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Thousands of possible new drugs to fight malaria identified

May 20, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

London, May 20 (ANI): Scientists have identified thousands of potential new drugs to fight malaria by the mass-screening of chemicals.

The international research team, led by St. Jude Children”s Research Hospital investigators, released data detailing the effectiveness of nearly 310,000 chemicals against a malaria parasite that remains one of the world”s leading killers of young children.

The research discovered more than 1,100 new compounds with confirmed activity against the malaria parasite. Of those, 172 were studied in detail, leading to identification of almost two dozen families of molecules investigators consider possible candidates for drug development.

St. Jude researchers already used one of the molecules to stop the parasite”s growth in mice.

The six-year malaria project was launched by R. Kiplin Guy, St. Jude Department of Chemical Biology and Therapeutics chair, in an effort to revive malaria drug development.

The database includes the chemical structure and activity profile of each of the 309,474 molecules in the St. Jude library of drugs, natural compounds and other chemicals.

There is additional information about the 172 compounds that were more comprehensively evaluated. The compounds are all commercially available.

The study appears in the May 20 edition of the scientific journal Nature. (ANI)

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Protein that spurs spread of prostate cancer discovered

May 20, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

Washington, May 20 (ANI): Scientists have discovered that Stat5, a signaling protein previously found to be key to survival of prostate cancer, is also involved in metastasis.

The study, conducted by researchers from the Kimmel Cancer Center at Jefferson, demonstrates in both laboratory and animal models that nuclear Stat5 over-expression leads to a deadly spread of the cancer.

They add that their work with mice was unique in that it was the first time Stat5 was associated with prostate cancer metastasis processes in an animal model.

“Until now, we thought that Stat5 was involved in primarily promoting tumor growth, but this study indicates it could be one of the key players in pushing prostate cancer to spread,” said Marja Nevalainen, associate professor of Cancer Biology, Urology and Medical Oncology at Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University.

“This seminal paper is sure to open up a new avenue of research, including investigation of therapies that could target Stat5 expression. Fresh approaches are needed since there are no effective therapies for prostate cancer that has metastasized,” Nevalainen added.

The study has been published in the online edition of Endocrine-Related Cancer. (ANI)

Filed Under: International News Tagged With: animal model, animal models, associate professor, cancer biology, cancer metastasis, expression, jefferson medical college, jefferson medical college of thomas jefferson university, kimmel cancer center, Kimmel Center, medical oncology, mice, oncology, Prostate Cancer, protein, Seminal Paper, thomas jefferson, thomas jefferson university, tumor growth, Urology

Protein jab mends broken bones

May 10, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

London, May 10 (ANI): Scientists have found a novel way to significantly speed up the healing of broken bones in mice, a feat which, if replicated in humans, could mean people with fractures would be free of their casts a lot sooner.

Jill Helms, Roel Nusse and team at Stanford University in California drilled small holes into the shin bones of mice, and injected them with Wnt proteins.

These proteins prompt bone stem cells to divide, reports New Scientist.

Three days later, bone growth was three times greater than in mice injected with a placebo, it was observed.

The approach could prove to be better than adding new stem cells, which can divide uncontrollably.

The research has appeared in the journal Science Translational Medicine. (ANI)

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Drugs that could ‘switch on’ memory offer hope to Alzheimer”s sufferers

May 7, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

London, May 7 (ANI): Scientists have identified a genetic switch that causes memory impairment in mice when it goes into ‘off’ mode, raising hopes of powerful new drugs to treat Alzheimer”s and other diseases.

As part of their research, Andre Fischer of the European Neuroscience Institute in Gottingen, Germany, and colleagues forced 3-month-old mice to find their way around a new environment and assessed them on their ability to associate an electric shock with a particular environment.

The result was increased activity of a cluster of over 1500 genes, which are known to make proteins that are needed for the creation of new neurons – a process that is necessary for learning in humans and mice, reports New Scientist.

This boost in gene expression did not occur in 16-month-old mice given the same tasks: the activity of their genes changed only slightly. The mice also did worse than the young ones at spatial learning and memory tasks.

To find out what prevents elderly mice getting this genetic boost, the researchers analysed the DNA found in neurons in the hippocampus of both old and young mice.

