In the murky depths of the ocean live some of the smartest and most unusual creatures to inhabit the earth. Octopuses are known for their sucker covered tentacles and chameleon-like abilities to change color, pattern and shape to blend it with their environment. The changes aren’t limited to just their appearance. A new study published in Cell reveals that they can change their brains as well (1). The study found that octopuses recode their brain in response to environmental temperature changes using RNA editing.
Continue reading “Octopuses Use RNA Editing to Transiently Change Their Proteins When They Get Cold”Author: Kelly Grooms
Exploring Instrumentation for Your Lab: Particle Movers vs. Liquid Handlers
Some laboratory processes are time-consuming and tedious. Automation highly manual processes such as nucleic acid extraction can increase your lab’s throughput and improve the overall consistency of your results. Unfortunately choosing and implementing one of these systems can seem overwhelming. As you begin to evaluate the automation needs of your lab, one of the first decision points is the type of platform you need. Do you need a liquid handler or a magnetic particle mover?
Continue reading “Exploring Instrumentation for Your Lab: Particle Movers vs. Liquid Handlers”DNA from a ~20,000-Year-Old Pendant Offers Genetic Picture of Its Owner
The elk tooth is small and ancient, with a crude hole bored through the top. It was likely worn as a pendant, but worn by whom? Was the owner male or female? Where did they come from? Did the pendant indicate their social status, mark a significant accomplishment, was it a gift, or was it worn as an expression of individuality?
Artifacts such as personal ornaments and tools play a pivotal role in helping us understand the migration, behavior and cultures of ancient peoples. To date, this information has stopped short of providing insight into things like the biological sex or genetic ancestry of the individuals who may have worn or used these items, and thus limited our ability to accurately characterize societal roles and behaviors. Recent advances in DNA techniques and technologies, and one little pendant, might be changing that.
Continue reading “DNA from a ~20,000-Year-Old Pendant Offers Genetic Picture of Its Owner”It Is Not Just You—Burnout Is Real
“I just feel burned out.” I heard those words recently from my college junior. For him, the spring semester is barreling to a close and he is feeling tired, unmotivated and unproductive. He isn’t alone; most of us have said (or thought) those words at some point in our lives. We use the words when we are feeling tired, stressed or overwhelmed at work (or school), but burnout is more than just an emotional response to workload or other job-related challenges. Burnout can quickly cascade into more physical symptoms and take a toll on both our personal and professional lives.
Continue reading “It Is Not Just You—Burnout Is Real”T Cells Newly Discovered Role in Alzheimer’s and Related Diseases Could Offer Another Therapeutic Approach
Alzheimer’s disease is a devastating, progressive degenerative brain condition that starts with mild dementia symptoms like memory issues and gradually worsens to the point where you can no longer communicate or care for yourself. For anyone with personal experience with it, Alzheimer’s looms like a specter over the natural process of aging.
In the beginning phase of Alzheimer’s, abnormal plaques of the protein, amyloid-β, develop. These protein clumps can accumulate for decades with no detectable impact on cognitive ability or brain health. Eventually, a second protein, tau, begins to gather and form intercellular, fibrous, tangles. It is with the formation of these tau tangles that symptoms first appear. The combined presence of these extracellular plaques and intercellular tangles are the hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease.
Continue reading “T Cells Newly Discovered Role in Alzheimer’s and Related Diseases Could Offer Another Therapeutic Approach”New Vaccine for Honeybees Could Take the Sting Out of Devastating American Foulbrood Disease
Our world is a complex, interdependent system, and invertebrate pollinators such as honeybees play a pivotal role in its survival. Threats to populations numbers of pollinators like honeybees can be equated to threats to the overall health and survival of the ecosystem in which they live. Of the over 20,000 known bee species, one—the western honeybee (Apis mellifera)—acts as the single most frequent pollinator for crops worldwide (1). Found on every continent except Antarctica, the western honeybee owes its status as a top pollinator to its widespread geographic distribution, generalist foraging behavior and competence as pollinators (1).
Deadly American Foulbrood Disease
Honeybees are the most economically valuable pollinators and are threatened by several pathogens (2). Perhaps the biggest threat to honeybee colony health and survival is the bacterial disease, American Foulbrood (AFB; (3). Caused by the spore-forming, Gram+ bacteria, Paenibacillus larvae, the highly contagious AFB disease affects the young brood of colonies. When newly hatched larvae are fed spore-contaminated food, the spores germinate and replicate causing septicemia and death. P. larvae spores are incredibly resilient and can remain viable for decades (3). Each infected larva can produce over 1 billion new spores. Thus, a colony can produce large numbers of spores with just a few cases of symptomatic brood (4).
