The protozoan parasite Toxoplasma gondii and the pathogenic bacterium Chlamydia trachomatis exemplify convergent evolution, the development of a similar biological trait in unrelated lineages, according to research presented today at the American Society of Cell Biology's 50th Annual Meeting in Philadelphia. The biological trait shared by the two pathogens is their modus operandi – how they operate inside human host cells to reproduce themselves, said scientists at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, working with researchers at the University of Maryland ...

Cultured mesenchymal stem cells can "feel" at least several microns below the surface of an artificial microfilm matrix, gauging the elasticity of the extracellular bedding that is a crucial variable in determining their fate, researchers reported today at the American Society for Cell Biology's 50th Annual Meeting in Philadelphia. Controlling or predicting how stem cells differentiate into cells of a specific tissue type is a critical issue in the bioengineering of artificial tissue and in stem cell medicine. To determine how deep a cell's sense of touch can reach, ...

Deleting the receptor, not the protein ghrelin itself, turns up the body's fat-burning thermostat, giving aging mice an exothermic boost toward a svelte physique, researchers reported at the American Society of Cell Biology's 50th Annual Meeting in Philadelphia. The protein's receptor, growth hormone secretagogue receptor (GHS-R), might make a better target than ghrelin for treating obesity, according to Yuxiang Sun, M.D., Ph.D., of the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, TX. Sun said that experimentally deleting the receptor from the body cells of laboratory mice ...

Long considered a freewheeling loner, the Trypanosoma brucei parasite responsible for African sleeping sickness has revealed a totally unexpected social side, opening a potential chink in the behavioral armor of this and other supposedly solitary human parasites, according to research presented at the American Society for Cell Biology's 50th Annual Meeting in Philadelphia. "The concept of bacteria acting as groups of cells communicating and cooperating with one another has had a major impact on our understanding of bacterial physiology and pathogenesis, but this paradigm ...

Small details between "in vivo" and "in vitro" studies make for big differences in understanding diabetes and other secretory dysfunctions Exocytosis, the fundamental process by which cells secrete hormones such as insulin and other useful biological substances, is regulated far differently in life than in laboratory tissue cultures and explanted organs, according to research presented today at the American Society of Cell Biology's 50th Annual Meeting in Philadelphia. The unexpected findings that exocytosis regulation "in vivo" is not the same as the process long studied ...

Researchers have provided the first thorough mechanistic account of how a genetic defect leads to malignant hypothermia (MH) and central core disease (CCD), rare genetic skeletal muscle disorders. The study appears in the January issue of the Journal of General Physiology (www.jgp.org). Mutations in the type 1 ryanodine receptor (RYR1), the calcium release channel of the sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR) activated during skeletal muscle excitation-contraction (EC) coupling, give rise to CCD. One of the most common CCD-causing mutations is Ile4895Thr. Now, Robert Dirksen (University ...

ST. PAUL, Minn. – Many people with incurable brain tumors use alternative therapies, such as taking vitamins and homeopathy, in addition to their conventional treatments, according to a study published in the December 14, 2010, print issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. About 40 percent of brain tumor patients in the study used alternative therapies including homeopathic remedies, vitamin supplements and psychological therapy. "The use of these alternative treatments may be largely overlooked and underestimated," said study ...

Folic acid can reduce birth defects including neural tube defects, congenital heart disease and oral clefts but some speculate high intakes of folic acid may be associated with adverse events such as colorectal cancer, states an article in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) (pre-embargo link only) http://www.cmaj.ca/embargo/cmaj100568.pdf. This study, conducted by researchers at Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute and The Hospital for Sick Children, is the first of its kind in more than three decades, to examine the folate status of Canadians ...

Disease-management programs, which may include patient education, psychological intervention, dietary education, self-monitoring and telemedicine, can improve diabetes care, states an article in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) (pre-embargo link only) http://www.cmaj.ca/embargo/cmaj091786.pdf. The study, by French researchers, included 41 randomized controlled trials published between 1990 and 2009 with a total of 7013 patients. The findings showed that disease-management programs are more effective than usual care in reducing glycated hemoglobin levels ...

VIDEO: This movie spotlights one waggle dance by a forager that had been sleep-deprived the previous night. The average dance angle of this dance is superimposed over the dancer and variance around... Click here for more information. AUSTIN, Texas—In the busy world of a honey bee hive, worker bees need their rest in order to best communicate the location of food to their hive mates, research from The University of Texas at Austin shows. "When deprived of sleep, humans ...

SAN ANTONIO, Texas, U.S.A. (Dec. 13, 2010) — Scientists at the UT Health Science Center San Antonio restored learning and memory in an Alzheimer's disease mouse model by increasing a protein called CBP. Salvatore Oddo, Ph.D., of the university's Department of Physiology and Barshop Institute for Longevity and Aging Studies, said this is the first proof that boosting CBP, which triggers the production of other proteins essential to creating memories, can reverse Alzheimer's effects. The finding, reported this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, provides ...

Boston, Mass. – It's widely recognized that fragmentation of medical information is a problem in health care, but the extent of the problem and how many patients may be at risk haven't been well quantified. In a new retrospective study, researchers at Children's Hospital Boston looked at adult acute care in Massachusetts and found that of 3.6 million adults visiting an acute care site during a five-year period, almost a third sought care at two or more different hospitals. These patients accounted for more than half of all acute care visits in the state, as well as more ...

