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Vitamin K may help keep non-hodgkin lymphoma at bay

April 20, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

Washington, Apr 20 (ANI): People who have higher intakes of vitamin K from their diet have a lower risk of developing Non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a new study has found.

Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma is a cancer of the immune system.

At the 101st Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), researchers at the Mayo Clinic campus in Minnesota report that the risk of developing Non-Hodgkin lymphoma was approximately 45 percent lower for participants who had vitamin K intakes in the top quartile of intake in the study, compared to participants who had intakes in the bottom quartile. This association remained after accounting for other factors such as age, sex, education, obesity, smoking, alcohol use and intake of foods with high amounts of antioxidants.

Vitamin K is a fat-soluble vitamin and is derived from either plants (phylloquinone or vitamin K1) or bacterial synthesis.

“These results are provocative, since they are the first work we have done on the connection between vitamin K and Non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and this is a fairly strong protective effect,” says the study”s lead investigator, James Cerhan, M.D., Ph.D., a cancer epidemiologist. “However, as with all new findings, this will need to be replicated in other studies.” (ANI)

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Exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke linked to liver disease

September 12, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, September 11 (ANI): People can develop liver disease even when they are exposed to second-hand tobacco smoke, according to a study.

Scientists at the University of California, Riverside (UCR) have found that exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke can lead to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), a common disease and rising cause of chronic liver injury wherein fat accumulates in the liver of people who drink little or no alcohol.

For their study, the researchers exposed some mice to second-hand cigarette smoke for a year in the lab, and observed fat build-up in their liver cells, a sign of NAFLD that eventually leads to liver dysfunction.

The researchers focused on two key regulators of lipid (fat) metabolism that are found in many human cells as well: SREBP (sterol regulatory element-binding protein) that stimulates synthesis of fatty acids in the liver, and AMPK (adenosine monophosphate kinase) that turns SREBP on and off.

They found that second-hand smoke exposure inhibits AMPK activity, which, in turn, causes an increase in activity of SREBP.

More active SREBP results in more fatty acids getting synthesized, they say.

The result is NAFLD induced by second-hand smoke, according to the researchers.

“Our study provides compelling experimental evidence in support of tobacco smoke exposure playing a major role in NAFLD development,” said Manuela Martins-Green, a professor of cell biology, who led the study.

“Our work points to SREBP and AMPK as new molecular targets for drug therapy that can reverse NAFLD development resulting from second-hand smoke. Drugs could now be developed that stimulate AMPK activity, and thereby inhibit SREBP, leading to reduced fatty acid production in the liver,” Martins-Green added.

A research article describing the study has been published in the Journal of Hepatology. (ANI)

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Molecule having anti-fat, anti-cancer abilities found to be a turnoff for fat genes

August 28, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, Aug 28 (ANI): Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine have found that a small molecule, earlier found to have anti-fat and anti-cancer abilities, has the potential to put off fat-making genes.

Such action in mice genetically prone to obesity causes the animals to become leaner, they say.

The researchers have also found the molecule to lowers the amount of fat in the mice’s livers, along with their blood sugar and cholesterol levels.

“We are frankly very excited about it. It goes to the origin of [fat synthesis] – all the way back to gene expression,” said Salih Wakil at Baylor.

Unlike cholesterol-lowering statins in use today, which block a single enzyme in the pathway, the chemical the researchers call fatostatin, “hits fat from the very beginning,” said Motonari Uesugi.

As a result, fatostatin influences many of the genes involved in fat production and in various aspects of metabolic syndrome – a collection of risk factors including obesity, high cholesterol and insulin resistance – in one go.

Studies in cell culture showed that fatostatin, previously known only as 125B11, significantly lowers the activity of 63 genes, including 34 directly associated with fatty acid or cholesterol synthesis.

Many of these genes were known to be under the control of SREBP – a transcription factor which act as a well-known master controller of fat synthesis.

After more detailed analysis, the researchers found that the drug candidate blocked SREBP by preventing it from becoming active and entering the nucleus, where it would otherwise switch on the fat-making program.

According to them, it operates by binding another protein (called SCAP), which serves as SREBP’s escort into the nucleus.

It was found that obese mice injected with fatostatin show noticeable reductions in their weight despite little difference in their eating habits, the researchers report.

After four weeks of treatment, the animals weighed 12 percent less and had 70 percent lower blood sugar levels.

Their cholesterol levels (both LDL and HDL) were down too. The concentration of fatty acids in their blood was actually higher- a sign of their greater demand for fat to burn.

While the livers of the obese mice were heavy and pale with fat, treated animals’ livers were more than 30 percent lighter and were a healthy-looking red.