They found that when young mice are learning, a molecular fragment known as an acetyl group binds to a particular point on the histone protein that DNA wraps itself around – with the result that the cluster of learning and memory genes on the surrounding DNA ends up close to the acetyl group. This acetyl ‘cap’ was missing in the older mice that had been set the same tasks.

From this, the team concluded that the cap acts as an ‘on’ switch for the cluster of learning and memory genes: removing the cap switches off the genes.

Next, by injecting an enzyme known to encourage caps to bind to any kind of histone molecule, Fischer”s team artificially flipped the switch to the on position in old mice.

The acetyl group returned to the histone molecule and the mice”s learning and memory performance became similar to that of 3-month-old mice.

The study has been published in the journal Science. (ANI)

Filed Under: International News Tagged With: acetyl group, electric shock, European Neuroscience, gene expression, genes, genetic switch, gottingen germany, hippocampus, Histone Protein, learning and memory, memory impairment, Memory Performance, memory tasks, mice, molecule, neurons, neuroscience institute, New Drugs, New Scientist, young ones

Caffeine ‘effective in preventing cataract formation’

May 6, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

Washington, May 6 (ANI): Caffeine may provide the lens protection against damage that could lead to the formation of cataracts, according to a new study.

The study has been presented at the 2010 Annual Meeting of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology.

Researchers from the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, MD hypothesized that caffeine may inhibit the intraocular generation of reactive oxygen species in the lens and consequent damage to the tissue.

The team studied the oxyradical effects in vitro by incubating mice lenses in medium exposed UVA in the presence of kynurenine with and without caffeine. In vivo studies were conducted in rats by incorporating caffeine with galactose in their diet. In both cases, caffeine was found to be effective in protecting the lens against damage.

As reported in the abstract, “These effects of caffeine have not been reported before and are hence considered highly interesting in view of its relatively high content in widely consumed beverages.” (ANI)

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How immune system’s T cells boost learning

May 4, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

Washington, May 4 (ANI): A new research has revealed how the immune system”s T cells can impact learning and memory.

Stress, sickness and depression can generate inflammation in the brain, which is detrimental to learning.

Now, a new study has shown that T cells can level the learning curve by producing a protein that fights inflammation.

Learning defects had been reported in mice lacking T cells, but how these cells boosted brain power was unknown.

A team led by Jonathan Kipnis (University of Virginia, Charlottesville) investigated the activity of these cells in mice trained to find their way through a water maze.

Training the mice caused T cells to accumulate in the membrane that surrounds the brain.

Once there, the cells produced a protein called interleukin-4 (IL-4), which reduced the abundance of inflammatory proteins known to hinder learning.

Mice lacking IL-4 had a hard time navigating the maze, but their learning disability could be reversed by giving them IL-4–producing T cells.

It”s not yet clear if IL-4 has similar effects in humans. If so, these findings could impact the design of new therapies aimed at boosting learning and memory in children with learning disabilities or adults with age-related dementia.

The study has appeared online in the Journal of Experimental Medicine. (ANI)

Filed Under: International News Tagged With: abundance, brain power, Children With Learning Disabilities, dementia, hard time, immune-system, inflammation, inflammatory proteins, Interleukin 4, journal of experimental medicine, Kipnis, learning and memory, learning curve, Learning Disability, Memory Stress, mice, t-cells, university of virginia, virginia charlottesville, Water Maze

Broccoli may help fight breast cancer

May 4, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

Washington, May 4 (ANI): A broccoli compound may help prevent or treat breast cancer by targeting cancer stem cells, according to a new study.

Stem cells are the small number of cells that fuel a tumor”s growth.

The study from researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center tested sulforaphane, a component of broccoli and broccoli sprouts, in both mice and cell cultures.

Researchers found sulforaphane targeted and killed the cancer stem cells and prevented new tumors from growing.

“Sulforaphane has been studied previously for its effects on cancer, but this study shows that its benefit is in inhibiting the breast cancer stem cells. This new insight suggests the potential of sulforaphane or broccoli extract to prevent or treat cancer by targeting the critical cancer stem cells,” says study author Duxin Sun, Ph.D., associate professor of pharmaceutical sciences at the U-M College of Pharmacy and a researcher with the U-M Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Results of the study appear in the May 1 issue of Clinical Cancer Research. (ANI)

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10-year-old British girl fights off two men who tried to rape her in Dubai

April 29, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

Dubai, Apr 29(ANI): A ten-year-old British girl was reportedly attacked by two men who tried to rape her near her parent’s home in Dubai.

