A new study suggests that a bodybuilding supplement may help protect against cognitive decline by reducing amyloid plaque buildup, at least in mice.
New DNA study of 777 genomes found across southern Europe and west Asia redirects the cradle of Indo-Europeans, sheds light on Proto-Greeks.
Health experts warn that rotting bodies could risk major disease outbreaks, particularly as Sudan approaches cholera season Thousands of corpses are rotting on the streets of Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, as power outages have left morgues at breaking point, according to Save The Children. Doctors have warned that the decomposing bodies could risk major disease outbreaks, particularly as Sudan meets its cholera season.
Age is a risk factor for hematologic malignancies. Attributes of the aging hematopoietic system include increased myelopoiesis, impaired adaptive immunity, and a functional decline of the hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) that maintain hematopoiesis. Changes in the composition of diverse HSC subsets have been suggested to be responsible for age-related alterations, however, the underlying regulatory mechanisms are incompletely understood in the context of HSC heterogeneity. In this study, we investigated how distinct HSC subsets, separated by CD49b, functionally and molecularly change their behavior with age. We demonstrate that blood lineage differentiation progressively shifts to a higher myeloid cellular output in both lymphoid-biased and myeloid-biased HSC subsets during aging. In parallel, we show that HSCs selectively undergo age-dependent gene expression and gene regulatory molecular changes in a progressive manner, which is initiated already in the pre-adult stage. Overall, our studies suggest that aging intrinsically alters both cellular and molecular properties of HSCs.
The authors have declared no competing interest.
Korro Bio plans a reverse merger with Frequency Therapeutics to fund clinical studies of its lead candidate, designed to treat alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency (AATD) in the liver.
The transfer of a neurotransmitter from one type of skin cell to another (melanocytes to keratinocytes) altered electrical activity and promoted melanoma initiation in preclinical models, according to results published in Cancer Discovery, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.
Melanoma is a deadly form of skin cancer that develops in melanin-containing skin cells known as melanocytes. An intrinsic feature of melanocytes is their ability to secrete melanin-containing vesicles to surrounding skin cells called keratinocytes to give skin its color.
While approximately half of all melanomas harbor mutations in the BRAF gene, these mutations are present in many benign skin lesions as well.
Are watery eyes a symptom of cancer?
Watery eyes can be a sign of cancer, says Gombos. “Cancer can involve the system producing tears, but more commonly the cancer involves the drainage system, so the tears don’t drain properly,” he adds.
However, watery eyes alone don’t correspond directly to a particular type of cancer, and the presence of watery eyes doesn’t predict the severity or stage of cancer, say both Al-Zubidi and Gombos.
There are many microbes in our environment; many are harmless, some perform important functions, and some may pose a threat. Aspergillus fumigatus, for example, is a fungus that can be often be found in soil, as well as decaying organic matter; it has a crucial role in recycling carbon and nitrogen on our planet. A. fumigatus is also widely distributed in the air, so on average, people probably inhale a few hundred spores of A. fumigatus every day. This fungus is highly adaptive, and it can also evade weakened immune defenses in immunocompromised individuals to cause lung infections, called Aspergillosis. There are limited treatment options for this disease, and it’s difficult to treat effectively.
Scientists have now analyzed genetic data from about 250 strains of this fungus, and data from 40 Aspergillosis patients that characterized the lung microbiomes of these individuals. This showed that when people are infected with A. fumigatus, the composition of their lung microbiome begins to change dramatically. The findings have been reported in Nature Communications.
Researchers from the United Kingdom hope that a new, publicly available database they have created will shrink, not grow, over time. That’s because it is a compendium of the thousands of understudied proteins encoded by genes in the human genome, whose existence is known but whose functions are mostly not.
The database, dubbed the “unknome,” is the work of Matthew Freeman of the Dunn School of Pathology, University of Oxford, England, and Sean Munro of MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England, and colleagues, and is described in the open access journal PLOS Biology. Their own investigations of a subset of proteins in the database reveal that a majority contribute to important cellular functions, including development and resilience to stress.
The sequencing of the human genome has made it clear that it encodes thousands of likely protein sequences whose identities and functions are still unknown. There are multiple reasons for this, including the tendency to focus scarce research dollars on already-known targets, and the lack of tools, including antibodies, to interrogate cells about the function of these proteins. But the risks of ignoring these proteins are significant, the authors argue, since it is likely that some, perhaps many, play important roles in critical cell processes, and may both provide insight and targets for therapeutic intervention.
Age is a risk factor for hematologic malignancies. Attributes of the aging hematopoietic system include increased myelopoiesis, impaired adaptive immunity, and a functional decline of the hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) that maintain hematopoiesis. Changes in the composition of diverse HSC subsets have been suggested to be responsible for age-related alterations, however, the underlying regulatory mechanisms are incompletely understood in the context of HSC heterogeneity. In this study, we investigated how distinct HSC subsets, separated by CD49b, functionally and molecularly change their behavior with age. We demonstrate that blood lineage differentiation progressively shifts to a higher myeloid cellular output in both lymphoid-biased and myeloid-biased HSC subsets during aging. In parallel, we show that HSCs selectively undergo age-dependent gene expression and gene regulatory molecular changes in a progressive manner, which is initiated already in the pre-adult stage. Overall, our studies suggest that aging intrinsically alters both cellular and molecular properties of HSCs.
