PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Vanderbilt scientists discover that chemical element bromine is essential to human life

2014-06-05
(Press-News.org) Twenty-seven chemical elements are considered to be essential for human life. Now there is a 28th – bromine. In a paper published Thursday by the journal Cell, Vanderbilt University researchers establish for the first time that bromine, among the 92 naturally-occurring chemical elements in the universe, is the 28th element essential for tissue development in all animals, from primitive sea creatures to humans. "Without bromine, there are no animals. That's the discovery," said Billy Hudson, Ph.D., the paper's senior author and Elliott V. Newman Professor of Medicine. The researchers, led by co-first authors Scott McCall, Christopher Cummings, Ph.D., and Gautam (Jay) Bhave, M.D., Ph.D., showed that fruit flies died when bromine was removed from their diet but survived when bromine was restored. This finding has important implications for human disease. "Multiple patient groups … have been shown to be bromine deficient," said McCall, an M.D./Ph.D. student. Bromine supplementation may improve the health of patients on dialysis or total parenteral nutrition (TPN), for example. The report is the latest in a series of landmark papers by the Vanderbilt group that have helped define how collagen IV scaffolds undergird the basement membrane of all tissues, including the kidney's filtering units. Hudson said the foundation for the discovery about bromine goes back 30 years when he was at the University of Kansas Medical School. Curiosity about two rare kidney diseases led, in the mid-1980s, to the discovery of two previously unknown proteins that twist around each other to form the triple-helical collagen IV molecule, like cables supporting a bridge. Disease results when these cables are defective or damaged. Hudson moved to Vanderbilt in 2002. In 2009, colleagues led by Roberto Vanacore, Ph.D., assistant professor of Medicine, reported in Science magazine the discovery of a novel sulfilimine bond between a sulfur atom and a nitrogen atom that acts like a "fastener" to connect the collagen IV molecules forming scaffolds for cells. A defective bond may trigger the rare auto-immune disease Goodpasture's syndrome. The disorder is named for the late Vanderbilt pathologist and former medical school dean Ernest Goodpasture, M.D., who was best known for his contribution to the development of vaccines. That discovery led to simple question: how is the bond formed? In 2012, Bhave, assistant professor of Medicine, Cummings, now a postdoctoral fellow, and Vanacore led the effort that found the answer -- the enzyme peroxidasin. Conserved across the animal kingdom, peroxidasin also may play a role in disease. An overactive enzyme may lead to excessive deposition of collagen IV and thickening of the basement membrane, which can impair kidney function, they reported in the journal Nature Chemical Biology. In the current study, to which Vanacore and Andrea Page-McCaw, Ph.D., associate professor of Cell and Developmental Biology, also contributed, the scientists demonstrated the unique and essential role for ionic bromide as a "co-factor," enabling peroxidasin to form the sulfilimine bond. The chemical element bromine is thus "essential for animal development and tissue architecture," they report. INFORMATION: The study was supported in part by National Institutes of Health grants DK018381, DK100094, GM007347, DK097306 and GM073883.


ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Flowers' polarization patterns help bees find food

2014-06-05
Like many other insect pollinators, bees find their way around by using a polarization sensitive area in their eyes to 'see' skylight polarization patterns. However, while other insects are known to use such sensitivity to identify appropriate habitats, locate suitable sites to lay their eggs and find food, a non-navigation function for polarization vision has never been identified in bees – until now. Professor Julian Partridge, from Bristol's School of Biological Sciences and the School of Animal Biology at the University of Western Australia, with his Bristol-based ...

Stem cells hold keys to body's plan

2014-06-05
Case Western Reserve researchers have discovered landmarks within pluripotent stem cells that guide how they develop to serve different purposes within the body. This breakthrough offers promise that scientists eventually will be able to direct stem cells in ways that prevent disease or repair damage from injury or illness. The study and its results appear in the June 5 edition of the journal Cell Stem Cell. Pluripotent stem cells are so named because they can evolve into any of the cell types that exist within the body. Their immense potential captured the attention ...

Couples sleep in sync when the wife is satisfied with their marriage

2014-06-05
DARIEN, IL – A new study suggests that couples are more likely to sleep in sync when the wife is more satisfied with their marriage. Results show that overall synchrony in sleep-wake schedules among couples was high, as those who slept in the same bed were awake or asleep at the same time about 75 percent of the time. When the wife reported higher marital satisfaction, the percent of time the couple was awake or asleep at the same time was greater. "Most of what is known about sleep comes from studying it at the individual level; however, for most adults, sleep is a ...

The connection between oxygen and diabetes

2014-06-05
Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have, for the first time, described the sequence of early cellular responses to a high-fat diet, one that can result in obesity-induced insulin resistance and diabetes. The findings, published in the June 5 issue of Cell, also suggest potential molecular targets for preventing or reversing the process. "We've described the etiology of obesity-related diabetes. We've pinpointed the steps, the way the whole thing happens," said Jerrold M. Olefsky, MD, associate dean for Scientific Affairs and Distinguished ...