Although less obvious, the SREBP-blocking ability might also explain the molecule’s earlier reported effects against prostate cancer cells in culture as well.

They explained that cells need fatty acids and cholesterol to build their cell membranes and continue growing.

Researchers are optimistic that fatostatin could prove to be clinically useful in the context of obesity, and perhaps cardiovascular disease and diabetes as well.

“Hopefully down the road, fatostatin or a derivative of fatostatin may be helpful. It could have a broad impact on the key diseases we all suffer from,” said Wakil.

Uesugi said that fatostatin or its analogs may also serve a tool for gaining further insights into the regulation of SREBP and fat metabolism.

The study has been published in the journal Chemistry and Biology. (ANI)

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Nighttime alertness probed

August 27, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, Aug 27 (ANI): A new study, conducted by researchers in the U.S., has shown that the circadian system is not the only pathway involved in determining alertness at night – red light, which does not stimulate the circadian system, is just as effective at increasing nighttime alertness as blue light, which does.

Mariana Figueiro from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, New York, and colleagues examined the effects of the different lighting conditions.

“It is now well accepted that the circadian system is maximally sensitive to short-wavelength (blue) light and is quite insensitive to long-wavelength (red) light. We’ve shown that a moderate level of red light impacts alertness, an effect that must occur via a pathway other than the circadian system,” she said.

Circadian rhythms are roughly 24-hour cycles in various biological processes, such as core body temperature, melatonin synthesis and sleep-wake behavior, that repeat approximately every 24 hours and are synchronized most strongly by the light-dark cycle in the environment.

Bright light is known to increase alertness at night, but it has never been completely clear whether this light-induced alertness can arise from neural pathways other than those involved in the circadian system.

“There is previous compelling evidence that light-induced stimulation of the circadian system increases alertness at night, but our results suggest that this effect is mediated not only by the circadian system, but also through other mechanisms,” Figueiro added.

The research has been described in the open access journal BMC Neuroscience. (ANI)

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Different types of booze impact desire for food differently

August 25, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Melbourne, August 25 (ANI): The type of alcoholic drink you consume may have an impact on your desire for food, suggests an Australian study.

Dr. Anna Kokavec, a research psychologist at La Trobe University in Bendigo, found that the additional nutritional content of various alcoholic beverages influence the body’s reaction to alcohol, reports ABC Science.

The lead author, along with her team, measured the effect of red wine, white wine, light beer or regular beer on the hypothalamic-pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis, which is responsible for the synthesis of the steroid hormones cortisol and dehyrdoepiandrosterone sulfate (DHEAS).

Kokavec said that DHEAS and cortisol, commonly known as a stress hormone, influence appetite, adding: “We need a sufficient release of cortisol to make us feel hungry.”

She found that cortisol levels went down in participants after the consumption of alcohol, and decreased their appetite despite having fasted for half a day.

But DHEAS levels varied depending on what type of alcohol was consumed.

The DHEAS levels initially took a dip for those who took beer before going up, resulting in an eventual increase in hunger.

Kokavec said: “Beer completely confuses the system.”

Consumption of red wine was also observed to have led to an increased appetite.

But, unlike beer and red wine, white wine completely switched off the HPA axis, indicating hunger remained low.

The study has been published in the journal Pharmacology, Biochemistry and Behaviour. (ANI)

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‘Hotspots’ of human impact on coastal areas ranked

July 10, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, July 10 (ANI): A new study has ranked ‘hotspots’ among coastal marine ecosystems that are at risk worldwide as a result of human activities.

The study, by scientists at UC (University of California) Santa Barbara, US, is the first integrated analysis of all coastal areas of the world.

“Resource management and conservation in coastal waters must address a litany of impacts from human activities, from the land, such as urban runoff and other types of pollution, and from the sea,” said Benjamin S. Halpern, the study’s first author, who is based at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) at UCSB.

“One of the great challenges is to decide where and how much to allocate limited resources to tackling these problems,” he said.

“Our results identify where it is absolutely imperative that land-based threats are addressed-so-called hotspots of land-based impact-and where these land-based sources of impact are minimal or can be ignored,” he added.

The hottest hotspot is at the mouth of the Mississippi River, explained Halpern, with the other top 10 in Asia and the Mediterranean.

“These are areas where conservation efforts will almost certainly fail if they don’t directly address what people are doing on land upstream from these locations,” he said.

Nutrient runoff from upstream farms has caused a persistent “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico, where the Mississippi runs into this body of water.

The dead zone is caused by an overgrowth of algae that feeds on the nutrients and takes up most of the oxygen in the water.

