ANN ARBOR, Mich. — As the body creates antibodies to fight invaders, a three-protein DNA repair complex called MRN is crucial for a normal gene-shuffling process to proceed properly, University of Michigan research shows.
The discoveries in mice, published online this week in Nature Structural and Molecular Biology, advance understanding of the immune system and shed light on how B-cell lymphoma and some other cancers may begin.
U-M scientists found that:
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – A new study done by researchers at Wake Forest University School of Medicine shows that social stress could be an important precursor to heart disease by causing the body to deposit more fat in the abdominal cavity, speeding the harmful buildup of plaque in blood vessels, a stepping stone to the number one cause of death in the world.
Geckos are very adept at climbing through difficult terrain using an intricate adhesive system. Until now it has not been known when and how they switch on their unique system of traction.
Scientists at the University of Calgary and Clemson University in South Carolina have discovered that the geckos' amazing grip is triggered by gravity.
The active ingredient in many insect repellents, deet, has been found to be toxic to the central nervous system. Researchers writing in the open access journal BMC Biology say that more investigations are urgently needed to confirm or dismiss any potential neurotoxicity to humans, especially when deet-based repellents are used in combination with other neurotoxic insecticides.
A compound initially isolated from a soft coral (Capnella imbricata) collected at Green Island off Taiwan, could lead scientists to develop a new set of treatments for neuropathic pain – chronic pain that sometimes follows damage to the nervous system. Currently this form of pain is very poorly controlled by the usual analgesics (aspirin like drugs (NSAIDS) or even opioids like morphine) and novel treatments are urgently required. The conclusion of a paper in the British Journal of Pharmacology is that this new compound could be a candidate.
"We just don't know how tribunals affect a society, whether they increase mental and physical disabilities or relieve them," Sonis says. Sonis and colleagues are now conducting a longitudinal study, funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, to measure the effects of the trials on Cambodians over time.
Older adults who are subjected to abuse or self-neglect face a greater risk of premature death than other seniors, according to a study published in the August 5 issue of JAMA.
Moreover, contrary to widely held views that elders who are physically or cognitively impaired are more likely to suffer adverse consequences from abuse or self-neglect, the researchers found that even more capable seniors also faced a higher risk of dying.
Large number of individuals who experienced intense or prolonged exposure to the World Trade Center attack, have reported new diagnoses of asthma or posttraumatic stress 5-6 years after the attack, according to a study in JAMA.
Cooling unconscious cardiac arrest survivors can increase survival and has a cost effectiveness comparable to other widely accepted treatments in modern health care, researchers report in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes.
Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, where the heart stops effectively pumping blood through the body, annually occurs in about 300,000 adults in the United States.
For enzymes in our immune system, the key to sensing certain types of viral RNA pairs lies in the virus' RNA -- a long molecular chain often used to make proteins -- and how it regulates an enzyme called protein kinase R (PKR), according to researchers from Penn State, the University of Connecticut, and the University of Beijing.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- The weak tendons and fragile bones characteristic of osteogenesis imperfecta, or brittle bone disease, stem from a genetic mutation that causes the incorrect substitution of a single amino acid in the chain of thousands of amino acids making up a collagen molecule, the basic building block of bone and tendon.
A recent study by doctors at the University of Washington explained that patients who are significantly underweight or very severely obese prior to liver transplantation are at increased risk of death following transplantation surgery. These findings, from the largest known observation of liver transplantation at the extremes of BMI, are published in the August issue of Liver Transplantation, a journal published by John Wiley & Sons on behalf of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases.
Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) is a chronic autoimmune disease that causes inflammation of the joints and surrounding tissues. More than 1.3 million adults in the U.S. suffer from RA, 75% of which are women.
DURHAM, N.C. -- Emergency physicians should trust their judgment when evaluating patients who report with chest pain symptoms, said a group of researchers led by Abhinav Chandra, M.D., at Duke University Medical Center.
Their research suggests that emergency physicians should counsel with other physicians against discharge when they feel strongly about a patient for whom there is no compelling data, other than our evaluation and judgment, Chandra said.
In many types of cancer, parts of the genetic material of tumor cells are switched off by chemical labels called methyl groups. This kind of methyl labeling ranges among the epigenetic changes that do not change the sequence of DNA building blocks. Such labels are found particularly often in genes which act as important inhibitors of pathogenic cell growth.