Research reveals how lymph nodes expand during disease
2014-10-22
(Press-News.org) CANCER RESEARCH UK and UCL scientists have discovered that the same specialised immune cells that patrol the body and spot infections also trigger the expansion of immune organs called lymph nodes, according to a study* published in Nature today (Wednesday).
The immune system defends the body from infections and can also spot and destroy cancer cells. Lymph nodes are at the heart of this response, but until now it has never been explained how they expand during disease.
The researchers – at Cancer Research UK's London Research Institute – found that when a type of immune cell, called dendritic cells, recognises a threat they make a molecule called CLEC-2 that tells the cells lining the lymph nodes to stretch out and expand to allow for an influx of disease fighting cells.
It's long been known that these same dendritic cells patrol the body searching for threats and call for reinforcements to tackle them.
Dr Caetano Reis e Sousa, lead author at Cancer Research UK's London Research Institute, said: "This important research helps us unravel how the immune system works and its role in diseases, such as cancer. We've shown for the first time the dual role of dendritic cells in responding to disease - both recognising that there is a threat in the body but also telling the lymph nodes to stretch out. This expansion of the lymph nodes, the command centres of the immune system, gives more room for immune cells to gather and launch their attack against infections and cancer."
Dr Sophie Acton, first author and a Henry Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellow at UCL visiting Dr Reis e Sousa' lab, said: "The more we understand about how the immune system recognises and responds to disease the better we can start to harness it to attack cancer. We need to now see if this is the same mechanism that is used in the immune system's response to cancer and how we can exploit it to fight the disease."
Professor Nic Jones, Cancer Research UK's chief scientist, said: "Research like this is at the heart of Cancer Research UK's new strategy to support work that builds our understanding of the role that the immune system plays in cancer. We're at an incredibly exciting time in piecing this together and the more we learn the more we will have new avenues to exploit the immune system in new treatments."
INFORMATION:
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2014-10-22
Sequencing the genomes of tumor cells has revealed thousands of genetic mutations linked with cancer. However, sifting through this deluge of information to figure out which of these mutations actually drive cancer growth has proven to be a tedious, time-consuming process.
MIT researchers have now developed a new way to model the effects of these genetic mutations in mice. Their approach, based on the genome-editing technique known as CRISPR, is much faster than existing strategies, which require genetically engineering mice that carry the cancerous mutations.
"It's ...
2014-10-22
Thermal paper, sometimes used in cash register receipts, may be a potential source of exposure to the hormone disruptor bisphenol-A (BPA), according to a study published October 22, 2014 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Annette Hormann from University of Missouri and colleagues.
Results showed that when men and women handled a thermal receipt after using a hand sanitizer, there was a very large amount of BPA transferred from the receipt to the hand, resulting in a rapid increase in blood levels of BPA.
Bisphenol A (BPA) is used in a wide variety of products, and ...
2014-10-22
COLUMBIA, Mo. – Bisphenol A (BPA) is a chemical that is used in a variety of consumer products, such as water bottles, dental composites and resins used to line metal food and beverage containers, and also is used in thermal paper cash register receipts. Now, research conducted at the University of Missouri is providing the first data that BPA from thermal paper used in cash register receipts accounts for high levels of BPA in humans. Subjects studied showed a rapid increase of BPA in their blood after using a skin care product and then touching a store receipt with ...
2014-10-22
A report by Chinese researchers in the journal Nature a few months ago was a small sensation: they appeared to have found the cause for why organisms age. An international team of scientists, headed by the University of Bonn, has now refuted a basic assumption of the Nature article. The reasons for aging thus remain elusive.
The Chinese article caused a stir amongst experts worldwide. Using a simple measurement in young nematode worms, the researchers reported they had been able to predict how long they would live .
The researchers had introduced a fluorescent probe ...
2014-10-22
Unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, can collect detailed information in real time at relatively low cost for ecological research. In a new Opinion piece published in the Cell Press journal Trends in Parasitology, experts demonstrate that drones can be used to understand how environmental factors influence the spread of infectious diseases.
"Drones can provide highly accurate information on changes to land, such as deforestation or changing types of agriculture. This helps to understand the impact on the movement and distribution of people, animals, and insects that carry ...
2014-10-22
Complex biochemical signals that coordinate fast and slow changes in neuronal networks keep the brain in balance during learning, according to an international team of scientists from the RIKEN Brain Science Institute in Japan, UC San Francisco (UCSF), and Columbia University in New York.
The work, reported on October 22 in the journal Neuron, culminates a six-year quest by a collaborative team from the three institutions to solve a decades-old question and opens the door to a more general understanding of how the brain learns and consolidates new experiences on dramatically ...
2014-10-22
It was fortunate for the middle-aged woman that she presented her symptoms at the European Institute of Oncology (IEO), where doctors had seen another strange case just two years before.
The 59-year-old woman had complained of chest pain and shortness of breath. A biopsy revealed that she had an unusual type of "heart cancer" called cardiac lymphoma.
But a week after receiving treatment, the patient developed a headache and her motor skills began to deteriorate.
Strangely, in 2011, a similar case had presented at the IEO.
In that instance, the patient's cardiac ...
2014-10-22
What does it mean to simulate the human brain? Why is it important to do so? And is it even possible to simulate the brain separately from the body it exists in? These questions are discussed in a new paper published in the scientific journal Neuron today.
Simulating the brain means modeling it on a computer. But in real life, brains don't exist in isolation. The brain is a complex and adaptive system that is seated within our bodies and entangled with all the other adaptive systems inside us that together make up a whole person. And the fact that the brain is a brain ...
2014-10-22
Scientists have described a way to convert human skin cells directly into a specific type of brain cell affected by Huntington's disease, an ultimately fatal neurodegenerative disorder. Unlike other techniques that turn one cell type into another, this new process does not pass through a stem cell phase, avoiding the production of multiple cell types, the study's authors report.
The researchers, at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, demonstrated that these converted cells survived at least six months after injection into the brains of mice and behaved ...
2014-10-22
UCLA researchers have shown for the first time that the quality of diagnostic staging using biopsy in patients with bladder cancer is directly linked with survival, meaning those that don't get optimal biopsies are more likely to die from their disease.
The two-year study found that about half of bladder cancer patients who were biopsied had insufficient material – meaning there was no bladder wall muscle retrieved – to accurately stage the cancer. Additionally, the UCLA research team found that a suboptimal biopsy and incorrect tumor staging was associated ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] Research reveals how lymph nodes expand during disease