The researchers state that they have provided the first integrated analysis for all coastal areas of the world.

They surveyed four key land-based drivers of ecological change, namely, nutrient input from agriculture in urban settings, organic pollutants derived from pesticides, inorganic pollutants from urban runoff, and direct impact of human populations on coastal marine habitats.

Halpern explained that a large portion of the world’s coastlines experience very little effect of what happens on land-nearly half of the coastline and more than 90 percent of all coastal waters.

“This is because a vast majority of the planet’s landscape drains into relatively few very large rivers, that in turn affect a small amount of coastal area,” said Halpern.
In these places with little impact from human activities on land, marine conservation can and needs to focus primarily on what is happening in the ocean,” he added. (ANI)

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Earliest land vertebrates were more diverse than earlier believed

July 8, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, July 7 (ANI): A new study of ancient fossils has determined that the earliest land vertebrates, also known as tetrapods, were more diverse than we could possibly imagine.

The study was done by Jennifer Clack, a paleontologist at the University of Cambridge, who has studied the fossils of these extinct creatures for more than two decades.

Long before mammals, birds, and even dinosaurs roamed the Earth, the first four-legged creatures made their first steps onto land, and quickly inhabited a wide range of terrestrial environments.

“These early land vertebrates varied considerably in size and shape,” said Clack.

To understand the anatomical changes that accompanied this diversity, Clack teamed up with two biologists who work on living fishes – Charles Kimmel of the University of Oregon, and Brian Sidlauskas of the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center in North Carolina.

The researchers focused on 35 early tetrapods that lived between 385 and 275 million years ago.

As a proxy for body size and shape, they examined the dimensions of a number of bones in a region of the skull known as the palate.

By tracing changes in the length and width of interlocking bones in this part of the skull, the researchers hoped to get a more fine-grained picture of skeleton evolution as a whole.

“I tend to think the genetic instructions for making a skeleton come from how you make individual bones first, and then how you fit those bones together as a refinement of that,” said developmental biologist Charles Kimmel.

When they mapped the changes in bone length and width onto the tetrapod family tree, the researchers discovered that not all bones changed size at the same rate or in the same direction.

This phenomenon can result in an overall reshaping from one lineage to the next, explained Sidlauskas.

“Sometimes a change in size can have indirect consequences for the shape of the animal. When different parts of an animal’s body change size at different rates over evolutionary time, that can generate changes in body shape from one species to another,” he added.

Moreover, some changes are consistent with an evolutionary quirk known as paedomorphosis, in which species retain in adulthood the youthful dimensions that their ancestors had as juveniles.

“Paedomorphosis is definitely there – the descendents of some groups are retaining the proportions that their juveniles had in the past,” said Clack.

These results not only help explain why early tetrapods were so diverse in size and shape, but also shed light on an important chapter in the evolution of life on land – the transition from fish to amphibians. (ANI)

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How carbohydrates act as tumour suppressor

July 8, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, July 7 (ANI): Glycans, the carbohydrates that anchor cells into place, have been found to act as tumour suppressors in breast and prostate cancers, according to scientists at Burnham Institute for Medical Research (Burnham).

These specialized complex sugar molecules (glycans) play a critical role in cell adhesion in normal cells, and their decrease or loss leads to increased cell migration by invasive cancer cells and metastasis.

The researchers, led by Dr. Minoru Fukuda, observed that an increase in expression of the enzyme that produces these glycans, B3GnT1, resulted in a significant reduction in tumour activity.

The specialized glycans are capable of binding to laminin, and are attached to the a-DG cell surface protein. This binding facilitates adhesion between epithelial and basement membrane cells and prevents cells from migrating.

The team demonstrated that B3GnT1 controls the synthesis of laminin-binding glycans in concert with the genes LARGE/LARGE2.

Down-regulation of ß3GnT1 reduces the number of glycans, leading to greater movement by invasive cancer cells.

But when the researchers forced aggressive cancer cells to express ß3GnT1, the laminin-binding glycans were restored and tumour formation decreased.

“These results indicate that certain carbohydrates on normal cells and enzymes that synthesize those glycans, such as ß3GnT1, function as tumor suppressors. Upregulation of ß3GnT1 may become a novel way to treat cancer,” said Fukuda.”

The scientists demonstrated that ß3GnT1 plays a key role in forming laminin-binding glycans attached to a-DG, which in turn reduces cancer cell movement.

The study could lead to new understanding of the role that complex carbohydrates play in cancer, and could lead to new directions in the development of therapeutics.

