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Category: biotech/medical – Page 6
Little-known arm of immune system could be key to better vaccines, cancer therapies
For a hiker who unwittingly brushes the leaf of poison ivy, weeks of suffering can start within a few hours, when an itchy red rash appears at the contact site. In the days that follow, blisters erupt and the urge to scratch can become maddening. Even after the blisters begin to burst and crust over, the skin will need days more to heal.
Unpleasant encounters with poison ivy and its noxious relatives are common, but they have long posed a biological puzzle. Immune warriors called T cells drive the inflammation and itch, known as allergic contact dermatitis. Scientists long thought T cells only respond to protein fragments, or peptides. But urushiol, the main skin-irritating substance made by poison ivy and its kin, is a mixture of lipids, compounds related to fats and waxes.
Scientists may now have an explanation that involves an unsung branch of our immune system that keeps track of lipids with help from a cell surface protein called CD1. Lab animal studies suggest components of urushiol bind to CD1 on sentinel cells within the skin. This interaction may ultimately rouse T cells to release inflammation-inducing molecules (see graphic, below). Although that mechanism hasn’t yet been confirmed for poison ivy rash, researchers have amassed strong evidence that the CD1 system drives other human skin conditions, including the painful welt sparked by a bee or wasp sting and the rash some people develop when they encounter dust mites. CD1-sporting cells may also promote gut inflammation in ulcerative colitis and Crohn disease.
Researchers Uncover a Hidden Molecular Machine Parasites Need To Survive
Researchers have visualized two key stages of RNA processing in parasites that cause diseases such as sleeping sickness, Chagas’ disease, and leishmaniasis.
For nearly 40 years, scientists have known that trypanosomatid parasites depend on an unusual system for processing RNA. Now researchers have captured that machinery at near-atomic resolution, showing how its components assemble and operate during a reaction the parasites need to survive.
The study, conducted by researchers at the University of Liège and Rockefeller University, reconstructed the three-dimensional architecture of the trans-spliceosome, a massive molecular machine that prepares genetic messages for use inside trypanosomatid cells. The structures also identify features that differ from the RNA processing machinery found in humans, providing a potential starting point for developing drugs that interfere selectively with the parasites.
Could Earth’s Magnetic Field Be Secretly Influencing How We Age?
A longer life with a physical cost
For the study, published in Aging, the team used a specially designed shielding system to reduce the magnetic field surrounding the flies to near zero. They tested healthy flies alongside flies carrying a defect in Pink1, a gene associated with inherited early-onset Parkinson’s disease in humans. Comparing the two groups allowed them to investigate how flies with impaired mitochondrial function responded to the same environmental change.
The Pink1 flies lived about 20% longer under magnetic shielding, but their physical performance declined. Healthy flies showed improved movement along with changes in their health span, or the time spent in good health. The results suggest that an animal’s metabolic state helps determine its response to magnetic field strength, with longer survival and better physical function not necessarily going together.
No Time But Now
What if the future of cancer treatment isn’t about killing the last cancer cell… but finding the first one?
For more than 40 years, renowned oncologist Dr. Azra Raza has pursued this radical idea.
This Wednesday on No Time But Now, Dr. Raza, a Columbia University Irving Medical Center physician and professor, joins William Shatner and Melanie Shatner Gretsch for a powerful conversation about the future of cancer detection, the technology that could transform medicine, and the deeply human realities of grief, hope, mortality, and making every moment count.
Presented by LifeWave Corporate.
Don’t miss this conversation.
🎙️ NO TIME BUT NOW New episode drops Wednesday.
S1P mimics phosphorylation to mediate PDK1-independent activation of aPKC with an opposing downstream effect
A biochemical analysis in #ScienceSignaling examines how a family of enzymes called atypical protein kinase Cs can have opposing effects on the growth of tumor cells—answering a persistent question in the study of #cancer biology.
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Alzheimer’s Protein Just Behaved Exactly Like a Prion in Mouse Brains
Prions are one of nature’s cruelest tricks.
Proteins are chains of amino acids that need to fold in very specific ways – a process that does not always work as intended. Your body is pretty good at correcting these errors – but every so often, a prion emerges.
This isn’t just a crooked, non-functional protein. It’s a gnarly shape that shares instructions for how it got that way, while resisting the body’s clean-up mechanisms. As these instructions spread through the brain, the result is rapid, progressive degeneration and, ultimately, death.
