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The study identifies a new factor in the protein SND1 control of liver cancer that could be inhibited with new drugs
A new molecular mechanism involved in the development of hepatocellular carcinoma was discovered by a group of researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University Massey Cancer Center and the VCU Institute of Molecular Medicine (VIMM).
Nell ‘the journal Hepatology, Devananda Sarkar and colleagues report for the first time how the RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC), an important post-transcriptional gene regulation crucial for cell replication, increases its activity in response to the action of two protein, AEG-1 and SND1.
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The replacement of an occurrence with an isoleucine amino acid lysine has been shown to greatly increase the ability of the virus to bind strongly to respiratory cells
A single mutation in the genetic structure of the H1N1 virus could make it much easier transmission between humans, triggering a pandemic. The mutation was identified by a group of MIT researchers that give an account in an article published in the journal online public-access PLoS One .
“It ‘s necessary to continuously monitor the evolution of these viruses,” said Ram Sasisekharan, who led the study. With current technology it is dificult to predict how a particular mutation in a gene sequence can alter the structure of viral proteins, particularly that of the hemagglutinin (HA), which is usually responsible for the binding of virus to receptors on the cell surface of ‘ host. Being able to identify a potentially dangerous mutations, will identify it immediately if it occurs.
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The method is based on measuring levels of transferrin in the cerebrospinal fluid
The first specific biomarker for sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (sCJD) – the human variant of mad cow disease – was developed by researchers at Case Western Reserve University.
The result, published in the latest issue of PLoS ONE, provides a basis for the development of a new diagnostic test for sCJD, whose diagnosis has so far been limited to biopsy post mortem .
In their study, Neena Singh, associate professor of pathological anatomy, medical school at Case Western Reserve University, and colleagues found that the transferrin (Tf), a Member of the iron transport protein, undergoes a significant decrease in concentration in the cerebrospinal fluid of patients with CJD well before the onset of the disease, opening the way for a potential early detection.
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The area of spread of this disease, which affects every year between 50 and 100 million people and causes 22,000 deaths, is widening
The details of the flavivirus life cycle, among which include those of Dengue and West Nile Virus have been identified by a team of researchers from the Instituto de Medicina Molecular in Lisbon, Portugal, and Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), who have presented during a conference (“Characterization of the interaction of the dengue virus capsid protein with lipid droplets) at the annual meeting of the Biophysical Society being held in Baltimore.
By applying biophysical techniques such as magnetic resonance imaging and analysis of genome sequencing, the researchers were particularly successful in getting an accurate picture of the interactions of capsid proteins of the virus needed with intracellular aggregates of lipids needed for it to replicate.
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The putrescine produced in the brain during seizures, is converted into GABA and contrasts the immediate reintroduction of other crises
After a seizure, brain tissue makes its appearance a compound polyamine, putrescine, whose role had remained enigmatic so far, leaving doctors and biologists in doubt whether it was indicative of a worsening of brain damage or be protective.
Now research conducted at Brown University – described in an article published in the journal Nature Neuroscience – shows that putrescine has a positive function.
The family belongs to the polyamine putrescine, which are present throughout the body and mediate functions such as cell division.
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The same technique reproduced in animal models has been shown to permit the production of fully functional neurons, as demonstrated in some transplants in the hippocampus of mice
The transformation of embryonic stem cells in a particular type of neurons, and in subjects affected by Alzheimer’s disease die, succeeded for the first time researchers at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, who sign about an article in the journal Stem Cells.
The cells in question are the basal forebrain cholinergic neurons of the hippocampus and allow you to recover memories in the brain, a capacity that is already heavily compromised in the early stages of Alzheimer’s. Because of a population of cells is relatively small, their loss has a devastating effect on memory performance.
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The formation of long-term memory depends, unlike the short, the synthesis of new proteins to which they contribute essential astrocytes
Astrocytes, until recently considered a mere support structure for the network of neurons, have recently been observed to be important for information processing and for adjusting the strength of the synapses that connect neurons to each other.
Now a new study directed by Italy’s Cristina Alberini, currently in force at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, showed that they are also essential in the formation of long-term memory and that their malfunction leads to the phenomena of amnesia.
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Patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis tend to have the transcripts HERV-K in areas surrounding the motor cortex, the area affected by disease
There may be a retrovirus origin of some forms of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) which inserted in the human genome in thousands of years ago: this is the result of research at Johns Hopkins.
Although about 20 percent of cases of disease appear to have a genetic cause, the vast majority of them occurs sporadically without a known trigger. The research on this form called sporadic previously identified in the blood of patients with a protein known as reverse transcriptase, produced by retroviruses such as HIV. However, the same searches have failed to link the discovery to a particular retrovirus.
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Lasa Arrate Elgezua, researcher of the research group “Nutrition and Obesity” at the UPV / EHU has developed his thesis Conjugated linoleic acid and Resvetratrol: effect of these functional ingredients on the metabolism of triglycerides and adiposity where he has studied the fat-lowering effect of two functional ingredients conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) and Resveratrol.
Obesity is a highly prevalent disease in developed countries, there are currently more than 1,000 million overweight people in the world of which 300 million are obese.
This disease leads to the development of other illnesses which represents a significant increase in morbidity and mortality in these individuals.
Current strategies for treatment are diverse and highly interesting field is the so-called functional ingredients. These ingredients are compounds that appear in certain foods and promoting specific bodily functions improving health and reducing disease risk.
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Until now it was unclear whether this protozoan, which is a very primitive branch of the eukaryotic tree of life, we reproduce sexually
Trypanosomes, the parasite that can infect several animal species, including humans causing various diseases and sleeping sickness in particular, reproduces sexually. He showed a study by researchers at the University of Cambridge and Oxford which relate an article published on Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
This protozoan is a very primitive and distant branch on the tree of eukaryotic life, and so far it was unclear whether they reproduce sexually.
At the heart of sexual reproduction is meiosis, cell division that allows the exchange of parental genes and the creation of new combinations in the offspring. In organisms that cause diseases, sexual reproduction may help spread the genes that increase virulence or drug resistance strains and create entirely new combinations of genes did not exist before.
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