According to reports, the girl had gone to look for mice in a sandy play area close to her home, when one of the sex fiends grabbed her round the waist while the other attempted to remove her clothes.

However, she managed to fight them off by kicking the men and screaming, before running away.

Her family found her more than two hours later with a security guard from the complex where she lives.

Meanwhile, a Bangladeshi national, Abdul Aziz, has been charged with attempted rape and has appeared in court in Dubai.

Aziz is said to have admitted that he stopped the girl, then tried to undress her for sex, but she escaped after struggling violently.

“It was an extremely serious assault. The prosecution say there was clear intent to rape or carry out a serious sexual assault on the girl,” The Sun quoted a Dubai court source, as saying.

“She was very lucky to escape and very brave to have fought back. Her parents were frantic when she disappeared and incredibly relieved when she was found,” the source added.

The trial has been adjourned until a date to be fixed next month. (ANI)

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New way to accelerate bone healing

April 29, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

London, Apr 27 (ANI): A group of researchers has found a way to significantly speed up the healing of broken bones in mice.

The feat which, if replicated in humans, could mean people with fractures would be free of their casts a lot sooner, reports Nature.

In the study, Roel Nusse and his colleagues at Stanford School of Medicine in Palo Alto, California, found that injecting mice with a family of proteins called Wnts — packed inside lipid bubbles, or liposomes — triggers new bone growth within a few days.

The finding has been published in Science Translational Medicine1.

Wnt proteins are known to stimulate bone formation and tissue regeneration, but scientists have not managed to turn them into drugs because the proteins are not very stable.

“It”s a major technological advance, and the fact that Wnts promote bone regeneration is an important finding,” says Gerard Karsenty, an expert in skeleton physiology at Columbia University in New York City. “They used a very clever way of delivering Wnts.” (ANI)

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The real culprit behind Alzheimer”s disease

April 28, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

Washington, April 28 (ANI): Researchers at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine have found that the real culprit behind Alzheimer”s disease is the Amyloid-Beta (Abeta) oligomers in the brain, and not the Amyloid-Beta plaques as many believed.

“The buildup of amyloid plaques was described over 100 years ago and has received the bulk of the attention in Alzheimer”s pathology. But there has been a longstanding debate over whether plaques are toxic, protective, or inert,” said lead author Sam Gandy, Professor of Neurology and Psychiatry, and Associate Director of the Alzheimer”s Disease Research Center, Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

Several research groups had previously proposed that rather than plaques, floating clumps of amyloid (called oligomers) are the key components that impede brain cell function in Alzheimer”s patients.

To study this, the Mount Sinai team developed a mouse that forms only these oligomers, and never any plaques, throughout their lives.

The researchers found that the mice that never develop plaques were just as impaired by the disease as mice with both plaques and oligomers.

Moreover, when a gene that converted oligomers into plaques was added to the mice, the mice were no more impaired than they had been before.

“These findings may enable the development of neuroimaging agents and drugs that visualize or detoxify oligomers. New neuroimaging agents that could monitor changes in Abeta oligomer presence would be a major advance,” said Dr. Gandy.

“Innovative neuroimaging agents that will allow visualization of brain oligomer accumulation, in tandem with careful clinical observations, could lead to breakthroughs in managing, slowing, stopping or even preventing Alzheimer”s.

“This is especially important in light of research reported in March showing that 70 weeks of infusion of the Abeta immunotherapeutic Bapineuzumab cleared away 25 percent of the Abeta plaque, yet no clinical benefit was evident,” Dr. Gandy added.

The study appears in the journal Annals of Neurology. (ANI)

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Sodas, processed foods can accelerate signs of aging

April 27, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

Washington, Apr 27 (ANI): High levels of phosphate in sodas and processed foods can accelerate the aging process in mice and contribute to age-associated complications such as chronic kidney disease, claims a new study.

The study has been published in the FASEB Journal.

