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Category: chemistry – Page 46

MIT engineers develop electrochemical sensors for cheap, disposable diagnostics

Using an inexpensive electrode coated with DNA, MIT researchers have designed disposable diagnostics that could be adapted to detect a variety of diseases, including cancer or infectious diseases such as influenza and HIV.

These electrochemical sensors make use of a DNA-chopping enzyme found in the CRISPR gene-editing system. When a target such as a cancerous gene is detected by the enzyme, it begins shearing DNA from the electrode nonspecifically, like a lawnmower cutting grass, altering the electrical signal produced.

One of the main limitations of this type of sensing technology is that the DNA that coats the electrode breaks down quickly, so the sensors can’t be stored for very long and their storage conditions must be tightly controlled, limiting where they can be used. In a new study, MIT researchers stabilized the DNA with a polymer coating, allowing the sensors to be stored for up to two months, even at high temperatures. After storage, the sensors were able to detect a prostate cancer gene that is often used to diagnose the disease.

Cheap Catalyst Turns Acids Into Pharmaceutical Gold

Carboxylic acids are common components in bioactive compounds and serve as widely available building blocks in organic synthesis. When transformed into carboxy radicals, these acids can initiate the formation of valuable carbon-carbon and carbon-heteroatom bonds, a key step in the creation of new materials and pharmaceutical agents. Despite their utility, few existing methods rely on cost-effective catalysts.

Addressing this gap, a team from WPI-ICReDD and the University of Shizuoka developed a straightforward hydrogen atom transfer (HAT) strategy that selectively converts carboxylic acids into carboxy radicals. This method employs xanthone, a commercially available and inexpensive organic ketone, as the photocatalyst. The study was recently published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

Astronomers say new interstellar visitor 3I/ATLAS is ‘very likely to be the oldest comet we have ever seen’

The thick disk is a band of our galaxy’s most ancient stars that sandwiches the thin disk, which formed more recently and contains our relatively young star, the sun, and the solar system.

“This is an object from a part of the galaxy we’ve never seen up close before,” University of Oxford astrophysicist Chris Lintott said. “We think there’s a two-thirds chance this comet is older than the solar system, and that it’s been drifting through interstellar space ever since.”

If 3I/ATLAS originates from the Milky Way’s thick stellar disk, and thus formed around an ancient star, this also has implications for its chemical composition. Hopkins and crew suggest the interstellar interloper may be rich in water ice.

Filters inspired by nose hair and nasal mucus promise cleaner air

One of the problems of conventional filters used in homes, businesses and public spaces is their poor performance. They rely on weak van der Waals forces to capture particles like dust and pollen, meaning they let a lot of stuff slip through. Nature, however, does the job a whole lot better.

Drawing inspiration from the , at Chung-Ang University in South Korea designed an air filtration system that mimics the coating nasal hairs.

Illuminated sugars show how microbes eat the ocean’s carbon

A team of chemists, microbiologists and ecologists has designed a molecular probe (a molecule designed to detect proteins or DNA inside an organism, for example) that lights up when a sugar is consumed.

In the Journal of the American Chemical Society, they now describe how the probe helps researchers study the microscopic tug-of-war between algae and microbial degraders in the ocean.

“Sugars are ubiquitous in , yet it’s still unclear whether or how can degrade them all,” says Jan-Hendrik Hehemann from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology and the MARUM—Center for Marine Environmental Sciences, both located in Bremen.

Chemicals from turmeric and rhubarb could help fight antibiotic-resistant bacteria lurking in wastewater

When people take antibiotics, some of the dose is excreted with urine and feces and ends up in our wastewater. The presence of this low dose of antibiotic creates an opportunity for resistant bacteria to evolve.

Scientists studying antibiotic-resistant bacteria in wastewater at a treatment plant discovered multi-drug-resistant strains of bacterial species which are usually not dangerous to healthy people, but which could transmit genes for antibiotic resistance to much more dangerous bacteria like E. coli.

The scientists then challenged the bacteria with natural compounds which could potentially be included in to kill off bacteria and fight antibiotic resistance. The most effective were curcumin, which comes from turmeric, and emodin, from rhubarb.

Why some genes are more error-prone: Scientists uncover hidden rule in DNA transcription

Every living cell must interpret its genetic code—a sequence of chemical letters that governs countless cellular functions. A new study by researchers from the Center for Theoretical Biological Physics at Rice University has uncovered the mechanism by which the identity of the letters following a given nucleotide in DNA affects the likelihood of mistakes during transcription, the process by which DNA is copied into RNA. The discovery offers new insight into hidden factors that influence transcription accuracy.

The work is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The study was authored by Tripti Midha, Anatoly Kolomeisky and Oleg Igoshin. It shows why genetic sequences are not equally prone to errors. Instead, the identity of the two nucleotides immediately downstream of a site significantly alters the error rate during transcription. This discovery builds on prior insights by the same authors on enzymatic proofreading mechanisms, factoring in the effects of distinct kinetics for different nucleotide additions.

Novel AI method sheds light on how enzyme linked to Alzheimer’s selects its targets

Researchers from DZNE, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU), and Technical University of Munich (TUM) have found that the enzyme “gamma-secretase”—implicated in Alzheimer’s disease and cancer—selects its reaction partners according to a complex scheme of molecular features.

Their study, published in Nature Communications, introduces a methodology that decodes the enzyme’s recognition logic by bridging biochemistry with explainable artificial intelligence (AI). This novel approach could help to better understand the role of in diseases and aid drug development.

Gamma-secretase is an enzyme belonging to the category of “proteases” that plays a key role in Alzheimer’s disease and cancer. It occurs in the membrane of numerous cells, including neurons, where—acting like a pair of scissors—it cleaves other membrane-bound proteins.

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