(Press-News.org) Researchers have identified how thyroxine, a human thyroid hormone, can positively influence the life-critical calcification in soft corals, and have developed a unique technique for injecting molecules into coral tissues.
“We understand a lot about hormones in vertebrates, but much less about hormones in invertebrate animals such as corals,” says Clémence Forin, a PhD student at the Scientific Centre of Monaco. “We wanted to learn more about how they process hormones to find out how they are involved into the calcification process.”
A major barrier to researching the role and regulation of hormones in corals has been the lack of established techniques. To address this, Ms Forin and her team set out to develop a novel injection method that would allow them to insert hormones into the corals and monitor how they affected the calcification process.
“The major benefits of this injection method are that we can accurately inject the same concentration of hormones each time, and that we can trace where it is going inside the organism,” says Ms Forin. “We needed to make sure that all the hormones made it to the cells of interest and that soluble hormones wouldn’t be lost in the surrounding seawater.”
After screening many different widely available human hormones for pro-calcification effects, they identified a prime candidate in thyroxine. In humans and other vertebrates, thyroxine contributes to a variety of important functions such as growth and metabolism and has been associated with calcium transport.
“We found that thyroxine had a positive effect on the coral’s calcification process,” says Ms Forin. Using an ELISA (Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay), they were able to detect and quantify the hormone’s processing and activity within the coral.
This finding raises interesting questions about the evolution of animal physiology. “If the coral is able to process and use the thyroxine, then it means that specific metabolic pathways have been conserved,” says Ms Forin. “The big question now is how these corals utilise thyroxine in their natural habitat.”
This research is being presented at the Society for Experimental Biology Annual Conference in Antwerp, Belgium on the 9th July 2025.
END
Coral calcification benefits from human hormone injections
2025-07-09
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
New “bone-digesting” cell type discovered in pythons
2025-07-09
Research into the intestinal cells of Burmese pythons has revealed the existence of a previously unknown cell type, responsible for completely absorbing the skeletons of their prey.
Most carnivores eat only the flesh of their prey and avoid eating the bones or pass them undigested, but many snakes and reptiles often consume their prey whole, including the bones. The cellular mechanisms that enable them to do this have remained mysterious until now.
Snakes that are fed on boneless prey suffer from calcium deficiencies, and so bones are a required part of their diet. However, absorbing all the available calcium from a skeleton could ...
New study points to Skagerrak as nursery area for the enigmatic Greenland shark
2025-07-09
New study points to Skagerrak as nursery area for the enigmatic Greenland shark
The Greenland shark – the world's longest-living vertebrate – is most often associated with cold Arctic waters. However, a new international study led by researchers from the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources and the University of Copenhagen shows that Skagerrak probably serves as a nursery area for young Greenland sharks. The study also points out that Greenland sharks are not born in Greenland or anywhere else in the ...
Are sewage spills and coastal winds contributing to airborne microplastics?
2025-07-09
A combination of sewage overflows and coastal winds could be sending billions of airborne microplastic particles into the world’s coastal towns and cities, a new study suggests.
Scientists analysed existing records on two years of combined sewer overflows into Plymouth Sound, alongside same-day and long-term meteorological and satellite data to assess how often conditions for aerosolisation (the transfer of particles from water to air) occurred.
They found that on 178 days within the two-year period, ...
Which factors affect the success of popular prescription weight loss drugs in individuals?
2025-07-09
A study in Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism has identified certain characteristics that might influence people’s weight loss after taking prescription drugs called glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1RAs), such as semaglutide (sold under the brand names Ozempic and Wegovy).
After analyzing data on 679 patients with overweight or obesity who initiated GLP-1RAs between November 2022 and October 2024, investigators found that longer duration of GLP-1RA treatment, using semaglutide, not having diabetes, and having a higher percentage of body fat were associated with better weight reduction over ...
Do renter protection policies reduce rental housing discrimination?
2025-07-09
Research in Contemporary Economic Policy indicates that well-intentioned renter protection policies may actually increase discrimination against certain minority races and ethnicities.
The research applies to a policy implemented in Minneapolis that limits the use of background checks, eviction history, and credit scores on rental housing applications. Investigators submitted fictitious email inquiries to publicly advertised rentals using names manipulated on perceived race and ethnicity before and after this policy was implemented.
After ...
Does grading students at earlier ages increase the risk of mental disorders in adolescents?
2025-07-09
Research in Health Economics indicates that introducing school grades—with A as the highest grade and F as a failing grade—at younger ages may negatively affect children’s mental health.
In Sweden, students traditionally received individual grades beginning in eighth grade (around 14 years of age), but in the fall of 2012, a reform shifted the introduction of grades to sixth grade (around age 12).
By comparing sociodemographic and clinical data on 524,093 children in Sweden in grades 5 through 9 before and after the ...
New artificial intelligence–based test detects early signs of osteoporosis from X-ray images
2025-07-09
Investigators have developed an artificial intelligence-assisted diagnostic system that can estimate bone mineral density in both the lumbar spine and the femur of the upper leg, based on X-ray images. The advance is described in a study published in the Journal of Orthopaedic Research.
A total of 1,454 X-ray images were analyzed using the scientists’ system. Performance rates for the lumbar and femur of patients with bone density loss, or osteopenia, were 86.4% and 84.1%, respectively, in terms of sensitivity. The respective specificities were 80.4% and 76.3%. (Sensitivity reflected the ability of the test to correctly identify people with ...
Can eating a healthy plant-based diet help protect against inflammatory bowel disease?
2025-07-09
A large prospective study published in Molecular Nutrition and Food Research reveals that a healthy plant-based diet is linked with a reduced risk of inflammatory bowel disease.
For the study, 143,434 individuals in the UK reported on their dietary intake. During an average follow-up of 14.5 years, 1,117 participants developed inflammatory bowel disease—795 cases of ulcerative colitis and 322 cases of Crohn’s disease.
A healthy plant-based diet was associated with an 8% lower risk of ulcerative colitis, and a 14% lower risk of Crohn’s disease. An unhealthy plant-based diet was associated with a 15% higher risk of Crohn’s ...
Do local voting rights affect migrants’ participation in protests?
2025-07-09
In research published in Social Science Quarterly, the study’s investigator expected that migrants living in cities where local voting rights are extended to non-citizens would be more likely to engage in protests compared with those in restrictive contexts. However, the findings revealed the opposite: migrant protests seem to flourish not where rights are granted, but where they are denied.
In an assessment of migrant participation in protests across 4 major European cities with substantial migrant populations (Vienna, Brussels, Berlin, and Amsterdam), the results showed that perceived discrimination increased protest likelihood.
Protests were also more common in cities with favorable ...
Mysterious ‘Dark Dwarfs’ may be hiding at the heart of the Milky Way
2025-07-09
A new kind of cosmic object could help solve one of the universe’s greatest mysteries: dark matter.
Particle Astrophysicists have proposed the existence of a strange new type of star-like object, called a ‘dark dwarf’, which may be quietly glowing in the centre of our galaxy.
Far from being dark in appearance, these unusual objects are powered by dark matter (the invisible substance thought to make up about a quarter of the universe).
The discovery comes from a UK-US research team and the full research findings has been published in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics (JCAP).
Using theoretical models, ...