“Humans need a healthy diet and keeping the balance of phosphate in the diet may be important for a healthy life and longevity,” said M. Shawkat Razzaque, M.D., Ph.D., from the Department of Medicine, Infection and Immunity at the Harvard School of Dental Medicine. “Avoid phosphate toxicity and enjoy a healthy life.”

To reach the conclusion, Razzaque and colleague examined the effects of high phosphate levels in three groups of mice. The first group of mice was missing a gene (klotho), which when absent, causes mice to have toxic levels of phosphate in their bodies. These mice lived 8 to 15 weeks.

The second group of mice was missing the klotho gene and a second gene (NaPi2a), which when absent at the same time, substantially lowered the amount of phosphate in their bodies. These mice lived to 20 weeks. The third group of mice was like the second group (missing both the klotho and NaPi2a genes), except they were fed a high-phosphate diet. All of these mice died by 15 weeks, like those in the first group. This suggests that phosphate has toxic effects in mice, and may have a similar effect in other mammals, including humans.

“Soda is the caffeine delivery vehicle of choice for millions of people worldwide, but comes with phosphorous as a passenger” said Gerald Weissmann, M.D., Editor-in-Chief of the FASEB Journal. “This research suggests that our phosphorous balance influences the aging process, so don”t tip it.” (ANI)

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Gene silencing could be behind induced pluripotent stem cells” limitations

April 26, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

London, Apr 26 (ANI): Getting closer to generate any type of cells and tissues from patient”s own cells, scientists have found that an important cluster of genes is inactivated in induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) that do not have the full development potential of embryonic stem cells.

Generated from adult cells, iPSCs have many characteristics of embryonic stem cells but also have had significant limitations.

“We found that a segment of chromosome 12 containing genes important for fetal development was abnormally shut off in most iPSCs. These findings indicate we need to keep improving the way we produce iPSCs and suggest the need for new reprogramming strategies,” Nature quoted Dr. Konrad Hochedlinger, of the Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Regenerative Medicine (MGH-CRM) and the Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI), who led the study.

Although iPSCs appear quite similar to embryonic stem cells and give rise to many different types of cells, they have important limitations.

Several molecular differences have been observed, particularly in the epigenetic processes that control which genes are expressed, and procedures that are able to generate live animals from the embryonic stem cells of mice are much less successful with iPSCs.

Previous studies have compared iPSCs generated with the help of viruses, which can alter cellular DNA, to embryonic stem cells from unrelated animals.

To reduce the chance that the different sources of the cells were responsible for observed molecular differences, the MGH/HSCI research team prepared two genetically matched cell lines.

After generating mice from embryonic stem cells, they used a technique that does not use viruses to prepare lines of iPSCs from several types of cells taken from those animals.

They then compared the iPSCs with the original, genetically identical embryonic stem cells.

The most stringent assay of cells” developmental potential showed that two tested lines of embryonic stem cells were able to generate live mice as successfully as in previous studies, but no animals could be generated from genetically matched iPSCs.

Closely comparing RNA transcription profiles of several matched cell lines revealed significantly reduced transcription of two genes in the iPSCs.

Both genes are part of a gene cluster on chromosome 12 that normally is maternally imprinted – meaning that only the gene copies inherited from the mother are expressed.

Examination of more than 60 iPSCs lines developed from several types of cells revealed that this gene cluster was silenced in the vast majority of cell lines.

While the gene-silenced iPSCs could generate many types of mouse tissues, their overall developmental potential was limited.

In an assay that produces chimeric animals that incorporate cells from two different stem cells, mice produced from gene-silenced cells had very few tissues that originated from the iPSCs.

However, in a few iPSC lines the gene cluster was normally activated, and in the most rigorous developmental assay, those iPSCs were as successful in producing live animals as embryonic stem cells have been.

According to the authors, this is the first report of animals being produced entirely from adult-derived iPSCs.

The study will appear in the journal Nature. (ANI)

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New breakthrough in stem cell research offers hope to heart patients

April 26, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

London, Apr 26 (ANI): Veins left over from lifesaving bypass surgery could yield “master” cells to help treat future heart problems, according to scientists at University of Bristol.

The researchers extracted stem cells from the veins, then used them to stimulate new blood vessel growth in mice, according to reports in Circulation.