The number of people with asthma has increased sharply over the past few decades. It has been suggested that this is a result of decreased childhood exposure to microorganisms. A team of researchers — led by Dale Umetsu, at Harvard Medical School, Boston; Michio Shimamura, at the University of Tsukuba, Japan; and Petr Illarionov, at the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom — has now provided concrete evidence in mice to support this idea and identified an underlying mechanism to explain this protection, which the team hope could be exploited to develop ways to prevent ...

Chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) was transformed from a fatal disease to a chronic condition by the development of a drug known as imatinib, which targets the protein that drives this disease (BCR-ABL). However, imatinib does not cure patients, they must take the drug lifelong, as disease recurs if they stop taking it. This is because imatinib does not kill all the CML cells; some, which are known as CML stem cells, persist. A key to therapeutically targeting CML stem cells is knowing whether they rely on BCR-ABL to persist. Answers to this will determine whether more effective ...

EDITOR'S PICK: A benefit of 'flu: protection from asthma? The number of people with asthma has increased sharply over the past few decades. It has been suggested that this is a result of decreased childhood exposure to microorganisms. A team of researchers — led by Dale Umetsu, at Harvard Medical School, Boston; Michio Shimamura, at the University of Tsukuba, Japan; and Petr Illarionov, at the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom — has now provided concrete evidence in mice to support this idea and identified an underlying mechanism to explain this protection, which ...

DURHAM, N.C. – Imposing higher taxes on sodas and other sweetened drinks may generate a lot of money – but would lead to only minimal weight loss among most people and would have no effect on weight among consumers in the highest and lowest income groups, according to new research from Duke-National University of Singapore (NUS) Graduate Medical School. The study, led by Eric Finkelstein, PhD, associate professor of health services at Duke-NUS, looked at the differential impact on calories and weight of a 20 percent and 40 percent tax on sodas and other sweetened beverages ...

UPTON, NY - One big challenge in converting plants to biofuels is that the very same molecules that keep plants standing up make it hard to break them down. Now scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory are unraveling details of how plant cells' structural supports - their cell walls - are made, with the hope of finding ways to change their composition for more efficient biofuel production. In a paper to be published the week of December 13, 2010, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers describe ...

December 14, 2010 – Ovarian cancer is the leading cause of death among gynecological cancers. To better understand the disease and improve therapies, researchers are investigating how deregulation of genes across the genome could be contributing to malignancy. In a study published online today in Genome Research (www.genome.org), scientists have identified age-related gene-specific accumulation of DNA methylation that suppresses a critical cellular pathway contributing to ovarian carcinogenesis, information that will be crucial for future translational research. Epigenetic ...

An unprecedented combination of heat plus decades of drought could be in store for the Southwest sometime this century, suggests new research from a University of Arizona-led team. To come to this conclusion, the team reviewed previous studies that document the region's past temperatures and droughts. "Major 20th century droughts pale in comparison to droughts documented in paleoclimatic records over the past two millennia," the researchers wrote. During the Medieval period, elevated temperatures coincided with lengthy and widespread droughts. By figuring out when ...

LOS ANGELES, Calif. — December 9, 2010 — A new collaborative paper by economist Richard Easterlin — namesake of the "Easterlin Paradox" and founder of the field of happiness studies — offers the broadest range of evidence to date demonstrating that a higher rate of economic growth does not result in a greater increase of happiness. Across a worldwide sample of 37 countries, rich and poor, ex-Communist and capitalist, Easterlin and his co-authors shows strikingly consistent results: over the long term, a sense of well-being within a country does not go up with income. In ...

Opioids appear to be associated with more adverse events among older adults with arthritis than other commonly used analgesics, including coxibs and non-steroidal anti-inflammatories, according to a report in the December 13/27 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. In a second report assessing only opioid use, different types of drugs within the class were associated with different safety events among older patients with non-malignant pain. "In the United States, one in five adults received a prescription for an analgesic in 2006, ...

Personalized electronic messages to patients overdue for screenings, or mailings targeted to patients with expired orders for colonoscopies, may each increase colorectal cancer screening rates over the short term, according to two reports posted online today that will be published in the April 11 print issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. Colorectal cancer is the second most common cause of cancer deaths in the United States, according to background information in the articles. "Colorectal cancer screening detects cancers at more ...

High levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL), also known as "good" cholesterol, appear to be associated with a reduced risk for Alzheimer's disease in older adults, according to a report in the December issue of Archives of Neurology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. "Dyslipidemia [high total cholesterol and triglycerides] and late-onset Alzheimer's disease are highly frequent in western societies," the authors write as background information in the article. "More than 50 percent of the U.S. adult population has high cholesterol. About 1 percent of people age 65 to ...

African Americans and those with lower socioeconomic status appear to have more severe parkinsonism with greater levels of disability, according to a report posted online today that will appear in the April 2011 print issue of Archives of Neurology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. Parkinsonism (slow movements, tremor and rigidity) is a common condition among older U.S. adults, according to background information in the article. "The most common cause of parkinsonism is Parkinson's disease, a debilitating, chronic, progressive neurodegenerative disorder with an incidence ...

Acupuncture could potentially become an alternative to patching for treating amblyopia (lazy eye) in some older children, according to a report in the December issue of Archives of Ophthalmology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. About 0.3 percent to 5 percent of individuals worldwide have amblyopia, according to background information in the article. About one-third to one-half of the cases are caused by differences in the degree of nearsightedness or farsightedness between the two eyes, a condition known as anisometropia. Correcting these refractive errors with glasses ...