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PHOENIX, Ariz. -- March 31, 2016 -- An article in the journal Cell by top scientists from the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) and Mayo Clinic in Arizona details how two relatively new drugs are helping patients with basal cell carcinoma.

Basal cell carcinoma is the most common type of skin cancer, producing nearly 2.8 million new cases annually in the U.S., and sunny Arizona has one of the world's highest incidences of skin cancer.

Protease-activated receptors (PARs) are a family of G-protein-coupled receptors that are primarily expressed in cells of the vasculature and known for their involvement in regulation of vascular tone. These receptors induce endothelium-dependent relaxation via production and release of a potent vasodilator, nitric oxide (NO), and therefore, play an important role in the function of the endothelium. Disruption of endothelial function can lead to the development of cardiovascular diseases such as atherosclerosis and hypertension.

A review article has been published in the journal Current Pharmaceutical Design which provides an overview of therecent literature discussing the different clinical forms of heart disease resulting from virus infections including the prognosis, and current therapies. Many common viruses causing respiratory illness, including enteroviruses and influenza viruses among others, have the potential to infect the heart and initiate an immune response to the infection. These viruses can also produce mild to lethal cardiac injury.

The discovery that a particular protein doesn't just give cells a job but also sticks around to tell them how to do these new assignments could provide insight into schizophrenia, as well as a neurodevelopmental disorder, according to a new study by a Drexel University research team.

A study of over 6,000 mothers and their newborn children--one of the largest studies of its kind--solidifies the evidence that smoking cigarettes while pregnant chemically modifies a fetus' DNA, mirroring patterns seen in adult smokers. The researchers also identify new development-related genes affected by smoking. The work, published March 31 in the American Journal of Human Genetics, suggests a potential explanation for the link between smoking during pregnancy and health complications in children.

Ten million years ago, a green and black snake lay coiled in the Spanish undergrowth. Once, paleontologists would have been limited to the knowledge they could glean from its colorless fossil remains, but now they know what the snake looked like and can guess how it acted. Researchers reporting on March 31 in Current Biology have discovered that some fossils can retain evidence of skin color from multiple pigments and structural colors, aiding research into the evolution and function of color.

A new study on how the West Nile virus evolves in four species of mosquitos shows that viruses accumulate mutations in their insect carriers that reduce how well they reproduce when passed on to a bird host. Viruses carried by one of the tropical species were best able to maintain their reproductive fitness and thus spread. The study, published March 31, 2016 in Cell Host & Microbe, could lead to new strategies for predicting and preparing for future viral outbreaks.

Stem cell science has progressed so that researchers can now share recipes for making human retinas--the part of the eye that is sensitive to light. The first protocols enabled the generation of retinal cells in laboratory plates and more recently as complex tissue in the form of tiny eye-like cups. Researchers in Germany now have another efficient way to make 3-D retina organoids, which mimic the organ's tissue organization, from mouse or human stem cells.

A protein once thought to be of little consequence has been found to be a central player in processes ranging from male fertility to early embryonic development, according to a study published in the March 31 online issue of Cell by researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine.

CRISPR-Cas systems are widely heralded as a new generation of genetic tools. But development of these tools requires researchers to identify the protospacer-adjacent motifs (PAMs) that unlock each system's functionality. A new set of techniques expedites PAM identification -- and early testing finds that many CRISPR-Cas systems actually have multiple PAMs of varying strength.

Cancer cells are defined by their ability for uncontrolled growth, one cell quickly becoming two becoming many. "It's a fascinating process," said Gary Patti, PhD, associate professor of chemistry at Washington University in St. Louis. "Imagine creating two copies of yourself every few days instead of just maintaining the one you have. In the past 15 or 20 years people have become really interested in how a cell does that."

Researchers in the group of Prof. Dr. Peter Vandenabeele (VIB/UGent) show that killed tumour cells can serve as a potent vaccine that stimulates the immune system to prevent the outgrowth of cancer cells. This finding opens novel perspectives for the use of necroptosis as a part of immunotherapy and for the screening for novel or existing cancer drugs that induce this type of immunogenic cell death.

BOSTON - Cancer cells are notorious for their genomes gone haywire, often yielding fusion proteins -- mash-ups of two disparate genes that, once united, assume new and harmful capabilities. Exactly how such genome scrambling impacts RNA, particularly the vast and mysterious world of non-coding RNA, has been largely unexplored.

Four letters - A, C, G and T - stand in for the four chemical bases that store information in DNA. A sequence of these same four letters, repeating in a particular order, genetically defines an organism. Within the genome sequence are shorter, three-letter codons that represent one of the 20 regularly used amino acids, with three of the possible 64 three-letter codons reserved for stop signals. These amino acids are the building blocks of proteins that carry out a myriad of functions.

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- While absolute rates of biopsy and post-biopsy complications have decreased following several benchmark prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screening publications, the relative risk for each patient continues to increase, according to a new study by Mayo Clinic researchers.