(Press-News.org) MicroRNA can serve as a "decoder ring" for understanding complex biological processes, a team of New York University chemists has found. Their study, which appears in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, points to a new method for decrypting the biological functions of enzymes and identifying those that drive diseases.
The research focuses on a particular class of enzymes that biosynthesize carbohydrates (i.e. glycans)--complex biological molecules controlling multiple aspects of cell biology--as well as on their attendant microRNA (miRNA), which are regulatory molecules that spur changes in a cell by inhibiting protein expression.
"Carbohydrates present a challenge for analysis because their complexity and 'noise' that accompanies their biosynthesis make it difficult to isolate how they are involved in cellular change," explains Lara Mahal, an associate professor in NYU's Department of Chemistry and the study's senior author. "Our results show that rather than trying to trace the intricacies of this molecule's activity, we can simply track miRNA."
Specifically, she adds, miRNA can illuminate which glycogenes, or genes encoding glycosylation enzymes, are vital in a biological pathway.
Previous research by Mahal and her colleagues found that miRNA molecules--used to regulate gene expression--serve as major regulators of the cell's surface-level carbohydrates. The discovery showed, for the first time, that miRNA play a significant regulatory role in this part of the cell, also known as the glycome.
In the new study, her research team focused on determining whether miRNA could be used as a "decoder ring" to reveal the role of specific glycans in biology. They focused on miR-200, an miRNA family controlling the movement of cells in processes such as wound healing and tumor-cell metastasis, to determine if it could predict the biological function of a trio of glycans that are notoriously hard to monitor.
Their research found that disruption of these three glycans had the same effect as miR-200. For example, both miR-200 and cells in which any of these three glycans were disrupted lost their ability to move, a critical function in healing wounds and in cancer metastasis.
MiRNA are far easier to analyze than glycosylation and are a useful tool to shed light on the role of glycosylation in human diseases and afflictions. This is especially important as carbohydrates play important roles in every disease, which we have yet to understand, Mahal notes.
"Cleft palates, coronary artery disease, and other conditions involve biological pathways that we largely don't understand," she explains. "MiRNA, our findings suggest, may offer a way to cut through the clutter to better see, and comprehend, how these afflictions are manifested."
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The study's other authors included Tomasz Kurcon, Zhongyin Liu, Christopher Vaiana, doctoral candidates in NYU's Department of Chemistry, as well as Anika Paradkar, an NYU undergraduate, and Sujeethraj Koppolu and Praveen Agrawal, both NYU post-doctoral fellows.
The study was supported, in part, by a grant from the U.S. Department of Defense (CA110602).
MADISON - A century spent treating wildfires as emergencies to be stamped out may have cost Central Wisconsin a natural setting that was common and thriving before the state was settled.
Pine barrens once stretched like a scarf around the state's neck, from the northeast down across Central Wisconsin and up again northwest to Lake Superior. As recently as the 1950s, University of Wisconsin-Madison surveys conducted by botany Professor John Curtis and graduate student James Habeck described the sandy, open spaces dotted with pin oak and jack pine and dashed with the lavender ...
MADISON - Portable electronics - typically made of non-renewable, non-biodegradable and potentially toxic materials - are discarded at an alarming rate in consumers' pursuit of the next best electronic gadget.
In an effort to alleviate the environmental burden of electronic devices, a team of University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers has collaborated with researchers in the Madison-based U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Products Laboratory (FPL) to develop a surprising solution: a semiconductor chip made almost entirely of wood.
The research team, led by UW-Madison ...
Boulder, Colo., USA - Lithosphere articles posted 13 and 21 May cover several fascinating locations and geodynamic processes. One study investigates the kinematic evolution of the Himalayan orogen at a site in Nepal. Another paper addresses the "unroofing" of the Klamath Mountains in northern California/southern Oregon, USA. In the East African Rift area, researchers are examining how vegetation mediates slope erosion. Another group focusses on the largest salt lake of the Mediterranean region, Lake Tuz, Turkey.
All recently posted Lithosphere articles are listed below.
Abstracts ...
Stem cell transplant is essential in the care of many blood cancers, but leaves patients requiring in-home care for months after. Frequently the role of caregiver falls to family or other committed members of the patient's support network. Previous work shows dramatically increased stress in cancer caregivers, directly impacting the caregiver and indirectly impacting the cancer patient via reduced quality of care. A randomized control trial funded by the National Cancer Institute by members of the University of Colorado Cancer Center, published in the journal Bone Marrow ...
New York, NY - NYU Langone Medical Center and its Laura and Isaac Perlmutter Cancer Center will have a high profile at the 51st Annual Meeting of the American Society for Clinical Oncology (ASCO), with researchers presenting close to 30 abstracts accepted for oral, poster and publication presentations.
Leading the way are eight oral abstract and poster presentations on melanoma for which an NYU Langone researcher is either a senior, lead or contributing author. While many of these studies are multi-institutional, five poster presentations are led by the Perlmutter ...
Despite early promise of benefits, soy doesn't help lung function
Lifestyle and diet may also affect asthma control
Study highlights importance of placebo-controlled studies
CHICAGO --- Despite previous findings suggesting a link between soy intake and decreased asthma severity, a new study from Northwestern Medicine and the American Lung Association Asthma Clinical Research Network shows soy supplements do not improve lung function for patients with asthma.
The paper, published May 26 in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), highlights the ...
While most surviving spouses had more depression symptoms following the death of their partner regardless of hospice use, researchers found a modest reduction in depressive symptoms among some surviving spouses of hospice users compared with nonhospice users, according to an article published online by JAMA Internal Medicine.
The Institute of Medicine's report on improving the quality of care near the end of life highlights the need for supporting family caregivers. Core components of high-quality hospice care include counseling services for family members before and ...
Delayed clamping of the umbilical cord to help prevent iron deficiency in infancy was associated with improved scores in fine-motor and social skills in children at age 4, particularly in boys, although it was not associated with any effect on overall IQ or behavior compared with children whose cords were clamped seconds after delivery, according to an article published online by JAMA Pediatrics.
Iron deficiency is a global health issue among preschool children associated with impaired neurodevelopment that can affect cognitive, motor and behavioral abilities. Delaying ...
In an analysis that included more than 70,000 participants from 13 studies, subclinical hyperthyroidism was associated with an increased risk for hip and other fractures including spine, according to a study in the May 26 issue of JAMA. Subclinical hyperthyroidism is a low serum thyroid-stimulating hormone concentration in a person without clinical symptoms and normal thyroid hormone concentrations on blood tests.
Overt hyperthyroidism is an established risk factor for osteoporosis and fractures. Associations between subclinical thyroid dysfunction and fractures are unclear ...
Although some data have suggested that supplementation with soy isoflavone may be an effective treatment for patients with poor asthma control, a randomized trial that included nearly 400 children and adults found that use of the supplement did not result in improved lung function or clinical outcomes, including asthma symptoms and episodes of poor asthma control, according to a study in the May 26 issue of JAMA. Soy isoflavones are plant (soybean) derived chemicals that have anti-oxidant effects.
Increases in asthma prevalence and severity over the last several decades ...
