BiotechNews1

Originally published   by NYU Langone Health, on February 28, 2024  Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain A genetic change in our ancient ancestors may partly explain why humans don't have tails like monkeys, finds a new study led by researchers at NYU Grossman School of Medicine . Published online February 28 as the cover story of the journal Nature , the work compared the DNA of tail-less apes and humans to that of tailed monkeys , and found an insertion of DNA shared by apes and humans , but missing in monkeys . When the research team engineered a series of mice to examine whether the insertion, in a gene called TBXT , affected their tails, they found a variety of tail effects , including some mice born without tails. "Our study begins to explain how evolution removed our tails , a question that has intrigued me since I was young," says corresponding study author Bo Xia, Ph.D., a student at the time of the study in the labs of study senior co-authors Jef D....

Originally published by Lisbeth Heilesen, Aarhus University, on February 27, 2024 Figure shows stress granule formation after oxidative stress in wild-type cells and cells depleted for the ac4C acetyltransferase enzyme NAT10. Credit: Pavel Kudrin A recent study by an international research team has unveiled an exciting discovery about how our cells defend themselves during stressful situations . The research, published in EMBO Reports , shows that a tiny modification in the genetic material , called ac4C, acts as a crucial defender, helping cells create protective storage units known as stress granules . These stress granules safeguard important genetic instructions when the cell is facing challenges. The new findings could help shed light on relevant molecular pathways that could be targeted in disease . Stress granules are an integral part of the stress response that is formed from non-translating mRNAs aggregated with proteins. While much is known about stress granules, ...

Originally published by Tokyo University of Science, on February 13, 2024 Researchers discovered that activating a specific group of oxytocin neurons in the mouse brain improves performance in novel object recognition tasks. Credit: Akiyoshi Saitoh, Tokyo University of Science Oxytocin ( OXT) is a hormone that is known for its effects on psychological well-being and emotional bonding in animals . Interestingly, research has shown that this natural chemical in the brain plays a c rucial role in other cognitive processes as well, including learning and memory . Now, scientists may have discovered exactly how OXT influences memory in animals by studying "OXT neurons" that contain OXT receptors and function differently based on the availability of the chemical in the brain . In a recent study published in PLOS One , a group of researchers, headed by Professor Akiyoshi Saitoh, along with Junpei Takahashi from the Tokyo University of Science , delved into the complex...

Originally published by Polytechnic University of Milan, on February 14, 2024 Nanogel—Scheme of selective drug treatment in the central nervous system. Credit: Politecnico di Milano—Istituto Mario Negri In a study published in Advanced Materials , researchers have demonstrated that an innovative nano-vector (nanogel) , which they developed, is able to deliver anti-inflammatory drugs in a targeted manner into glial cells actively involved in the evolution of spinal cord injury , a condition that leads to paraplegia or quadriplegia . Treatments currently available to modulate the inflammatory response mediated by the component that controls the brain's internal environment after acute spinal cord injury showed limited efficacy. This is also due to the lack of a therapeutic approach that can selectively act on microglial and astrocytic cells. The nanovectors developed by Politecnico di Milano , called nanogels, consist of polymers that can bind to specific target molecules ....

Originally published by April Wendling, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, on February 13, 2024 CRISPR-COPIES has applications in synthetic biology toolkit characterization, gene therapy, and metabolic engineering. Credit: Aashutosh Boob et al. CRISPR/Cas systems have undergone tremendous advancement in the past decade. These precise genome editing tools have applications ranging from transgenic crop development to gene therapy and beyond. And with their recent development of CRISPR-COPIES , researchers at the Center for Advanced Bioenergy and Bioproducts Innovation (CABBI) are further improving CRISPR's versatility and ease of use . "CRISPR-COPIES is a tool that can quickly identify appropriate chromosomal integration sites for genetic engineering in any organism ," said Huimin Zhao, CABBI Conversion Theme Leader and Steven L. Miller Chair of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (ChBE) at the University of Illinois . "It will accelerate ...

  Originally published by Northwestern University, on February 7, 2024     Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain Scientists at the UC San Francisco (UCSF) and Northwestern Medicine may have found a way around the limitations of engineered T cells by borrowing a few tricks from cancer itself. By studying mutations in malignant T cells that cause lymphoma , they zeroed in on one that imparted exceptional potency to engineered T cells . Inserting a gene encoding this unique mutation into normal human T cells made them more than 100 times more potent at killing cancer cells without any signs of becoming toxic . The study appears in Nature . While current immunotherapies work only against cancers of the blood and bone marrow, the T cells engineered by Northwestern and UCSF were able to kill tumors derived from skin, lung and stomach in mice . The team has already begun working toward testing this new approach in people. "We used nature's roadmap to make better T ...

Originally published by Cell Press, on February 2, 2024 Sanfordiacaulis model with simplified branching structure for easier visualization. Note that humans are provided for scale but did not exist concurrently with the tree. Credit: Tim Stonesifer In the fossil record, trees typically are preserved with only their trunks. They don't usually include any leaves to show what their canopies and overall forms may have looked like. But now, researchers reporting in the journal Current Biology describe fossilized trees from New Brunswick, Canada with a surprising and unique three-dimensional crown shape . "The way in which this tree produced hugely long leaves around its spindly trunk , and the sheer number over a short length of trunk , is startling," says Robert Gastaldo of Colby College in Waterville, Maine. The forms taken by these 350-million-year-old trees look something like a fern or palm , even though palms didn't arise until 300 million years later, he...