The research has been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. (ANI)

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Indian-origin scientist finds genetic switch that may help treat vascular diseases

July 6, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, July 6 (ANI): Taking a big leap towards finding a treatment of vascular diseases, a team led by an Indian-origin scientist at the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease (GICD) has discovered a key switch that makes stem cells turn into the type of muscle cells that reside in the wall of blood vessels.

Dr. Deepak Srivastava’s study claimed that the same switch could be used in the future to limit growth of vascular muscle cells that cause narrowing of arteries leading to heart attacks and strokes, limit formation of blood vessels that feed cancers, or make new blood vessels for organs that are not getting enough blood flow.

It was found that a tiny RNA molecule, called microRNA-145 (miR-145), not only had all the information necessary to turn a stem cell into a vascular smooth muscle cell (VSMC), but could also affect VSMCs in the adult artery.

VSMCs possess the unique property of dividing on their own when an artery is injured or during atherosclerosis, ultimately causing narrowing of the vessel leading to occlusion.

The researchers found that miR-145 and its sister microRNA, miR-143, work together to stop the pathologic division of VSMCs.

But in the setting of vessel disease, their activity was turned down, which made the VSMCs to divide and clog up the artery.

MicroRNAs are small RNA molecules that do not make protein, but instead affect that amount of protein synthesized by the cell from their target mRNAs-the blueprints for translating the genetic code into proteins.

The researchers found that miR-145 and miR-143 together controlled the synthesis of a network of “master regulators” that control VSMCs, and thereby were able to function as a central “switch” for the behaviour of these important cells.

“The ability of miR-145 to efficiently direct the cell fate of vascular smooth muscle cells from stem cells represents the power of these tiny microRNAs to exert major effects on cells. We hope that we can use this knowledge to control when the body makes or does not make new blood vessels,” Nature magazine quoted Srivastava as saying.

He added: “Our findings in this study offer insights into regulatory mechanisms that govern the differentiation and proliferation of smooth muscle. They have fundamental implications for the treatment of vessel diseases like atherosclerosis and also may be important for cancer.”

The study has been published in the current issue of the journal Nature. (ANI)

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Genetic analysis reveals what makes us look old

July 1, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, July 1 (ANI): A genetic analysis of human skin has revealed what makes us look old, say American scientists.

According to scientists, the finding could throw up ways to smooth away wrinkles and provide a quantifiable way to test claims made for skin products, reports New Scientist.

Rosemary Osborne of Procter and Gamble in Cincinnati, Ohio, and colleagues used DNA microarrays, common in the drugs industry, to measure the expression of thousands of genes in skin of different ages.

The researchers compared gene expression in skin samples from the buttocks and forearms of 10 young and 10 older women.

In older skin, they found a decrease in the expression of genes involved in cholesterol and fatty acid synthesis.

The researchers also found that the opposite was true for genes associated with inflammation and other components of the immune system, suggesting that the immune system may play a role in ageing.

Treating the older skin with niacinamide, which helps skin retain moisture, damped down expression of genes related to inflammation.

The researchers say that targeting this inflammation might one day help to keep wrinkles at bay.

The findings appear in the Journal of Drugs in Dermatology. (ANI)

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How ferocious piranhas got their fearful bite

June 27, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, June 26 (ANI): Researchers from Argentina, the US and Venezuela have uncovered the jawbone of a striking transitional fossil that sheds light on how the ferocious piranhas got their teeth.

Named ‘Megapiranha paranensis’, this previously unknown fossil fish bridges the evolutionary gap between flesh-eating piranhas and their plant-eating cousins.

Present-day piranhas have a single row of triangular teeth, like the blade on a saw, explained the researchers.

But, their closest relatives – a group of fishes commonly known as pacus – have two rows of square teeth, presumably for crushing fruits and seeds.

“In modern piranhas, the teeth are arranged in a single file,” said Wasila Dahdul, a visiting scientist at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center in North Carolina.
But, in the relatives of piranhas, which tend to be herbivorous fishes, the teeth are in two rows,” said Dahdul.

Megapiranha shows an intermediate pattern: it’s teeth are arranged in a zig-zag row, which suggests that the two rows in pacus were compressed to form a single row in piranhas.

“It almost looks like the teeth are migrating from the second row into the first row,” said John Lundberg, curator at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia and a co-author of the study.

If this is so, Megapiranha may be an intermediate step in the long process that produced the piranha’s distinctive bite.

To find out where Megapiranha falls in the evolutionary tree for these fishes, Dahdul examined hundreds of specimens of modern piranhas and their relatives.

“What’s cool about this group of fish is their teeth have really distinctive features. A single tooth can tell you a lot about what species it is and what other fishes they’re related to,” said Dahdul.