The researchers have claimed that their findings could bring treatments to repair damaged heart muscle one step closer.

However, a stem cell expert warned that they remained some years away.

The latest discovery uses a “waste” product from thousands of operations carried out on heart patients each year.

In a heart bypass operation, the surgeon takes a section of vein, usually from the patient”s leg, and uses it to replace a blocked or narrowed section of heart artery.

Normally, they select a slightly longer section than is actually required.

In the study, the researchers took the leftover piece and, in the laboratory, they managed to extract “progenitor” cells from the veins and persuade them to increase in number.

When the stem cells were injected into the leg muscle of a mouse, which had been deprived of blood to simulate conditions in a damaged heart, the cells appeared to trigger the development of new blood vessels and improve blood flow.

“This is the first time that anyone has been able to extract stem cells from sections of vein left over from heart bypass operations,” the BBC quoted professor Paolo Madeddu, who led the research.

“These cells might make it possible for a person having a bypass to also receive a heart treatment using their body”s own stem cells.”

However, other experts said much more work would be needed before such cells could be used widely in humans. (ANI)

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New discovery to help diabetics with slow-to-heal wounds

April 17, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

Washington, Apr 17 (ANI): With a new discovery about wound-healing process, scientists could offer better treatments to diabetics and other patients who have wounds that take time to heal.

Loyola University Health System researchers found that certain immune system cells slow the wound-healing process.

Thus, it might be possible to improve healing by inactivating these immune system cells, said Dr. Elizabeth Kovacs, who heads the laboratory team that made the discovery.

In the study, the immune system cells that impeded the healing process are called natural killer T (NKT) cells.

NKT cells perform beneficial functions such as killing tumour cells and virus-infected cells.

However, researchers discovered that NKT cells also migrate to wound sites and impede the healing process.

The researchers used an animal model to examine the effects of NKT cells on healing.

Healing was significantly slower in normal mice that had NKT cells than it was in a special breed of mice that lacked NKT cells.

“We demonstrated that early wound closure was accelerated in the absence of NKT cells. Importantly, we also made the novel observation that NKT cells themselves are a constituent of the early wound inflammatory infiltrate,” wrote the researchers.

Certain conditions, such as diabetes and infections, can slow or prevent wounds from healing.

Researchers don”t know how NKT cells slow healing, but they believe it is possible to inactivate NKT cells using an antibody.

They are testing this prediction in a follow-up study.

The findings are reported online, in advance of print, in the Journal of Surgical Research. (ANI)

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Gene therapy successfully restores vision in mice

April 1, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

Washington, Apr 1 (ANI): Using a form of gene therapy that does not involve the use of modified viruses, researchers at Buffalo, Cleveland, and Oklahoma City took a major step towards making the blind see.

Scientists have described how they used a non-viral, synthetic nanoparticle carrier to improve and save the sight of mice with retinitis pigmentosa, an inherited disease characterized by progressive vision loss and eventual blindness.

“We hope the results of our study will be instrumental in generating a cure for the debilitating blindness associated with retinitis pigmentosa and other inherited and acquired retinal diseases. Compacted DNA nanoparticles are an exciting treatment strategy for these diseases and we look forward to exciting new developments,” said Dr. Muna I. Naash.

To accomplish the feat, the researchers used groups of mice with the retinal degeneration slow (Rds) gene, which causes retinitis pigmentosa.

The mice received one of three types of “treatments”— nanoparticles containing the normal copy of the Rds gene, the normal gene alone, or saline solution.

After these treatments were delivered to the mice, the structure and function of the retina were analysed by comparing them to untreated mice with retinitis pigmentosa and healthy mice with the normal Rds gene.

Researchers also measured the level and pattern of Rds gene expression, as well as functional, structural and biochemical improvements in disease symptoms.

It was found that mice receiving the nanoparticle gene therapy show significant signs of healing.

The mice had structural improvement in their retinas, as well as functional vision improvements, which lasted throughout the duration of the study.

The mice that received the gene alone or saline continued to lose their vision.

The nanoparticles were safe and well-tolerated with no adverse effects.

“Making the blind see was once called a miracle. As we have expanded our understanding of evolution, genetics, and nanotechnology, chances are that “miraculous” cures will become as commonplace as those claimed by faith-healers past and present,” said Dr. Gerald Weissmann.

