Body

La Jolla, Calif., January 28, 2016 - More than 5 million people in the United States suffer from heart failure, according to the American Heart Association. Less than half of those with heart failure live five years after diagnosis.

New research from scientists at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute (SBP) published yesterday in the journal Circulation, may help doctors intervene earlier in the disease and may lead to a new approach to treat heart failure.

Every year acute renal failure affects over 13 million people and leads to 1.7 million deaths across the globe.It often develops when an insufficient supply of oxygen reaches the kidneys, a condition called ischemia. Working with their colleagues from the MDC, the Charité, FMP in Berlin and Hannover Medical School, Dr Lajos Markó and Emilia Vigolo have traced one of the causes of ischemia-related renal failure to a signaling molecule called NF-kappaB and a specific type of tissue: tubular epithelial cells.

One bacterial pathogen is responsible for a range of diseases, from pharyngitis and impetigo to more severe diagnoses such as toxic shock syndrome and necrotizing fasciitis (flesh eating disease), a serious bacterial skin infection that spreads quickly and kills the body's soft tissue. The pathogen, known as Group A Streptococcus, remains a global health burden with an estimated 700 million cases reported annually, and more than half a million deaths due to severe infections.

Octopuses have generally been viewed as solitary creatures--and their color-changing abilities primarily as a means to hide from hungry predators. But, after binge watching more than 52 hours of octopus TV, researchers reporting in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on January 28 have found that octopuses actually do have a social life. And it's not without drama.

Having overweight parents significantly increases your risk of obesity, but the inheritance of specific mutations can't always explain why this is the case. In a study published January 28 in Cell, researchers show that differences in gene expression and not the DNA sequence play a key role in determining one's predisposition to obesity. In genetically identical mice and human twin pairs, epigenetic marks altered the activity of weight-control genes to produce distinct subpopulations of lean and obese individuals.

Baltimore, MD-- Reproduction is highly dependent on diet and the ability to use nutrients to grow and generate energy. This is clearly seen in women, who must provide all the nutritional building blocks required to support a growing embryo. As a result, metabolic diseases like diabetes and obesity are closely linked with several female reproductive disorders such as: Infertility, polycystic ovary syndrome, and ovarian cancer. However, the precise links between reproductive processes and metabolism remains poorly understood.

A pair of studies by a team of scientists has shed new light on the nature of a particular type of DNA sequences -- tandem DNA repeat arrays -- that play important roles in transcription control, genome organization, and development.

During an animal's embryonic development, a chemical chain reaction known as Hippo directs organs to grow to just the right size and no larger. Now Johns Hopkins researchers working with laboratory flies report that this signaling pathway also plays a role in revving up the insects' immune systems to combat certain bacterial infections.

BOSTON -- PI3K (phosphoinositide 3-kinase) is a cell-signaling molecule that has now been implicated in a large number of women's cancers including breast, ovarian and endometrial cancers.

(Boston) -- A new "player" in the way certain aggressive cancer cells may reproduce has been identified. It is hoped that these findings may lead to the identification of new cancer targets and may ultimately lead to new therapeutics.

RIBEIRAO PRETO, SP, BRAZIL (January 28, 2016) - Cell publishes on its January 28th edition the results of the largest study ever performed on the molecular profiles of gliomas - that represent 80% of tumors of the central nervous system. Three research groups from Ribeirão Preto Medical School (FMRP) at the University of São Paulo (USP), Brazil, Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC), USA, and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas, USA, co-led the investigation.

In an international study conducted in Brazil, researchers have identified new glioma subtypes on the basis of epigenetic profile, i.e. how gene expression is modulated. The discovery may help evaluate the prognosis of patients with gliomas and may pave the way for personalized treatment. Gliomas are tumors of the central nervous system.

NEW YORK, NY, USA & RIBEIRAO PRETO, SP, BRAZIL (January 28, 2016)--A comprehensive analysis of the molecular characteristics of gliomas--the most common malignant brain tumor--explains why some patients diagnosed with slow-growing (low-grade) tumors quickly succumb to the disease while others with more aggressive (high-grade) tumors survive for many years. The multinational study suggests a new way of classifying gliomas that may have a significant impact on patient management and may lead to the development of more targeted therapies.

How many microbes inhabit our body on a regular basis? For the last few decades, the most commonly accepted estimate in the scientific world puts that number at around ten times as many bacterial as human cells. In research published today in the journal Cell, a recalculation of that number by Weizmann Institute of Science researchers reveals that the average adult has just under 40 trillion bacterial cells and about 30 trillion human ones, making the ratio much closer to 1:1.

In today's agriculture, hybrid plants are crucial for the sufficient production of food, feed, fuel and fiber. These crosses between two different varieties are deemed particularly hardy and far more productive than their thoroughbred parent generations. Thanks to hybrid plants, the harvests from types of cereal crop, such as corn, can be more than doubled. However, the positive properties are already lost in the next generation, which is why hybrid seeds need to be reproduced annually. These crosses are costly and time-consuming and farmers are reliant on new seeds every year.