Her phylogenetic analysis confirms their hunch that Megapiranha seems to fit between piranhas and pacus in the fish family tree.

Cione’s find suggests that Megapiranha lived between 8-10 million years ago in a South American river system known as the Parana.

By comparing the teeth and jaw to the same bones in present-day species, the researchers estimate that Megapiranha was up to 1 meter (3 feet) in length, which is at least four times as long as modern piranhas.

“Although no one is sure what Megapiranha ate, it probably had a diverse diet,” said Cione. (ANI)

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Changing climate make mockingbirds better singers

May 22, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, May 22 (ANI): Mockingbirds tend to sing fancier tunes with changing climate, say researchers.

The research team from the National Evolutionary Synthesis Centre (NESCent), the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and McGill University showed that species in more variable climes also sing complex tunes.

“Survival and reproduction become more complicated when weather patterns are unpredictable because you don’t know when food will be available or how long it will be around,” said Carlos Botero, a postdoctoral researcher at NESCent in Durham, NC.

And the consequences of picking a mediocre mate are magnified in harsher climes.

“In really difficult or demanding environments you would expect females to be choosier,” he added.

Botero said that male mockingbirds sing primarily to impress mates and superior singing skills are a cue that a male is a good catch.

“Complexity of song display – how many song types a bird sings, how hard the songs are – is a good predictor of the quality of the individual,” he said.

“Males that sing more complex songs tend to carry fewer parasites, and have offspring that are more likely to survive,” he added.

Moreover, singing skills may be a sign that males are clever enough to cope with iffy environments.

“Individuals that are more intelligent tend to be better able to compensate for the difficulties of unpredictable climates,” said Botero.

“For example, if some individuals are able to invent new foraging techniques, then they are going to be better at surviving harsh winters than the poor guys who only know one way to forage.

“The more intelligent you are, the more resourceful you are, and the more curve balls you’re able to handle,” he added.

During the study, Botero and his colleagues studied nearly 100 tracks from 29 mockingbird species and found that species subject to more variable and unpredictable climates had more elaborate song displays.

The connection between birdsong and climate is new and somewhat surprising, Botero explains. “We’re connecting two dots that were far away before.” (ANI)

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Gene behind a rare form of congenital anaemia identified

May 9, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, May 9 (ANI): Scientists have found the gene, called SLC25A38, which causes congenital sideroblastic anaemia-a rare disease mainly characterized by the presence of ringed sideroblasts in the patients’ bone marrow.

The research is a Genome Canada project, which is co-directed by Dr. Mark Samuels, an investigator with the Sainte-Justine University Hospital Research Center.

The team of scientists identified three families from Canada’s Maritime provinces, and all of them had a child suffering from this disease.

Although the families were not related officially, the researchers believed that it was possible to establish a genealogical link uniting them generations ago and that they exhibited what is called a founder effect.

By using new technologies developed by the Human Genome Project, the molecular analysis team succeeded in defining a genomic region, which was suspected to inhabit the gene responsible for congenital sideroblastic anaemia in these families.

Direct resequencing of the gene made it possible to identify a causal mutation in a gene to which no physiological role could have been attributed.

Later, the researchers identified 10 additional causal mutations of this gene in other unexplained cases of congenital sideroblastic anaemia, and also showed a direct role of the gene in haemoglobin synthesis in zebra fish.

This is the first disease of this type associated with the SLC25A38 gene, reports Nature magazine.

The discovery of the gene can now offer patients and their family members direct molecular confirmation of their condition, allowing them to know whether they are sufferers or asymptomatic carriers of the disease.

Generally speaking, the feat shows that even well known scientific processes, such as haemoglobin biosynthesis, still have surprises in store.

The study is published in the latest electronic edition of the journal Nature Genetics. (ANI)

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First technique to produce effective anti-leukaemia agent developed

April 18, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, Apr 18 (ANI): More than a decade after discovering kapakahines- marine-derived natural products with anti-leukaemia potential-scientists have found the first technique to synthesise them in laboratory in large quantities, by using only acetylene gas, a handful of amino acids, and a dozen inventive steps.

Kapakahines were isolated from a South Pacific sponge in trace quantities, but its lack of availability stalled any future studies.

But, thanks to the efforts of researchers at Scripps Research Institute that unlimited production of kapakahine is now possible.

Thus, research on the compound can proceed and may eventually lead to new drug treatments.

Cripbrochalina olemda, a common tube-type sponge like organism, produces a compound called kapakahine B, among other molecules of interest, which has shown potential for fighting leukaemia.

