Creative Biomart Blog

Wed, 2020/06/24

PNAS: Obese Hormones Increase the Risk of Sepsis

Scientists from the Gulbenkian de Ciência Institute (IGC) led by Luís Moita have discovered that a hormone believed to treat obesity reduces the body's resistance to bacterial infections and increases the risk of sepsis. The research results were recently published in PNAS. Sepsis is a potentially fatal disease that stems from the dysregulation of the organism's response to infection, leading to organ failure. A recent study published in the scientific journal “The Lancet” estimated that in 2017 sepsis infected 49 million people and 11 million people died globally. To expand their understan

Wed, 2020/06/24

Loss of Fat-regulated Genes Accelerates Metastatic Spread of Prostate Cancer

Researchers at the Department of Radiation Oncology and Molecular Radiology at the Kimmel Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins University have discovered a lipid-modulating protein that transfers a substance that researchers call “superpower” to prostate cancer cells, allowing them to spread malignantly. In studies of human prostate cancer cells and stromal cell lines, when the lipid regulatory protein called CAVIN1 was removed from stromal cells (connective tissue cells in and around the tumor), the cells no longer used lipids. Instead, cancer cells enjoy the oil in the environment, using it as

Thu, 2020/05/21

Anti-Inflammatory Drug Anakinra May Improve Respiratory Function in Some Severe COVID-19 Patients

A small study of 8 patients in Greece found that the clinically approved anti-inflammatory drug anakinra (anakinra, which is essentially an IL-1 inhibitor) for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis It can improve the respiratory function of severe COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019, 2019 coronavirus disease) patients. The eight patients also suffered from a disease called secondary hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (sHLH), which was characterized by excessive immune system activation and organ failure. One patient did not need mechanical ventilation, after starting treatment with this drug, h

Thu, 2020/05/21

Smokers Express Higher ACE2 and Are Susceptible to Coronavirus Infection

Data from COVID-19 patients indicate that smokers are at higher risk of complications. The researchers published an article in the journal Developmental Cell that one of the possible reasons is that smoking increases the gene expression of ACE2 (a protein that binds to SARS-CoV-2), which may promote COVID- 19 infections. The study shows that long-term smoking will increase the ACE2 protein in the lungs, which may lead to a higher incidence of patients. The author of the article, Jason Sheltzer, a cancer geneticist at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, said: "Our results suggest why smoking popu

Tue, 2020/05/19

Tumor Cell–Derived IL1β Promotes Desmoplasia and Immune Suppression in Pancreatic Cancer

Recently, in a study published in Cancer Research, scientists from New York University and other institutions have found that a key immune signal may play a previously unknown role in turning off the immune system to attack pancreatic cancer. The researchers found that the immune signaling protein interleukin 1β (IL-1β) can be made and released by pancreatic tumor cells, while it reduces the body's anti-cancer immune response, thereby promoting the growth of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDA), a type of cancer that is usually fatal within two years. The researchers say blocking IL-1β ac

Tue, 2020/05/19

Study Found the Global SARS-CoV-2 Is Composed of Six Main Subtypes

The World Health Organization announced the global pandemic of COVID-19 in March 2020, the second pandemic in the 21st century. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is an RNA beta coronavirus of the Coronaviridae family. The expansion of virus populations, such as SARS-CoV-2, has accumulated many shared polymorphisms, which has caused confusion in traditional clustering methods. In this case, a method to reduce the complexity of the sequence space occupied by the SARS-CoV-2 population is necessary for accurate clustering. Recently, researchers from the Federal Un

Tue, 2020/05/19

Do You Know How Cells Recognize Uninvited Guests?

Recently, a team led by the University of Bonn discovered how TLR8 plays an important role in defending human cells against invaders. It was found that when RNaseT2 and RNase2 cut the ribonucleic acid (RNA) of bacteria into small fragments with fingerprint characteristics, they were able to be recognized by TLR8 and countermeasures were initiated. And the results are published in the recent issue of Immunity. When bacteria or malaria parasites invade host cells, these cells try to drive off pathogens by releasing ROS. Cells enter a state of emergency, place themselves in an isolated state,

Tue, 2020/05/19

Why SARS-CoV-2 Spread So Easily Among People?

Researchers have identified microscopic features that may make this pathogen more infectious than the SARS virus and can serve as drug targets. With nearly 100,000 people infected with SARS-CoV-2 worldwide, researchers are racing to understand what makes it so easy to spread. Several genetic and structural analyses have identified a key feature of this virus—a protein on the surface—which may explain why it is so susceptible to infect human cells. Other groups are studying how SARS-CoV-2 enters human tissue. Both cellular receptors and viral proteins provide potential targets for drug