The study has been published in the latest issue of The FASEB Journal. (ANI)

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Why some people are more susceptible to stress than others

March 31, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

Washington, March 31 (ANI): Scientists have found new clues to why some people are more susceptible to stress than others.

In a study of mice, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center determined that weeks after experiencing a stressful event, animals that were more susceptible to stress exhibited enhanced neurogenesis – the birth of new nerve cells in the brain.

Specifically, the cells that these animals produced after a stressful event survived longer than new brain cells produced by mice that were more resilient.

In addition, when researchers prevented neurogenesis in both stress-susceptible and resilient mice, the animals previously susceptible to stress became more resilient.

“This work shows that there is a period of time during which it may be possible to alter memories relevant to a social situation by manipulating adult-generated nerve cells in the brain,” said Dr. Amelia Eisch, associate professor of psychiatry at UT Southwestern and senior author of the study.

“This could eventually lead to a better understanding of why, in humans, there is an enormous variety of responses to stressful situations,” Eisch added.

The study appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. (ANI)

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Oddest book title of the year: ‘Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes’!

March 26, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

London, March 26 (ANI): ‘Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes’ has won the Diagram Prize, which rewards the oddest book title of the year.

Dr Daina Taimina, a mathematician at Cornell University in New York, who wrote the book, won with 42 percent of the public vote.

“I have never received a prize. My career has been quite bizzare so I do think that this award really reflects it – I am proud,” the Telegraph quoted Taimina as saying.

‘What Kind of Bean is this Chihuahua?’ by Tara Jansen-Meyer, and ‘Collectible Spoons of the Third Reich’ by James Yannes were also in the running.

Taimina confessed that she had not decided the title of her book.

She said: “Since I was expecting the publisher to come up with a great title for marketing purposes I told him to put whatever he wanted and this seemed very appropriate.

“We published a joint paper on crocheting on hyperbolic planes and he got all the emails.

“People gave him all the credit – the usual misconceptions of a woman not having a brain – but I thought that at least the crocheting credit could have been left to me. Well, I suppose now it is finally!”

Horace Bent, of The Bookseller magazine, the man behind the awards, said: “When the credit crunch began to bite British publishing, I feared oddly-titled books would suffer in a climate that was prompting publishers to focus on more bankable works – like frankly lamentable biographies of Z-list “celebrities” and those depressing white books with doleful children on the cover.

“But I am delighted that oddly-titled books proved recession-resistant, and I believe Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes is a worthy champion.”

The first Diagram Prize was awarded to ‘Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Nude Mice’ in 1978. (ANI)

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Potential new way to prevent relapse of leukaemia

March 26, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

Washington, March 26 (ANI): Researchers at Children”s Hospital Boston have found a possible new way to kill off chemo-resistant leukemia stem cells, and prevent them from initiating a relapse.

Their study shows that leukemia stem cells cannot thrive without a particular cell pathway, known as the Wnt/beta-catenin pathway, suggesting that targeting this pathway may prevent acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) patients from having a relapse.

“The biggest potential for this study is in suppression of leukemia recurrence by a drug that inhibits beta-catenin,” says Scott Armstrong, of Children”s Division of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology and senior author of the study.

The researchers zeroed in on beta-catenin as an important player in leukemia stem cells by working with two different types of early blood cells – blood stem cells, which generate all the different types of blood cells, and granulocyte/macrophage-restricted progenitors, more mature, differentiated cells that only generate certain white blood cells.

They did this by activating two genes previously found to induce AML, Hoxa9 and Meis1, then injecting the cells into mice.

Activation of the two genes induced AML in mice injected with the blood stem cells, but not in mice injected with the progenitors. Genetic analyses revealed the progenitors lacked an active beta-catenin pathway.

Though this pathway is still active in blood stem cells after a person is born, it plays a vital role only during fetal development, and is completely inactive in more differentiated progenitor cells.

This led the team to think beta-catenin was needed for leukemia stem cells to develop, thrive and induce leukemia.

To test this idea, the researchers introduced an active form of beta-catenin into the progenitor cells after activating Hoxa9 and Meis1. Once injected into mice, these progenitor cells later induced leukemia.

