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

Mutations can spur dangerous identity crisis in cells

U-M research marks step toward treatments for aging- and disease-related destabilization of gene expression

2011-07-02
(Press-News.org) As our bodies first form, developing cells are a lot like children put on the school bus with their names and addresses pinned to their shirts.

The notes identify one as a future heart cell, another as a liver cell, a third as a neuron. And that's what they each grow up to be.

But once those cells reach adulthood, changes to those original marching orders caused by aging, disease and other stressors like smoking can precipitate a kind of identity crisis, researchers at the University of Michigan Health System have found.

The cells start to forget things like which genes are supposed to be turned on and which turned off. This can lead to significant changes in their ability to function.

While microscopic, these changes can still have profound impacts on living beings. When this type of mutation was purposefully introduced into the heart muscle cells of mice, the normal functioning of the heart's electrical systems were disturbed, at times leading to dangerous arrhythmia, a new U-M study shows.

The results, published in the July issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, bring us one step closer to developing treatments for issues associated with aging or chronic diseases in which cells lose their ability to maintain a stable pattern of gene expression, says senior study author Gregory R. Dressler, Ph.D., collegiate professor of pathology research at the U-M Medical School.

"We're excited about this research because it suggests that these mutations can be the cause of disease as well as the result," says lead author Adam B. Stein, M.D., an assistant professor of cardiology at U-M.

Stein, Dressler and their colleagues are working in a relatively new area of research known as "epigenetics." It's well known that human beings pass a life code, bound up in the double helix of our DNA, from one generation to the next. What's less well understood is that they also transmit sets of instructions – written in proteins and enzymes – that tell each cell of the body which genes should be expressed, that is, which should be turned on and which turned off, Dressler says. (Epigenetic means, basically, a trait that is inherited but not encoded directly in the DNA.)

Early on, when all the cells in an embryo are an undifferentiated mass of stem cells, these instructions lay out the master plan. Like children groomed for the Olympic greatness, their destinies are spelled out for them: nerve, muscle, bone.

"What scientists didn't know was whether those instructions, once in place, must be maintained after a cell reaches maturity," Dressler explains. "We wanted to find out what happens when you remove some of the imprinting machinery that tells the heart cell that it's a heart cell."

The researchers found that those instructions matter quite a bit.

"What we found was that it's important for the body to keep telling the heart cell, 'You're a heart cell, you're a heart cell,' " says Dressler, who notes the research was the first time this mechanism has been studied in a living mammal. "When you knock out a piece of those instructions, the heart cell starts to forget who it is. These changes start off small, but over time they can have big effects on the organism."

Moreover, although they can be caused by environmental factors, negative changes like those that led to arrhythmia in the mice could potentially be passed down through the generations.

"The idea that cell state is a stable phenomenon is what's being challenged here," says Dressler. "We believe these findings could eventually lead to drug treatments to fight this type of cell destabilization."

###

Additional authors: Thomas A. Jones; Todd J. Herron, Ph.D.; Sanjeevkumar R. Patel, M.D.; Sharlene M. Day, M.D.; Sami F. Noujaim, Ph.D.; Michelle Milstein, Ph.D.; Matthew Klos, Ph.D.; Philip B. Furspan; José Jalife, M.D.; all of U-M.

Funding: The research was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the Leducq Foundation and the American Heart Association.

Disclosures: None.

Citation: "Loss of H3K4 methylation destabilizes gene expression patterns and physiological functions in adult murine cardiomyocytes," Journal of Clinical Investigation, July 2011.

END



ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Treatment approach to human Usher syndrome: Small molecules ignore stop signals

2011-07-02
Usher syndrome is the most common form of combined congenital deaf-blindness in humans and affects 1 in 6,000 of the population. It is a recessive inherited disease that is both clinically and genetically heterogeneous. In the most severe cases, patients are born deaf and begin to suffer from a degeneration of the retina in puberty, ultimately resulting in complete blindness. These patients experience major problems in their day-to-day life. While hearing loss can be compensated for with hearing aids and cochlea implants, it has not proven possible to develop a treatment ...

Global plant database set to promote biodiversity research and Earth-system sciences

Global plant database set to promote biodiversity research and Earth-system sciences
2011-07-02
The world's largest database on plants' functional properties, or traits, has been pub-lished. Scientists compiled three million traits for 69,000 out of the world's ~300,000 plant species. The achievement rests on a worldwide collaboration of scientists from 106 re-search institutions. The initiative, known as TRY, is hosted at the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena (Germany). Jointly coordinated with the University of Leipzig (Germany), IMBIV-CONICET (Argentina), Macquarie University (Australia), CNRS and University of Paris-Sud (France), TRY promises to ...

Evolution of sport performances follows a physiological law

2011-07-02
Geoffroy Berthelot and Stephane Len, both researchers at the IRMES (Institut de Recherche bioMédicale et d'Epidemiologie du Sport at INSEP, Paris, France), have published their findings in Age, the official journal of the American Aging Association, describing the evolution of performances in elite athletes and chess grandmasters. This article is congruous with the epidemiological approaches developed by the laboratory, and suggests that changes in individual performance are linked to physiological laws structuring the living world. Physiological parameters that characterize ...

New study documents first cookiecutter shark attack on a live human

2011-07-02
GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- A new study co-authored by University of Florida researchers provides details on the first cookiecutter shark attack on a live human, a concern as warm summer waters attract more people to the ocean. The study currently online and appearing in the July print edition of Pacific Science warns that swimmers entering the cookiecutter's range of open ocean tropical waters may be considered prey. The sharks feed near the surface at night, meaning daytime swimmers are less likely to encounter them. The species is small, with adults reaching about 2 feet, ...

