New research indicates that statin use is associated with a significantly lower risk of developing intestinal strictures in patients with Crohn’s disease. The study suggests that the anti-inflammatory and antifibrotic properties of statins may help prevent the structural damage that often leads to surgical intervention.
Use of statins after the diagnosis of Crohn’s disease is associated with a lower risk for intestinal stricture formation than the use of other non-statin drugs.
Scientists at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) and their colleagues are shedding new light on a tumor’s earliest moments—revealing how lung cells with cancer-causing mutations recruit accomplices from healthy surrounding tissue to pave the way for a tumor to develop.
This corruption of the local neighborhood—what scientists call the “tumor microenvironment”—begins surprisingly early, as tumors first emerge, according to a study published April 22 in Nature.
The team’s findings show that when this communication with surrounding cells is disrupted, tumors fail to grow.
Nociception refers to how our nerves respond to stimuli that trigger pain. Nerves in skin and other peripheral tissues – such as muscles and joints – that detect damaging stimuli are called nociceptors; they relay signals to the brain to initiate pain.
Using an electrophysiological method known as the patch-clamp technique, the team first identified and characterized two nociceptor subtypes – peptidergic and non-peptidergic – in the spinal ganglia of mice. Each of these subtypes respond differently to similar stimuli and may initiate pain of different quality and duration.
The researchers used around 50 neurons of each subtype to generate a specific protein map for each of the two cell types. Deep Visual Proteomics combines mass spectrometry with microscopy, artificial intelligence and robotics. The team have so far mainly used this methodology for proteome analyses of cancer cells. “We have now shown for the first time that it can also be applied to nerve cells,” another co-senior author says.
The team measured more than 6,000 proteins in these 50 neurons. A comparison with existing RNA data revealed that the transcriptome and proteome of the cells differ significantly in some cases – an indication that key functional processes only become visible at the protein level. “We provide a unique molecular map of pain-initiating neurons,” says the author. “It enables the identification of signaling pathways in these cells that have so far remained hidden.”
In an additional step, the authors wanted to understand which proteins sensitize nerve cells, contributing to chronic pain. They isolated both types of nociceptors from mouse dorsal root ganglia and exposed them to a molecule called Nerve Growth Factor (NGF), which is known to trigger chronic pain both animals and humans, such as in arthritis. Using Deep Visual Proteomics, the researchers were able to precisely identify the proteins produced after the cells were exposed to NGF.
“We identified several proteins that were present in higher levels in a subset of nociceptors following treatment with NGF. The higher levels of these proteins could be linked to long term pain associated with inflammation,” says the first author. One of the proteins, an enzyme called B3GNT2, stood out in particular. “When we knocked out the corresponding gene in the cells, the inflammation-induced hyperactivity of nociceptors was reduced. Fewer cells responded to mechanical stimulus,” the author says. In other words, the neurons had become less sensitive and would elicit much less pain. ScienceMission sciencenewshighlights.
Martin Prlic & team demonstrate the feasibility of the FDA-approved blood lancet Tasso+ as an at home blood collection device for remote immune monitoring by high parameter FlowCytometry.
Address correspondence to: Martin Prlic, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, E5-110, 1,100 Fairview Ave. N, Seattle, Washington 98,109, USA. Phone: 206.667.2216; Email: [email protected]. Or to: Alpana Waghmare, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, E4-100, 1,100 Fairview Ave. N, Seattle, Washington 98,109, USA. Phone: 206.667.7329; Email: [email protected].
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1Vaccine And infectious disease division, fred hutchinson cancer center, seattle, washington, USA.
Now, MIT scientists have released an AI called DefensePredictor that can root out new bacterial defense systems in five minutes, instead of weeks or months. As proof of concept, DefensePredictor churned through hundreds of thousands of proteins in multiple strains of Escherichia coli (E. coli). Over 600 proteins not previously linked to immune defense popped up. Added to a vulnerable strain of bacteria, a subset of these protected them against attack.
“E. coli harbors a much broader landscape of antiphage defense than previously realized, expanding the likely number of systems by multiple orders of magnitude,” wrote the team.
These systems might hold secrets about how immunity evolved. And because the proteins may work in different ways, they could be a goldmine for next-generation precision molecular tools.
Researchers at McMaster University have identified, for the first time, a novel region of DNA and two associated genes connected to frailty, offering neurological and immune-related insights that might help explain why some older adults are more likely to be frail than others.
The McMaster team’s findings, published in the journal npj Aging, fill an important gap by revealing genetic factors that contribute to the development of frailty. The discovery provides a biological connection to the condition and points toward new avenues for early detection and targeted intervention.