The researchers have said that kapakahine B, which has an unusual structure, uses some never-before-seen mechanism to fight cancer cells.

For a long time, researchers around the world have unsuccessfully tried to devise a method for synthesizing the kapakahines.

Scripps researchers, led by Phil Baran, started on with more basic research, in which they successfully synthesized a simpler related compound, psychotrimine, with no known pharmaceutical potential.

Inspired by this, the researchers created a highly reactive and selective chemical component referred to as a quaternary centre that, because of structural similarities, also drives the essential first step in the kapakahines synthesis.

Later, they set out on a somewhat riskier venture to develop a second stage needed to synthesize kapakahines.

Then, the researchers predicted that using the quaternary centre, they could produce two intermediate isomers, or molecules with the same chemical formula but different structures.

One of the isomers was predicted to be an ideal stepping stone toward the kapakahines, but more difficult to make.

They predicted that the second isomer would be much more reactive, and in theory its concentration would grow sufficiently as it moved toward equilibrium with the first isomer.

And finally, they synthesized two kapakahines for the first time and in gram quantities.

One of the compounds, kapakahine B, has shown potential in fighting leukaemia cells, which could further help in developing potential drug treatment.

The research has been published online by the Journal of the American Chemical Society. (ANI)

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New test can help assess efficacy of Alzheimer’s drugs

April 10, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, Apr 10 (ANI): Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have developed a new test that can assess whether an Alzheimer’s drug could really reduce the production of amyloid beta (A-beta)- one of the possible underlying causes of Alzheimer’s disease in humans.

With the test, called stable isotope-linked kinetics (SILK), the researchers showed that an Alzheimer’s drug given to healthy volunteers reduced A-beta production

The test could speed up the development of new treatments for the disease.

In the clinical trials by Eli Lilly and Company, the scientists are studying the drug candidate, LY450139, which is also known as semagacestat.

Ongoing clinical trials are studying the effect that semagacestat may have on cognitive function and biochemical and brain imaging biomarkers in patients with Alzheimer’s disease.

The researchers said that they wanted to see if SILK could detect the drug’s impact on A-beta synthesis in healthy volunteers.

“Bringing an Alzheimer’s disease drug into clinical trials from tests in animal models has always been challenging. We haven’t had a way to quickly and accurately assess a drug’s effects, and that meant there always had to be some degree of educated guesswork when it came to setting the optimal dosage for humans. SILK may help to eliminate much of that guesswork,” said study director Randall Bateman.

The researchers are currently using SILK to know if increased A-beta production, reduced clearance or a combination of the two lead to the A-beta buildup in the brain- a process believed to trigger Alzheimer’s disease.

Until SILK, there has not been a way to directly measure the production or clearance of A-beta.

Scientists have assessed the efficacy of potential new Alzheimer’s drug candidates by monitoring the cognitive functions of patients with the disease for extended periods of time, which require large, lengthy and expensive studies.

In the new study, the scientists reported a dose-dependent drop in A-beta production, and measured an 84 percent reduction in A-beta production with the highest study drug dose.

The SILK procedure takes 36 hours, but provides scientists a more detailed assessment of amyloid beta production and clearance levels than they can obtain through conventional methods.

“You could use a spinal tap to look directly at the amount of A-beta present in the cerebrospinal fluid, but we’ve shown that natural processes cause A-beta levels to change dynamically. Such changes make it more difficult to assess the effects of a drug in that fashion,” said Bateman.

The results have been published in Annals of Neurology. (ANI)

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Heart cells can develop into adulthood

April 3, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, April 3 (ANI): In what may eventually hold great significance for patients who have suffered myocardial damage as a result of a heart attack, a study has shown that cells in a human heart can develop into adulthood and their age is, on average, six years younger than the individual.

Scientists from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the Karolinska Institute, Universite Claude Bernard Lyon, Lund University, and Lund University Hospital made these findings by using the amount of carbon 14 in the atmosphere from above-ground nuclear testing in the 1950s and 1960.

Lead researcher Bruce Buchholz, however, point out that as humans age, the percentage of new heart cells decreases markedly.

By age 25, renewal of heart cells gradually decrease from 1 percent turning over annually to .45 percent by the age of 75. About 50 percent of the heart cells a human is born with will regenerate during a lifetime.

Buchholz used the Laboratory’s Center for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry to measure the amount of carbon 14 in DNA to establish the age of cardiac muscle cells in humans.

The researcher revealed that the study group determined the ages of heart cells by determining the time at which the sample’s carbon 14 concentration corresponded to the atmospheric concentration.

