(Press-News.org) MAYWOOD, Ill. – Findings from a Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine study could lead to the development of new drugs to treat gout.
The study, led by Liang Qiao, MD, and his colleagues and collaborators, was published March 19 in the journal Nature Communications.
Gout is caused by a buildup of uric acid around joints, typically the big toe, knee or ankles. The immune system revs up to attack uric acid salt crystals, and this immune response causes painful inflammation.
The innate immune response is mainly activated by calcium that enters a macrophage immune cell through an opening called the calcium channel. There are several types of calcium channels. Researchers found that a particular type of calcium channel, called TRPM2, is responsible for initiating the immune response. (TRPM2 stands for transient receptor potential melastatin 2.)
In lab mice, study collaborators from Japan knocked out a gene that is responsible for this calcium channel. Qiao's team then exposed these "knockout" mice and a comparison group of normal mice to uric acid salt crystals and to a liposome, a compound that also causes inflammation. They found that inflammation was significantly lower in the knockout mice that lacked the TRPM2 calcium channel. They therefore concluded that disabling the TRPM2 calcium channel could be key to reducing painful inflammation from gout.
The next step will be to design a compound that would block the TRPM2 calcium channel, and then test how well this compound reduces inflammation in an animal model.
The study's findings might also apply to Alzheimer's disease and arteriosclerosis (hardening of the arteries). These two diseases, like gout, have been linked to inflammation. And it is possible that the TRPM2 calcium channel may be key to initiating the inflammatory response in these two diseases as well. But this has not been proven yet, Qiao said.
The study also could aid in the development of new vaccines. Researchers elsewhere are studying whether liposomes could serve as more effective adjuvants in new vaccines. (An adjuvant is the component in a vaccine that stimulates the immune system to attack a pathogen such as a virus or bacterium). The Loyola study found that only liposomes with either a positive or a negative electric charge are effective in stimulating the immune system.
Liposomes with a neutral charge did not stimulate the immune system.
Qiao, senior author of the study, is a professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine. Co-authors of the study are Zhenyu Zhong (first author, significant contributor), Yougang Zhai, Shuang Liang and Renzhi Han, all of Loyola University Chicago; Yasou Mori of Kyoto University in Japan; and Fayyaz S. Sutterwala of the University of Iowa.
INFORMATION:
The study was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health, American Heart Association and Muscular Dystrophy Association.
END
SAN DIEGO — Neurologists at Mayo Clinic in Arizona have taken a promising step toward identifying a test that helps support the diagnosis of concussion. Their research has shown that autonomic reflex testing, which measures involuntary changes in heart rate and blood pressure, consistently appear to demonstrate significant changes in those with concussion. They presented the findings at the American Academy of Neurology annual meeting in San Diego this week.
Right now doctors rely primarily on self-reporting of symptoms to make a diagnosis of concussion. In addition, ...
PITTSBURGH—Women may be less likely to pursue careers in science—not because they have less ability—but because they have more career choices, according to a University of Pittsburgh study published today in Psychological Science.
Although the gender gap in mathematics has narrowed in recent decades between males and females, women are still less likely to pursue STEM careers than their male counterparts. Together with colleagues at the University of Michigan, the Pitt research team investigated whether differences in overall patterns of math and verbal ability might ...
Research led by a biology professor in the School of Science at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) has uncovered a method to produce retinal cells from regenerative human stem cells without the use of animal products, proteins or other foreign substances, which historically have limited the application of stem cells to treat disease and other human developmental disorders.
The study of human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) has been pursued vigorously since they were first discovered in 2007 due to their ability to be manipulated into specific ...
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — An alloy that may improve high-temperature electronics in oil and geothermal wells was really a solution in search of a problem.
Sandia National Laboratories first investigated the gold-silver-germanium alloy about 15 years ago as a possible bonding material in a new neutron tube product. But a design change forced Sandia to shelve the material, said Paul Vianco, who has worked in soldering and brazing technology at Sandia for 26 years.
Then a few years ago, researchers working on other projects with applications inside a well, referred to as downhole, ...
THE WOODLANDS, Texas, March 19, 2013 — When it comes to examining the surface of rocks on Mars with a high-powered laser, five is a magic number for Los Alamos National Laboratory postdoctoral researcher Nina Lanza.
During a poster session today at the 44th Annual Lunar and Planetary Science Conference at The Woodlands, Texas, Lanza described how the laser-shooting ChemCam instrument aboard the Curiosity rover currently searching the surface of Mars for signs of habitability has shown what appears to be a common feature on the surface of some very different Martian rocks ...
NEW YORK (March 19, 2013) -- Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), a key feature of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), aim to control health care costs, enhance quality in health care and improve population health. But what does "improving population health" really mean? This is the question asked in a new viewpoint article by Weill Cornell Medical College researchers published in the March 20 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). The authors argue a clear definition is crucial in order to formulate effective health care and social service policy.
Section ...
VIDEO:
On Dec. 17, 2012, NASA's twin GRAIL spacecraft were deliberately crashed into the lunar surface traveling at nearly 4,000 mph. Another NASA spacecraft, Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, observed the impact using...
Click here for more information.
Many spacecraft just fade away, drifting silently through space after their mission is over, but not GRAIL. NASA's twin GRAIL (Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory) spacecraft went out in a blaze of glory Dec. 17, 2012, ...
VIDEO:
Engineers at the Goddard Space Flight Center test the robotic-like fixture that will place the primary mirror segments of the Webb Telescope onto the telescopes back plane.
Click here for more information.
NASA engineers and scientists have been making practice runs to ensure the placement of primary mirror segments on the James Webb Space Telescope go perfectly when the flight equipment is ready. NASA issued a video and photos showing the practice run in the giant ...
PISCATAWAY, NJ – Some 2-year-olds whose moms used methamphetamine during pregnancy may have an abnormal response to stressful situations, according to a study in the May issue of the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.
Researchers saw the altered response in toddlers who were exposed to meth in the womb and who currently had signs of strife in their lives—such as a mom who drank heavily or had depression or other mental health symptoms. Specifically, the children's levels of the stress hormone cortisol did not rise as they should have during a tense situation (a ...
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – Infants at 7 months of age who go on to develop autism are slower to reorient their gaze and attention from one object to another when compared to 7-month-olds who do not develop autism, and this behavioral pattern is in part explained by atypical brain circuits.
Those are the findings of a new study led by University of North Carolina School of Medicine researchers and published online March 20 by the American Journal of Psychiatry.
"These findings suggest that 7-month-olds who go on to develop autism show subtle, yet overt, behavioral differences ...
