Modeling cancer: Virginia Tech researchers prove models can predict cellular processes
Cell, math models jibe to illustrate cell transitions
2014-10-28
(Press-News.org) How does a normal cellular process derail and become unhealthy?
A multi-institutional, international team led by Virginia Tech researchers studied cells found in breast and other types of connective tissue and discovered new information about cell transitions that take place during wound healing and cancer.
The results were published in a September issue of the journal Science Signaling.
During development, cells change forms and regroup from tight packs of epithelial cells to more mobile, loose arrays of mesenchymal cells.
The cell changes, known as an epithelial to mesenchymal transition, or EMT, are normal and helpful during wound healing, but problematic when cancer cells spread from the primary tumor site to other sites in the body.
To investigate, researchers developed mathematical models to predict the dynamics of cell transitions, and compared their results with actual measurements of activity in cell populations. As a result, they gained new understanding of how a substance known as transforming growth factor triggers cell transformations.
"Understanding this process is very important to prevent and treat many developmental abnormalities and cancer metastasis," said Jianhua Xing, an associate professor of biological sciences in the College of Science and a Fralin Life Science Institute affiliate.
Researchers found that EMT in the cells "involves a number of double-negative feedback loops functioning as switches," said Zhang. "EMT takes place by sequentially turning on these switches."
Xing explained that the theoretical prediction and experimental studies together confirmed this sequential bistable switch mechanism.
"Many theoretical mathematical models existed to explain the EMT mechanisms," Subbiah said, "but, no conclusive experimental proof was available until now to support these models."
INFORMATION:
Jingyu Zhang of Shandong, China, a graduate student in biological sciences in the College of Science, also from Xing's lab, performed the cell experiments under the guidance of Xing and Elankumaran Subbiah, an associate professor of virology in the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine.
Xiao-Jun Tian, a postdoctoral researcher in Xing's lab, performed computational analyses.
Additional study researchers include Hang Zhang of Hebei, China, a graduate student in the genetics, bioinformatics, and computational biology Ph.D. program at Virginia Tech; Fan Bai, an assistant professor at Peking University; Ruoyan Li, a graduate student at Peking University; and Yue Teng, an assistant professor at Beijing Institute of Microbiology and Epidemiology.
More resources are available at Virginia Tech News.
[Attachments] See images for this press release:
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2014-10-28
Montreal, October 28, 2014 – The Montreal Heart Institute Research Centre is once again pushing the limits of knowledge in personalized medicine. A meta-analysis combining the results of several pharmacogenomic studies and involving over 40,000 research subjects now makes it possible to demonstrate a different response to statins according to the patient's gene profile. This important contribution of two Montreal researchers from the Montreal Heart Institute (MHI), Dr. Jean-Claude Tardif, Director of the Research Centre and Dr. Marie-Pierre Dubé, Director of ...
2014-10-28
Fewer women than men are treated with dialysis for end-stage kidney disease, according to a new comprehensive analysis of sex-specific differences in treatment published this week in PLOS Medicine. The results of the study, conducted by Manfred Hecking with Friedrich Port and colleagues from Arbor Research Collaborative for Health in Ann Arbor, Michigan, suggest that these findings call for further detailed study for the reasons underlying the sex-specific differences in end-stage renal disease treatment.
Chronic kidney disease often progresses to end-stage renal disease, ...
2014-10-28
SAN FRANCISCO: A simple intervention designed to raise awareness about the use of communication devices while driving reduced the incidence of distracted driving by 50 percent in hospital personnel, according to findings from a single site study presented today at the 2014 Clinical Congress of the American College of Surgeons.
Driving distracted–caused by any activity that steals a driver's attention from the road–is at an all-time high. In 2012, an estimated 421,000 people were injured in accidents involving distracted driving and 3,328 were killed as a result ...
2014-10-28
A population of endangered giant tortoises, which once dwindled to just over a dozen, has recovered on the Galapagos island of Española, a finding described as "a true story of success and hope in conservation" by the lead author of a study published today (Oct. 28).
Some 40 years after the first captive-bred tortoises were reintroduced to the island by the Galapagos National Park Service, the endemic Española giant tortoises are reproducing and restoring some of the ecological damage caused by feral goats that were brought to the island in the late 19th century. ...
2014-10-28
New Haven, CT, Oct. 28 2014 – Each year, malaria kills over 600,000 people, more than half of them children. In a study published today in PLOS ONE , researchers with the non-profit Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) and Harvard University found that simple text message reminders to take malaria medication can help in the fight against the disease by boosting the rates at which patients complete their medication regimen.
One challenge in fighting malaria is that the disease has evolved resistance to many drugs that formerly worked, according to Julia Raifman, ...
2014-10-28
This news release is available in German.
In addition to their song, songbirds also have an extensive repertoire of calls. While the species-specific song must be learned as a young bird, most calls are, as in the case of all other birds, innate. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute in Seewiesen have now discovered that in zebra finches the song control system in the brain is also active during simple communication calls. This relationship between unlearned calls and an area of the brain responsible for learned vocalisations is important for understanding the ...
2014-10-28
JUPITER, FL, October 28, 2014 – Scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have uncovered a major contributor to Huntington's disease, a devastating progressive neurological condition that produces involuntary movements, emotional disturbance and cognitive impairment.
Using an animal model of Huntington's disease, the new study shows that signaling by a specific protein can trigger onset of the disease and lead to exacerbation of symptoms. These findings, published in the October 28, 2014 issue of the journal Science Signaling, offer ...
2014-10-28
A connection between inflammation and cancer has been recognized for over a hundred years. This connection is particularly evident in colon carcinogenesis, because patients with IBD have a higher incidence of colon cancer than the general population. There is increasing evidence that inflammation contributes to the earliest stages of carcinogenesis, namely in the process of cell transformation, where the cell acquires many aspects of cancer characteristics. The observation that IBD and colon cancer incidence rise as nations industrialize suggests that changes in diet and ...
2014-10-28
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — New research by physicists from Brown University puts the profound strangeness of quantum mechanics in a nutshell — or, more accurately, in a helium bubble.
Experiments led by Humphrey Maris, professor of physics at Brown, suggest that the quantum state of an electron — the electron's wave function — can be shattered into pieces and those pieces can be trapped in tiny bubbles of liquid helium. To be clear, the researchers are not saying that the electron can be broken apart. Electrons are elementary particles, ...
2014-10-28
Politics can have unintentional evolutionary consequences that may cause hastily issued policies to cascade into global, multigenerational problems, according to political scientists.
"Most western democracies look at policies as if they are bandages, we fix what we can and then move on," said Pete Hatemi, associate professor of political science, Penn State. "But we need to consider generational policies so that we can fix what we can now, but also be prepared for what comes next."
The researchers said that there is an interaction between political and cultural forces ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] Modeling cancer: Virginia Tech researchers prove models can predict cellular processes
Cell, math models jibe to illustrate cell transitions
