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Northwestern Medicine investigators have uncovered new insights into how intercellular “glue” functions to enable interactions between cells, as detailed in a study published in Nature Communications.

In order to communicate and transfer cellular cargo, within tissues can link together by fusing their cytoskeletons and cell membranes.

These connective structures, called adherens junctions, play important roles in tissue development and renewal, but remain poorly understood, said Sergey Troyanovsky, Ph.D., professor of Dermatology, of Cell and Developmental Biology and senior author of the study.

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Protecting pneumococcal infection in elderly.

The researchers. provide insights into mechanisms underlying respiratory bacterial susceptibility in the elderly.

Circadian rhythms is impaired in the aging process. The authors wanted to figure out the relation ship between impaired circadian rhythm and bacterial infections during aging.

They demonstrate that the altered circadian expression of the nuclear receptor Rev-erb-a and the apelin/apelin receptor (APJ) in aged lungs associates with dysregulated time-of-day control of pulmonary immune defenses against pneumococcal infections.

The authors found an interaction between Rev-erb-α and the apelinergic axis that controls host defenses against S. pneumoniae via alveolar macrophages. Pharmacological repression of Rev-erb-α in elderly mice resulted in greater resistance to pneumococcal infection. https://sciencemission.com/pneumococcal-infection-in-elderly

Silva Angulo et al. provide insights into mechanisms underlying respiratory bacterial susceptibility in the elderly. The authors demonstrate that the altered circadian expression of the nuclear receptor Rev-erb-α and the apelin/apelin receptor (APJ) in aged lungs associates with dysregulated time-of-day control of pulmonary immune defenses against pneumococcal infections.

Continue reading “Inhibiting bacterial gene translation using siRNA” | >

What makes us unique? Different from most, yet similar to a few? What shapes our physical, behavioral, and even mental makeup? The answer lies in our genes.

Passed from parents to their offspring, genes contain the information that specifies physical and biological traits.

But that’s not all. Genes are also responsible for diseases. Faulty genes can cause all kinds of issues that can manifest as birth defects, chronic diseases, or developmental problems.

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Lithium-6 is essential for producing nuclear fusion fuel, but isolating it from the much more common isotope, lithium-7, usually requires liquid mercury, which is extremely toxic. Now, researchers have developed a mercury-free method to isolate lithium-6 that is as effective as the conventional method. The new method is presented in the journal Chem.

“This is a step towards addressing a major roadblock to nuclear energy,” says chemist and senior author Sarbajit Banerjee of ETH Zürich and Texas A&M University. “Lithium-6 is a critical material for the renaissance of nuclear energy, and this method could represent a viable approach to isotope separation.”

The conventional method used to isolate lithium-6, called the COLEX process, involves liquid mercury and has been banned in the United States since 1963 due to pollution concerns.

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Mitochondria are the powerhouses in our cells, producing the energy for all vital processes. Using cryo-electron tomography, researchers at the University of Basel, Switzerland, have now gained insight into the architecture of mitochondria at unprecedented resolution.

The results of the study are published in Science.

They discovered that the proteins responsible for energy generation assemble into large “supercomplexes,” which play a crucial role in providing the cell’s energy.

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Researchers have discovered that Daphne pseudomezereum (commonly known as Onishibari) contains a substance inhibiting replication of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). The plants were cultivated at the Medicinal Plant Garden of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Toho University. This finding is expected to lead to the discovery of drug seeds for novel drugs with superior anti-HIV activity.

A paper reporting this study was published in the journal Phytochemistry. The research group was led by Professor Wei Li from the Department of Pharmacognosy, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Toho University, in collaboration with the Duke University Medical Center in the United States.

The Thymelaeaceae family consists of over 53 genera and 800 species distributed worldwide, except in polar and desert regions. These plants contain diterpenoids, which exhibit significant biological activities, including anticancer, anti-HIV, and .

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A team of geologists at the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences, the Institute of Space Sciences and the Shandong Institute of Geological Sciences, all in China, has found evidence in soil samples collected from the far side of the moon that bolsters a theory that the moon was once covered by an ocean of magma. In their study published in the journal Science, the group analyzed a moon soil sample returned to Earth by China’s Chang’e-6 mission.

In 2024, the China National Space Administration launched a spacecraft that carried a lander to the surface of the . The mission was the first to collect samples from the far side of the moon and return them to the Earth. For this new study, the research team obtained 2 grams of the soil for testing.

The researchers used multiple methods to determine its composition and then compared the results to those of analyses of from the near side of the moon.

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