Continue reading “New Vaccine for Honeybees Could Take the Sting Out of Devastating American Foulbrood Disease”Small Molecule Therapies and Immunotherapies: An Introduction to Targeted Cancer Treatments
Cancer is a deceptively singular term for hundreds of different diseases. These diseases can affect almost any part of the body. In the United States, cancer is the second most common cause of death (1). At its most basic level, however, cancer is the abnormal and uncontrolled division of cells resulting from genetic changes in one or more cells.
This prolific cell division is what many standard chemotherapies act upon. These therapies are developed to kill rapidly dividing cells but often don’t discriminate between normal and cancerous cells. In contrast, targeted therapies are designed to interact with (or target) specific pathways, processes or proteins whose abnormal behavior is associated with cancer development and growth. Targeting these abnormal cellular functions can counteract cancer in different ways. They can interfere with tumor growth, carry other drugs into tumor cells or help the immune system find and kill cancerous cells. Targeted therapies can be loosely divided into two categories: small molecule therapies and immunotherapies.
Continue reading “Small Molecule Therapies and Immunotherapies: An Introduction to Targeted Cancer Treatments”Growing Our Understanding of Rose Rosette Virus Through Reverse Genetics
Roses, the universal symbol of love and affection, are one of the most popular ornamental flowering shrubs used by landscapers and home gardeners and account for almost half of the billion-dollar ornamental plant market. The growing prevalence of rose rosette disease poses a significant threat to these industries. This lethal disease is caused by the Rose rosette emaravirus (RRV) and transmitted by the tiny eriophyid mite, Phyllocoptes fructiphilus. Infection by RRV results in prolific growth of clustered and bunched plant shoots (witches’ broom), malformed flowers and leaves, malformed shoots and enlarged stems and abundant leaf growth and thorniness. This excessive growth depletes the plant’s energy, eventually causing death.
Emerging and Devastating Plant Viruses of the Genus Emaravirus
RRV is a single-stranded, segmented, negative-sense RNA virus belonging to the genus Emaravirus, a relatively new genus that was established in 2012. These emerging viruses can be devastating to trees, herbaceous woody plants and vines. At Texas A&M University, Dr. Jeanmarie Verchot’s lab is working to better characterize and understand these new viruses. In addition to threatening roses, these viruses cause damage to important agriculture crops such as wheat and pigeon peas. They also endanger sensitive ecosystems when they infect plants specialized to a particular habitat, as is the case with Palo verde broom virus infection of palo verde trees of the Sonoran Desert (1).
Continue reading “Growing Our Understanding of Rose Rosette Virus Through Reverse Genetics”From Outside the Window to Inside the Cell: How Photography has Broadened Our View of the World
Photography. From the time the first image was captured almost 200 years ago, people have been using photography techniques to record, improve and expand their world. Joseph Nicéphore Niépce is credited with capturing the very first photograph—a view of outside his window—using a technique called heliography. From that blurry, one-of-a-kind print to the stunning images captured today we can capture using our mobile phones, the advances in personal photography have been phenomenal. But progress has not been limited to capturing images of the world we see, scientists have leveraged these advances into new tools to capture images of the world we can’t see.
Continue reading “From Outside the Window to Inside the Cell: How Photography has Broadened Our View of the World”PD-1 Blockade Treatment shows 100% Tumor Resolution in Mismatch Repair Deficient Rectal Cancer Patients
Rectal cancer cases are rising in young adults (1). Typically, these cancers are treated with a multipronged approach that includes chemotherapy, radiation and surgery. These treatments show complete response in approximately 25% of patients and come with a long list of toxic side effects and life-altering complications including negative effects on bladder and bowel function, sexual health and fertility issues (2).
Approximately 5–10% of rectal cancers have deficiencies in their mismatch repair mechanisms (dMMR), and these cancers tend to be less responsive to standard chemotherapy treatments (2). Tumors are identified as dMMR using either immunohistochemistry (IHC) to detect the presence or absence of the major mismatch repair proteins, or by molecular testing for high-frequency microsatellite instability (MSI-H), the functional evidence of dMMR . These tumors often have somatic mutations that produce “foreign” proteins that can be detected by the immune system. As a result, these tumors are effective at priming an immune response and tend to respond well to immune checkpoint therapies such as PD-1 blockade treatments. Immune checkpoint blockade, or immune checkpoint inhibitor, therapies are a revolutionary, and relatively new, approach to treating cancer. Some tumors express immune checkpoints to prevent the immune system from producing a strong enough immune response to kill the cancer cells. Immune checkpoint blockade therapies work by blocking immune checkpoint proteins that act to negatively regulate the immune system through the PD-1 pathway. When these checkpoint proteins are blocked, the body’s T-cells can recognize and kill the cancer cells.
Continue reading “PD-1 Blockade Treatment shows 100% Tumor Resolution in Mismatch Repair Deficient Rectal Cancer Patients”