The researchers further confirmed the role of beta-catenin by treating mice they had injected with leukemia stem cells with the drug indomethacin, which blocks the beta-catenin pathway.

Tests showed the number of leukemia stem cells dwindled in the mice that received the drug. Indomethacin also reduced the number of stem cells in mice with fully developed leukemia.

Most young children with AML develop the disease as a result of what researchers call mixed lineage leukemia fusion proteins, which can activate the Hoxa9 and Meis1 genes.

To see if one of these proteins also affected the beta-catenin pathway, the team treated progenitor cells with the mixed lineage leukemia fusion protein MLL-AF9. MLL-AF9 activated Hoxa9 and Meis1, as well as the beta-catenin pathway, and the mice injected with these progenitor cells developed leukemia.

But when the mice were treated with an agent to deactivate the beta-catenin pathway in vivo, the leukemia stem cells could not thrive.

This research suggests that leukemia stem cells need the beta-catenin pathway to survive, and treatments that block this pathway may eradicate the leukemia stem cells and prevent AML patients from having a relapse.

The study has been published online March 26th in the journal Science. (ANI)

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Could erectile dysfunction drugs help muscular dystrophy patients?

March 25, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

Washington, Mar 25 (ANI): Taking a step further from a recent rodent study, a Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute cardiologist is probing if drugs used to treat erectile dysfunction could also be used to improve muscle blood flow and reduce fatigue in muscular dystrophy patients.

A recent study showed beneficial effects of tadalafil (also known as Cialis) in mice with an animal version of Duchenne and Becker muscular dystrophy.

Only two doses of tadalafil improved muscle blood flow, allowing the dystrophic mice to perform more exercise with less muscle injury.

The new short-term clinical trial will move the testing from animals to human patients with Becker muscular dystrophy and examine the effects of acute tadalafil dosing on muscle blood flow during a bout of exercise.

Patients will take two doses of tadalafil prior to exercising. Then doctors will measure whether muscles receive increased blood flow and therefore are better protected during exercise.

“This is an exciting next step in the research I have been doing for 25 years, because we don’t need to create a new drug — the drug already exists. We now have the opportunity to find out if tadalafil can offer some hope for improving the lives of patients and allow them to do more exercise with less muscle injury,” said Victor.

The study is open to adult males 18 – 55 who have Becker muscular dystrophy as well as adult males who don’t have it.

And it includes includes hand grip exercise testing, measurements of muscle blood flow and oxygen delivery, and magnetic resonance imaging of the muscles. (ANI)

Filed Under: International News Tagged With: Adult Males, Becker Muscular Dystrophy, beneficial effects, blood flow, cardiologist, cedars sinai, cialis, clinical trial, Duchenne, Exercise Testing, Hand Grip Exercise, heart institute, human patients, magnetic resonance imaging, mice, muscle injury, Muscular Dystrophy Patients, oxygen delivery, rodent, tadalafil

Vaccine for urinary tract infections comes closer to reality

September 19, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, Sept 18 (ANI): A simple vaccine may soon be available to protect against urinary tract infections, thanks to researchers from University of Michigan.

The study conducted over mice showed that the vaccine prevented infection and produced key types of immunity.

It alerts the immune system to iron receptors on the surface of Escherichia coli bacteria that perform a critical function allowing infection to spread.

Administered in the nose, it induces an immune response in the body’s mucosa, a first line of defense against invading pathogens. The response, also produced in mucosal tissue in the urinary tract, should help the body fight infection where it starts.

The researchers used novel systematic approach, combining bioinformatics, genomics and proteomics, to look for key parts of the bacterium that could be used in a vaccine to elicit an effective immune response.

The team, led by Dr. Harry L.T. Mobley, screened 5,379 possible bacterial proteins and identified three strong candidates to use in a vaccine to prime the body to fight E. coli.

Mobley’s team is currently testing more strains of E. coli obtained from women treated at U-M.

If the robust immunity achieved in mice can be reproduced in humans, it could be the first ever vaccine for urinary tract infections.

Most of the strains produce the same iron-related proteins that can be vaccine targets, an encouraging sign that the vaccine could work against many urinary tract infections.

The findings are published in the open-access journal PLoS Pathogens. (ANI)

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