Body

complex interplay of molecular components governs almost all aspects of biological sciences - healthy organism development, disease progression, and drug efficacy are all dependent on the way life's molecules interact in the body. Understanding these bio-molecular interactions is critical for the discovery of new, more effective therapeutics and diagnostics to treat cancer and other diseases, but currently requires scientists to have access to expensive and elaborate laboratory equipment.

Research led by Nicolas Bazan, MD, PhD, Boyd Professor, Ernest C. and Yvette C. Villere Chair of Retinal Degeneration Research, and Director of the Neuroscience Center of Excellence at LSU Health New Orleans, has discovered gene interactions that determine whether cells live or die in such conditions as age-related macular degeneration and ischemic stroke. These common molecular mechanisms in vision and brain integrity can prevent blindness and also promote recovery from a stroke.

Researchers have linked trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO) - a gut metabolite formed during the digestion of eggs, red meat or dairy-derived nutrients choline and carnitine - to chronic kidney disease.

TMAO has been linked to heart disease already, with blood levels shown to be a powerful tool for predicting future heart attacks, stroke and death. TMAO forms in the gut during digestion of choline and carnitine, nutrients that are abundant in animal products such as red meat and liver. Choline is also abundant in egg yolk and high-fat dairy products.

In a study published in Molecular Metabolism, a SLU researcher has found that adropin, a hormone that regulates whether the body burns fat or sugar during feeding and fasting cycles, can improve insulin action in obese, diabetic mice, suggesting that it may work as a therapy for type 2 diabetes.

Almost 2,500 women of child-bearing age in the UK are at risk of transmitting mitochondrial disease to their children, according to the most recent estimates published today in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The research offers the most recent evidence yet of how many families could potentially be helped by new IVF techniques to prevent mitochondrial disease, which would be permitted by new regulations on which a vote in parliament is imminent.

Preventing inflammation in obese fat tissue may hold the key to preventing or even reversing type 2 diabetes, new research has found.

Researchers from Melbourne's Walter and Eliza Hall Institute and the RIKEN Institute, Japan found they could 'reverse' type 2 diabetes in laboratory models by dampening the inflammatory response in fat tissue.

Girls who frequently consume sugary drinks tend to start their menstrual periods earlier than girls who do not, according to new research published in Human Reproduction.

Mitochondria produce ATP, the energy currency of the body. The driver for this process is an electrochemical membrane potential, which is created by a series of proton pumps. These complex, macromolecular machines are collectively known as the respiratory chain. The structure of the largest protein complex in the respiratory chain, that of mitochondrial complex I, has been elucidated by scientists from the Frankfurt "Macromolecular Complexes" cluster of excellence, working together with the University of Freiburg, by X-ray diffraction analysis.

In a new study from Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute (Sanford-Burnham), researchers have used human pluripotent stem cells to generate new hair. The study represents the first step toward the development of a cell-based treatment for people with hair loss. In the United States alone, more than 40 million men and 21 million women are affected by hair loss. The research was published online in PLOS One yesterday.

Swedish studies show that mice that receive a supplement of the "appetite hormone" ghrelin increase their sexual activity. Whether the hormone has the same impact on humans is unknown - but if it does, the researchers may have found the key to future treatments for sex abuse.

Ghrelin is a gastrointestinal hormone that is released from the stomach, and is involved in the stimulation of our appetite by activating the brain's reward system.

Despite enormous progress in cancer therapy, many patients still relapse because their treatment addresses the symptoms of the disease rather than the cause, the so-called stem cells. Work in the group of Veronika Sexl at the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna has given a tantalizing clue to a solution. In the current issue of Blood, the scientists report that the cell-cycle kinase CDK6 is required for activation of the stem cells responsible for causing leukemia.

Death rates from lung cancer will exceed those for breast cancer for the first time among European women in 2015, according to new predictions in Annals of Oncology [1].

The study predicts that although the actual number of deaths from all cancers in the European Union will continue to rise due to growing populations and numbers of elderly people, the rate of cancer deaths will continue to decline overall, with some notable exceptions: lung cancer in women and pancreatic cancer in both sexes. [2]

Cancer uses a little-understood element of cell signaling to hijack the communication process and spread, according to Rice University researchers.

A new computational study by researchers at the Rice-based Center for Theoretical Biological Physics shows how cancer cells take advantage of the system by which cells communicate with their neighbors as they pass messages to "be like me" or "be not like me."

Painful nocturnal leg cramps are about twice as common during summer than in winter, found a new study in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).

New research shows that stomach sleepers with epilepsy may be at higher risk of sudden unexpected death, drawing parallels to sudden infant death syndrome in babies. The study is published in the January 21, 2015, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

Epilepsy is a brain disorder that causes repeated seizures and affects an estimated 50 million people worldwide.