Investors' risk tolerance decreases with the stock market, MU study finds

2014-06-05
COLUMBIA, Mo — As the U.S. economy slowly recovers many investors remain wary about investing in the stock market. Now, Michael Guillemette, an assistant professor of personal financial planning in the University of Missouri College of Human Environmental Sciences, analyzed investors' "risk tolerance," or willingness to take risks, and found that it decreased as the stock market faltered. Guillemette says this is a very counterproductive behavior for investors who want to maximize their investment returns. "At its face, it seems fairly obvious that investors would be ...

What a 66-million-year-old forest fire reveals about the last days of the dinosaurs

What a 66-million-year-old forest fire reveals about the last days of the dinosaurs
2014-06-05
This news release is available in French. As far back as the time of the dinosaurs, 66 million years ago, forests recovered from fires in the same manner they do today, according to a team of researchers from McGill University and the Royal Saskatchewan Museum. During an expedition in southern Saskatchewan, Canada, the team discovered the first fossil-record evidence of forest fire ecology - the regrowth of plants after a fire - revealing a snapshot of the ecology on earth just before the mass extinction of the dinosaurs. The researchers also found evidence that ...

University of Toronto biologists pave the way for improved epilepsy treatments

2014-06-05
TORONTO, ON – University of Toronto biologists leading an investigation into the cells that regulate proper brain function, have identified and located the key players whose actions contribute to afflictions such as epilepsy and schizophrenia. The discovery is a major step toward developing improved treatments for these and other neurological disorders. "Neurons in the brain communicate with other neurons through synapses, communication that can either excite or inhibit other neurons," said Professor Melanie Woodin in the Department of Cell and Systems Biology at the ...

Use of gestures reflects language instinct in young children

2014-06-05
Young children instinctively use a "language-like" structure to communicate through gestures, according to research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The research, led by the University of Warwick, shows that when young children are asked to use gestures to communicate, their gestures segment information and reorganize it into language-like sequences. This finding suggests that children are not just learning language from older generations — their own preferences in communication may have shaped how languages ...

Overcoming barriers to successful use of autonomous unmanned aircraft

2014-06-05
WASHINGTON -- While civil aviation is on the threshold of potentially revolutionary changes with the emergence of increasingly autonomous unmanned aircraft, these new systems pose serious questions about how they will be safely and efficiently integrated into the existing civil aviation structure, says a new report from the National Research Council. The report identifies key barriers and provides a research agenda to aid the orderly incorporation of unmanned and autonomous aircraft into public airspace. "There is little doubt that over the long run the potential benefits ...

Scripps Florida scientists unravel the molecular secret of short, intense workouts

Scripps Florida scientists unravel the molecular secret of short, intense workouts
2014-06-05
JUPITER, FL, June 5, 2014 – In the last few years, the benefits of short, intense workouts have been extolled by both researchers and exercise fans as something of a metabolic panacea capable of providing greater overall fitness, better blood sugar control and weight reduction—all of it in periods as short as seven minutes a few times a week. Now, in a new study, scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) confirm that there is something molecularly unique about intense exercise: the activation of a single protein. The study, published ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Scientists trace origins of now extinct plant population from volcanically active Nishinoshima

AI algorithm based on routine mammogram + age can predict women’s major cardiovascular disease risk

New hurdle seen to prostate screening: primary-care docs

MSU researchers explore how virtual sports aid mental health

Working together, cells extend their senses

Cheese fungi help unlock secrets of evolution

Researchers find brain region that fuels compulsive drinking

Mental health effects of exposure to firearm violence persist long after direct exposure

Research identifies immune response that controls Oropouche infection and prevents neurological damage

University of Cincinnati, Kent State University awarded $3M by NSF to share research resources

Ancient DNA reveals deeply complex Mastodon family and repeated migrations driven by climate change

Measuring the quantum W state

Researchers find a way to use antibodies to direct T cells to kill Cytomegalovirus-infected cells

Engineers create mini microscope for real-time brain imaging

Funding for training and research in biological complexity

The Journal of Nuclear Medicine Ahead-of-Print Tip Sheet: September 12, 2025

ISSCR statement on the scientific and therapeutic value of human fetal tissue research

Novel PET tracer detects synaptic changes in spinal cord and brain after spinal cord injury

Wiley advances Knowitall Solutions with new trendfinder application for user-friendly chemometric analysis and additional enhancements to analytical workflows

Benchmark study tracks trends in dog behavior

OpenAI, DeepSeek, and Google vary widely in identifying hate speech

Research spotlight: Study identifies a surprising new treatment target for chronic limb threatening ischemia

Childhood loneliness and cognitive decline and dementia risk in middle-aged and older adults

Parental diseases of despair and suicidal events in their children

Acupuncture for chronic low back pain in older adults

Acupuncture treatment improves disabling effects of chronic low back pain in older adults

How interstellar objects similar to 3I/ATLAS could jump-start planet formation around infant stars

Rented e-bicycles more dangerous than e-scooters in cities

Ditches as waterways: Managing ‘ditch-scapes’ to strengthen communities and the environment

In-situ molecular passivation enables pure-blue perovskite LEDs via vacuum thermal evaporation

[Press-News.org] Vanderbilt scientists discover that chemical element bromine is essential to human life