Buchholz and colleagues found that people born around or after the nuclear bomb tests corresponded to atmospheric concentrations several years after the subjects’ birth, indicating substantial postnatal DNA syntheses.

“By analysing individuals born at different times before 1955, it is possible to establish the age up to which DNA synthesis occurs, or whether it continues beyond that age,” the researcher said.

In the study, carbon 14 concentrations were elevated in subjects compared to those people born up to 22 years before the beginning of nuclear bomb tests.

“DNA of myocardial cells is synthesized many years after birth, indicating that cells in the human heart do, in fact, renew into adulthood,” Buchholz said.

“At the age of 50, 55 percent of the heart’s cells remain from the time around birth and 45 percent have been generated later,” the researcher added.

While the limited recovery in humans after a heart injury or attack indicates failing regeneration of heart cells, the researchers say that the renewal of heart cells, as indicated by the mixing of carbon 14 in the DNA, suggest that the development of pharmacological strategies to stimulate this process may be a rational alternative or complement to cell transplantation strategies for heart cell replacement.

The research appears in the journal Science. (ANI)

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Modified magnetic resonance imaging may help picture disease metabolism in action

March 29, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, March 27 (ANI): Duke University researchers have devised a new MRI signalling method that can help see such molecular changes inside the body as may signal health problems like cancer.

Warren Warren, James B. Duke Professor of chemistry at Duke, says that the novel method makes more of the body’s chemistry visible by MRI.

When used for brain imaging, MRI enlist the hydrogen atoms in water to create a graphic display in response to magnetic pulses and radio waves.

However, a huge array of water molecules are needed to pull that off.

“Only one out of every 100,000 water molecules in the body will actually contribute any useful signal to build that image. The water signal is not much different between tumors and normal tissue, but the other internal chemistry is different. So detecting other molecules, and how they change, would aid diagnosis,” Warren said.

The Duke researchers claim that they have been able to see these other molecules with MRI by “hyperpolarizing” some atoms in a sample, adjusting the spins of their nuclei to drastically increase their signal.

According to the team, this creates large imbalances among the populations of those spin states, making the molecules into more powerful magnets.

The researchers say that unlike normal MRI, hyperpolarization and a technique called “dynamic nuclear polarization” (DNP) can produce strong MRI signals from a variety of other kinds of atoms besides water.

Detecting signals from atoms besides water is exceedingly difficult without hyperpolarization because the signal size is so small, but “these signals are strong enough to see, even though the molecules are much more complex than water,” Warren said.

His group uses the “first DNP hyperpolarizer in the South”, which is installed in his laboratory.

The researchers also use Duke’s Small Molecule Synthesis Facility to create custom molecular architectures.

“You thus have a signal that, at least transiently, can be thousands or ten thousands times stronger than regular hydrogen in an MRI. It lets you turn molecules you are interested in into MRI lightbulbs,” Warren said.

The Duke group is evaluating the potentials for a number of possible signalling molecules, such as those involved in Parkinson’s disease, osteoporosis and bladder control, said Warren.

A research article on the new method has been published in the journal Science. (ANI)

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New form of destructive terrorist material unlikely

March 25, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, March 25 (ANI): Scientists have determined that it is highly unlikely that terrorists could produce a new and particularly dangerous form of the explosive responsible for airport security screening of passengers’ shoes.

Gerard Harbison, a chemist at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and his team, used computer simulations to analyze a variety of potential peroxide-based explosives in the same chemical class as triacetone triperoxide (TATP).

That powerful, easy-to-make explosive was used by the “shoe bomber,” Richard Reid, in his failed attempt to blow up a transatlantic airline flight in 2001.

Harbison’s team became intrigued by “Internet lore,” reports circulating on the Web claiming creation of another explosive – tetracetone tetraperoxide (TeATeP) – which is reputedly a more lethal relative to TATP.

Initially working on detection methods of peroxide explosives for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the group instead began to investigate the structure of TeATeP to evaluate likelihood of its use as a terrorist’s weapon.

“Our analysis indicates that potentially new and destructive terrorist materials, which would tax our detection capabilities, may be too unstable for a practical synthesis,” said Harbison.

“We consider it unlikely that any of the previous syntheses were actually successful, and the Internet myths about TeATeP are nothing more than that. So, the good news is basically this is something we don’t have to worry about,” he added.

The group investigated 20 molecular structures of various acetone peroxide compounds and found that all substances larger than TATP are likely too sensitive to be used as weapons.

“The energies we’re seeing in the analysis are extreme enough,” Harbison said, adding that a review of previous TeATeP synthesis reports raised many questions.