Self-referral: A significant factor in imaging growth

2011-07-02
A recent study in the Journal of the American College of Radiology suggests that self-referral in medical imaging may be a significant contributing factor in diagnostic imaging growth. Self-referred imaging is identified as physicians (or non-physicians) who are not radiologists directing their patients to their own on-site imaging services or the referral of patients to outside facilities in which the referring physicians have financial interest. In the current political and economic climate, there is a desire to reduce health care costs; diagnostic imaging expenditure ...

Big hole filled in cloud research

2011-07-02
Under certain conditions, private and commercial propeller planes and jet aircraft may induce odd-shaped holes or canals into clouds as they fly through them. These holes and canals have long fascinated the public and now new research shows they may affect precipitation in and around airports with frequent cloud cover in the wintertime. Here is how: Planes may produce ice particles by freezing cloud droplets that cool as they flow around the tips of propellers, over wings or over jet aircraft, and thereby unintentionally seed clouds. These seeding ice particles attract ...

E. coli can survive in streambed sediments for months

2011-07-02
Studies by U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists have confirmed that the presence of Escherichia coli pathogens in surface waters could result from the pathogen's ability to survive for months in underwater sediments. Most E. coli strains don't cause illness, but they are indicator organisms used by water quality managers to estimate fecal contamination. These findings, which can help pinpoint potential sources of water contamination, support the USDA priorities of promoting sustainable agriculture and food safety. Soil scientist Yakov Pachepsky works ...

Copper reduces infection risk by more than 40 percent

Copper reduces infection risk by more than 40 percent
2011-07-02
Professor Bill Keevil, Head of the Microbiology Group and Director of the Environmental Healthcare Unit at the University of Southampton, has presented research into the mechanism by which copper exerts its antimicrobial effect on antibiotic-resistant organisms at the World Health Organization's first International Conference on Prevention and Infection Control (ICPIC). 'New Insights into the Antimicrobial Mechanisms of Copper Touch Surfaces' observes the survival of pathogens on conventional hospital touch surfaces contributes to increasing incidence and spread of antibiotic ...

Environs prompt advantageous gene mutations as plants grow; changes passed to progeny

2011-07-02
If a person were to climb a towering redwood and take a sample from the top and bottom of the tree, a comparison would show that the DNA are different. Christopher A. Cullis, chair of biology at Case Western Reserve University, explains that this is the basis of his controversial research findings. Cullis, who has spent over 40 years studying mutations within plants, most recently flax (Linum usitatissimum), has found that the environment not only weeds out harmful and useless mutations through natural selection, but actually influences helpful mutations. Cullis published ...

New technique advances bioprinting of cells

2011-07-02
College Park, Md. (July 1, 2011) -- Ever since an ordinary office inkjet printer had its ink cartridges swapped out for a cargo of cells about 10 years ago and sprayed out cell-packed droplets to create living tissue, scientists and engineers have never looked at office equipment in quite the same way. They dream of using a specialized bio-inkjet printer to grow new body parts for organ transplants or tissues for making regenerative medicine repairs to ailing bodies. Both these new therapies begin with a carefully printed mass of embryonic stem cells. And now there's progress ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Underserved youth less likely to visit emergency department for concussion in Ontario, study finds

‘Molecular shield’ placed in the nose may soon treat common hay fever trigger

Beetles under climate stress lay larger male eggs: Wolbachia infection drives adaptive reproduction strategy in response to rising temperature and CO₂

Groundbreaking quantum study puts wave-particle duality to work

Weekly injection could be life changing for Parkinson’s patients

Toxic metals linked to impaired growth in infants in Guatemala

Being consistently physically active in adulthood linked to 30–40% lower risk of death

Nerve pain drug gabapentin linked to increased dementia, cognitive impairment risks

Children’s social care involvement common to nearly third of UK mums who died during perinatal period

‘Support, not judgement’: Study explores links between children’s social care involvement and maternal deaths

Ethnic minority and poorer children more likely to die in intensive care

Major progress in fertility preservation after treatment for cancer of the lymphatic system

Fewer complications after additional ultrasound in pregnant women who feel less fetal movement

Environmental impact of common pesticides seriously underestimated

The Milky Way could be teeming with more satellite galaxies than previously thought

New study reveals surprising reproductive secrets of a cricket-hunting parasitoid fly

Media Tip Sheet: Symposia at ESA2025

NSF CAREER Award will power UVA engineer’s research to improve drug purification

Tiny parasitoid flies show how early-life competition shapes adult success

New coating for glass promises energy-saving windows

Green spaces boost children’s cognitive skills and strengthen family well-being

Ancient trees dying faster than expected in Eastern Oregon

Study findings help hone precision of proven CVD risk tool

Most patients with advanced melanoma who received pre-surgical immunotherapy remain alive and disease free four years later

Introducing BioEmu: A generative AI Model that enables high-speed and accurate prediction of protein structural ensembles

Replacing mutated microglia with healthy microglia halts progression of genetic neurological disease in mice and humans

New research shows how tropical plants manage rival insect tenants by giving them separate ‘flats’

Condo-style living helps keep the peace inside these ant plants

Climate change action could dramatically limit rising UK heatwave deaths

Annual heat-related deaths projected to increase significantly due to climate and population change

[Press-News.org] Mutations can spur dangerous identity crisis in cells
U-M research marks step toward treatments for aging- and disease-related destabilization of gene expression