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Category: biotech/medical – Page 5

AI system translates protein sequences into text, helping reveal functions of unknown proteins

In a paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers from Technion and Tel Aviv University present BetaDescribe, an AI system that translates protein sequences into natural-language descriptions, opening a new path toward understanding protein functions and accelerating drug development and material design.

Protein analysis is essential in medicine and biotechnology, as demonstrated by breakthroughs such as Ozempic, a drug whose development was inspired by a peptide found in the saliva of a rare desert lizard and is used to treat obesity, diabetes and other conditions. However, experimental protein characterization remains a lengthy and expensive process, and even large language models (LLMs) have had limited success in performing this task.

This challenge inspired the development of BetaDescribe, an AI system that converts protein sequences into detailed textual descriptions of their functions and other characteristics. In doing so, the system helps bridge the vast gap between the hundreds of thousands of proteins characterized in the lab and the billions or even trillions that actually exist in nature.

Bioinspired strategy creates complex 3D curved structures via programmed shrinkage

The shape of biological structures, ranging from flower petals to the limbs or organs of animals, is often naturally best suited for performing specific functions. Biological structures also often present curved surfaces with specific functional advantages, such as facilitating the drainage of water, increasing a structure’s strength or aerodynamic efficiency, or supporting heavy loads.

Researchers at Kyoto University recently developed a new method to create three-dimensional (3D) structures with curved surfaces, drawing inspiration from the process through which biological structures grow and acquire specific shapes. Using their proposed fabrication strategy, introduced in a paper published in Journal of the Royal Society Interface, they were able to convert flat sheets into curved structures with various complex shapes.

“The starting point for our study was the idea that the 3D forms of living organisms might be explained by spatial patterns of growth-rate differences,” Kentaro Morikawa, first author of the paper, told Tech Xplore.

Structural insight into the mechanism of bacterial pili retraction

Every year bacteria kill more than a million people worldwide through infections that no longer respond to antibiotics. In many cases, why those bacteria are so hard to stop comes down to their uniquely powerful structure.

On the surfaces of many disease-causing bacteria, fibers thousands of times thinner than a human hair bristle, acting like biological grappling hooks. These fibers help bacteria latch onto body tissue, build biofilms, which are sticky bacterial communities that antibiotics struggle to penetrate, and reel in fragments of DNA from their environment, including genes that help them resist drugs.

Now, scientists have solved a key mystery about how those hooks work. A new study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, reveals the molecular mechanism behind one of the most powerful mechanical actions in all of biology, the reeling in of tiny surface fibers called type IV pili.

New brush test detects oral cancer in one hour

A paper published in the journal Biomarker Research by a cross-university team led by Queen Mary University of London researchers validates the use of a noninvasive brush biopsy test that can detect oral cancer within one hour.

This test could revolutionize oral cancer detection and prevent more than 90% of unnecessary harmful scalpel biopsy procedures. These can be very painful, lead to infection and, in some areas of the mouth, such as the gum, are hard to carry out and may damage the underlying tooth and bone structure.

Oral cancer is a growing global killer. According to Global Burden of Disease data, lip and oral cancer are among the world’s most rapidly increasing causes of early death. More than 10,000 people in the UK were diagnosed with oral cancer last year, according to the charity Mouth Cancer, and 3,637 people died. Worldwide, it affects 650,000 people a year. Risk factors include tobacco use and smoking, alcohol, infection with the HPV virus, and sun damage. Unfortunately, more than half (53%) of all mouth cancers are diagnosed in stage IV, when the cancer is at its most advanced.

How a Revolutionary Cancer Treatment Could Reset the Immune Systems of Patients With Autoimmune Diseases

But there are other possible CAR T risks for autoimmune patients. In February, FDA officials published a paper endorsing CAR T’s potential in autoimmunity but warning of “unpredictable long-term toxicity.” CAR T treatment for cancer, the authors noted, has been linked to diverse long-term issues such as Parkinson’s disease. There have also been cases in which the bioengineered cells themselves turned malignant, causing new, T cell-based cancers.

Causing a secondary cancer may be an acceptable risk when treating a life-threatening cancer, but probably not for autoimmunity, says Matt Lunning, medical director for gene and cellular therapy at Nebraska Medicine, in Omaha. How to balance the risk between the impacts of an autoimmune disease, which can range widely in severity, and the difficult-to-quantify risk of future side effects or cancers remains a major open question.

Researchers are already working on second-and third-generation versions of CAR T that they expect to be safer for both cancer and autoimmunity. For example, James Howard, a neuromuscular neurologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is testing a technology from a company called Cartesian Therapeutics that encodes the CAR using molecules of mRNA, the short-lived genetic messenger used in Covid-19 vaccines, instead of long-lasting DNA. The CAR T cells should wipe out B cells for only as long as the mRNA persists, then lose their B cell-targeting abilities. With no chance for genetically modified T cells to hang around long-term, there should be no cancer risk.

Antibiotics reverse damage caused to blood stem cells by chronic Salmonella

2 Helen Diller Comprehensive Cancer Center, UCSF, San Francisco, California, USA.

3Department of Computational Biology, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Memphis, Tennessee, USA.

4Department of Neurological Surgery, Malnati Brain Tumor Institute of the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, Illinois, USA.

PET scans reveal stage-linked tau signal in Huntington’s disease brains

A study conducted by the Sant Pau Research Institute (IR Sant Pau) and Hospital de Sant Pau has identified for the first time in living individuals a brain pattern related to the tau protein that changes according to the stage of Huntington’s disease. This discovery opens the door both to the use of new biomarkers for monitoring the disease and to the development of treatments for a condition for which no therapeutic options are currently available.

Using positron emission tomography—a molecular neuroimaging technique known as PET—and the second-generation radiotracer [¹⁸F]PI-2620, the researchers demonstrated that this signal can already be detected in some mutation carriers who have not yet developed clinically manifest disease and that, as the disease progresses, the signal increases and spreads according to an organized anatomical distribution.

The study, published in the European Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, provides new insights into the biological processes that occur between the genetic alteration responsible for the disease and the onset of its motor, cognitive and neuropsychiatric manifestations.

Short sleep and poor sleep quality track with Parkinson’s risk

Using CHARLS data from 2011 to 2020, researchers found that sleep duration and self-reported sleep quality were associated with Parkinson’s disease risk in middle-aged and older Chinese adults. Short sleep was linked to higher PD risk, while age-specific patterns suggested a linear association in adults aged ≤60 years and a U-shaped relationship in those aged 60 years.

Scientists uncover two neuronal circuits orchestrating muscle autophagy

Autophagy is the process by which cells remove damaged proteins, recycle worn-out organelles (e.g., mitochondria), clear cellular waste and provide nutrients during stress. Autophagy is essential for muscles because they are constantly under mechanical stress. If autophagy is too low, damaged proteins accumulate and muscle gradually weakens. If it is too high, muscle tissue can begin breaking itself down.

Disruption of autophagy has been implicated in a wide range of muscle disorders, and abnormal muscle autophagy is frequently observed in neurogenic diseases. However, the neuronal signaling pathways that control this process had previously remained largely unknown.

Now, researchers led by Prof. Zhang Hong from the Institute of Biophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have identified two parallel neuronal circuits that regulate the autophagy-lysosome pathway in the body wall muscle of Caenorhabditis elegans, a tiny nematode worm. Their research has uncovered a previously unknown mechanism by which the worm’s nervous system maintains muscle homeostasis.

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