“If you look at the actual literature on people who claim to have made TeATeP, it’s very ambiguous. We think probably what happened when people thought they were making TeATeP was that they were actually making TATP,” he added.

According to Harbison, this synthesis error is common and often fatal. When trying to make TATP, a less stable relative, diacetone diperoxide, often is created.

“Using computational chemistry, we can narrow down the domain of potential hazards, things that aren’t going to be on the horizon,” he said.

“I think we now know so much more about not just what works for improvised-explosive-device detection but also what doesn’t work, and we don’t have to try it out experimentally,” he added. (ANI)

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Low to moderate, not heavy, drinking triggers ‘feel good’ brain chemicals

March 20, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, Mar 20 (ANI): A new study has shown that low and moderate but not high doses of alcohol trigger ‘feel good’ brain chemicals called beta-endorphins.

Beta-endorphin release produces a general feeling of well-being that reinforces the desire to drink.

Scientists know that alcohol affects the brain, but the specifics remain unclear. One possibility is that alcohol may increase or decrease the release and the synthesis of endogenous opioid peptides – endorphins, enkephalins and dynorphins – in distinct brain regions important for drug addiction.

For the first time, a rodent study has confirmed that low to moderate levels of alcohol alter beta-endorphin release in the midbrain/Ventral Tegmental Area (VTA) region, producing the pleasant effects that likely reinforce alcohol consumption.

“Some of the functions of opioid peptides are similar to those of the opiate morphine,” said Christina Gianoulakis, a professor in the departments of psychiatry and physiology at McGill University, and the study’s corresponding author.

“Like morphine, endogenous opioid peptides can induce analgesia and a mild euphoric effect, reduce anxiety, and may lead to a general feeling of well being.

“Therefore, increased release of endogenous opioid peptides in response to drinking could be partially responsible for the mild euphoric and anxiolytic effects associated with low to moderate amounts of alcoholic beverages,” Gianoulakis added.

Researchers injected male Sprague-Dawley rats with either saline or alcohol. Using an in vivo microdialysis technique, study authors tracked the response of endorphins, enkephalins, and dynorphins at the level of the midbrain, including the VTA.

“We found that low to moderate but not high doses of alcohol increase the release of beta-endorphin in the VTA, one of the brain regions shown to be important for mediating the rewarding effect of alcohol,” said Gianoulakis.

“This supports a role of beta-endorphin in mediating some of the rewarding effects of alcohol. However, the same doses of alcohol that increase beta-endorphin release in the VTA have no significant effect on the release of enkephalins and dynorphins, the other two families of endogenous opioid peptides we examined,” Gianoulakis added.

Results will be published in the June issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research and are currently available at Early View. (ANI)

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Animal families with most diversity also have largest range of body sizes

March 18, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, March 18 (ANI): A new research has found that families of animals grouped together by a similar body plan, with the greatest diversity of species, were also those with the largest range of body sizes.

The research was carried out by the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent) researchers in the US, as part of an analysis of body sizes across all orders of animal life.

Researchers Craig McClain and Alison Boyer created a giant database on body sizes across all orders of animal life and found that phyla – families of animals grouped together by a similar body plan – with the greatest diversity of species were also those with the largest range of body sizes.

The sponges, Poriferans, were found to have some of the greatest diversity of both body size and species, ranging from microscopic to the size of an automobile.

Molluscs (snails, squid, clams, chitons), and Arthropods (crabs, insects, lobsters, copepods) also showed great diversity.

So did our family, the Chordates, which ranges from a half-inch fish in the swamps of Borneo to the truly leviathan 100-ton Blue Whale, with all the fishes, birds and mammals in between.

“On the one hand, it may seem obvious that diversity in size and diversity in species go together,” acknowledged marine biologist McClain, assistant director of science at NESCent.

“But, it also says something a little more subtle about how new species arise and adapt to all the available niches in the environment. This really comes down to understanding the diversity of life on Earth,” he added.

There are apparently physical limits to the range of sizes that can work for some body plans. n worms, for example, it is impossible to slither along if the girth and weight become too large. (The largest worm, Riftia pachyptila, from deep-sea vents, doesn’t move.)

“Within the range of sizes that works for a given body plan, evolution creates new species and new sizes,” McClain said.

The finding also points to areas where more species might be waiting to be discovered.

For example, the little-studied priapulid worms have only 16 species on the books, but with a very large range in size.

McClain’s guess is that there may be more undiscovered species within that range of sizes.

“There are groups that definitely don’t have a lot of people studying them,” he said. “Knowing something about a body plan’s size constraints also might allow for a ballpark estimate of its number of species,” he added. (ANI)

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