, including renal cell carcinoma samples, were also examined. RESULTS: Among the antibodies tested, ab306558 and HPA041603 showed specific immunostaining in rodent kidneys, with minimal background in wild-type tissues and complete absence of staining in Sglt2-deficient samples. However, ab306558 was unsuitable for human samples because of nonspecific staining.
Aging involves a decline in physiological functions and increased disease susceptibility, with the immune system playing a pivotal role. Recent research reveals that nonimmune structural cells, such as fibroblasts, epithelial cells, and neurons, develop immune-like properties crucial for stress response and tissue integrity. However, with aging, these organized, nonimmune cells in multicellular organisms gradually lose their identity and organization. They may exhibit unicellular properties, acquire macrophage-like characteristics, or enter a state of senescence, contributing to chronic inflammation.
The type I interferon (IFN-I) response is a critical component of the immune defense against various viral pathogens, triggering the expression of hundreds of interferon-stimulated genes (ISGs). These ISGs encode proteins with diverse antiviral functions, targeting various stages of viral replication and restricting infection spread. Beyond their antiviral functions, ISGs and associated immune metabolites have emerged as promising broad-spectrum biomarkers that can differentiate viral infections from other conditions. This review provides an overview of the diagnostic potential of ISGs at transcript and protein levels, as well as their immune metabolites. We focus on their clinical applications and the sensitivity and specificity of these biomarkers through receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis.
One of the symptoms of schizophrenia is difficulty incorporating new information about the world. This can lead people with schizophrenia to struggle with making decisions and, eventually, to lose touch with reality.
MIT neuroscientists have now identified a gene mutation that appears to give rise to this type of difficulty. In a study of mice, the researchers found that the mutated gene impairs the function of a brain circuit that is responsible for updating beliefs based on new input.
This mutation, in a gene called grin2a, was originally identified in a large-scale screen of patients with schizophrenia. The new study suggests that drugs targeting this brain circuit could help with some of the cognitive impairments seen in people with schizophrenia.
Every time we move through a familiar environment, the hippocampus consults an internal map, a detailed spatial representation built up through repeated experience. But what happens when something unexpected occurs on a well-known route? Researchers at the University Hospital Bonn (UKB) and the University of Bonn demonstrated in a mouse model that the brain does not redraw its maps from scratch. Instead, it annotates them, preserving the underlying spatial layout while overlaying new information on top of the existing map. The paper is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The hippocampus, the brain’s working memory, is shaped like a seahorse and is located in the temporal lobe of both the left and right hemispheres. Hippocampal CA3 circuits, which link information and support the recognition of memories, keep their spatial maps stable while layering new annotations on top, much like a navigation app that preserves your route while flagging an incident ahead.
A Bonn-based research team arrived at these findings by recording the activity of CA3 axons in mice traversing a familiar linear running route. At a fixed point along the route, the scientists introduced a mildly aversive but harmless air puff stimulus, comparable to an unexpected obstacle on a road, and tracked how the hippocampal network updated its representation before, during and after the event.
Deep brain stimulation (DBS) has been used for more than three decades to treat motor symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. Today, more than 200,000 patients worldwide have been implanted with these systems, which continuously deliver electrical stimulation to specific deep-brain regions to reduce rigidity and tremor. Yet despite its clinical success, conventional deep brain stimulation remains limited in its ability to address one of the disease’s most disabling symptoms: walking impairments.
Researchers from EPFL and Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV) have developed a new approach, published in Nature Medicine, that adapts DBS in real time to the patient’s mobility in everyday situations. Thanks to artificial intelligence, the system continuously interprets the patient’s activity and adjusts stimulation in real time, improving walking, climbing stairs and even the simple act of standing up.