Author: admin123TerRe

Newsletter Signup – Under Article / In Page”*” indicates required fields Cancer vaccines are a kind of immunotherapy that are meant to recognize cancer cells in the body and destroy them. But what if they could prevent the spread of cancer altogether? Well, that’s precisely what OvarianVax, the world’s first ovarian cancer prevention vaccine, strives to do.Researchers at the University of Oxford have designed OvarianVax to train the immune system to detect and get rid of cells that are prone to developing into ovarian cancer. There were more than 324,603 new cases of ovarian cancer in 2022, according to a…

AbstractActive conductances tune the kinetics of axonal action potentials (APs) to support specialized functions of neuron types. However, the temporal characteristics of voltage signals strongly depend on the size of neuronal structures, as capacitive and resistive effects slow down voltage discharges in the membranes of small elements. Axonal action potentials are particularly sensitive to these inherent biophysical effects because of the large diameter variabilities within individual axons, potentially implying bouton size-dependent synaptic effects. However, using direct patch-clamp recordings and voltage imaging in small hippocampal axons in acute slices from rat brains, we demonstrate that AP shapes remain uniform within the…

Photo credit: Baidax, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons. Il y a un feu au cœur des choses. I smelled its smoke from my bedroom window before I saw the fire. From the street, I could hear the fire, cackling like mad, before I could see the flames. Then they shot up from deep inside the cathedral’s roof. The police began shooing everyone away. I joined a small crowd that had gathered on the quai aux Fleurs, just where it meets the pont d’Arcole. No one had yet been locked by fascination. When the steeple began to fall, a sigh went…

Citation: Wright RCT, Wood AJ, Bottery MJ, Muddiman KJ, Paterson S, Harrison E, et al. (2024) A chromosomal mutation is superior to a plasmid-encoded mutation for plasmid fitness cost compensation. PLoS Biol 22(12): e3002926. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002926Academic Editor: J. Arjan G. M. de Visser, Wageningen University, NETHERLANDS, KINGDOM OF THEReceived: January 15, 2024; Accepted: November 5, 2024; Published: December 2, 2024Copyright: © 2024 Wright et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.Data Availability: All…

Why does the COVID-19 virus make some people sicker than others? For years, scientists have looked to a critical piece of immune system machinery – known as the interferon pathway – for answers. There, when our cells sense an infection, they release a protein known as interferon, which warns other cells to fight the virus. Studies show that when this signaling goes awry and leads the body to under or overreact, people are more likely to develop severe or Long COVID. Glitches in this pathway have also been implicated in autoimmune diseases and cancer. But little is known about what,…

AbstractCompetitive bacteria like the human pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa can acquire iron from different iron carriers, which are usually internalized via outer membrane TonB-dependent receptors (TBDRs). Production of TBDRs is promoted by the presence of the substrate. This regulation often entails a signal transfer pathway known as cell-surface signaling (CSS) that involves the TBDR itself that also functions as transducer (and is thus referred to as TBDT), a cytoplasmic membrane-bound anti-σ factor, and an extracytoplasmic function σ (σECF) factor. TBDTs contain an extra N-terminal domain known as signaling domain (SD) required for the signal transfer activity of these receptors. In the…

Frontal view of the 3D models of the ribcages belonging to Shanidar 3, Kebara 2, and the Homo sapiens mean. Credit: Journal of Human Evolution (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2024.103629 Researchers at the Department of Paleobiology, Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales in Madrid report that analysis of a Neanderthal ribcage from a cave in Iraq exhibits a “bell-shaped” thorax configuration typical of Neanderthals elsewhere, differing from that of modern humans. The findings are published in the Journal of Human Evolution. Neanderthal ribcage configuration is a subject of great interest to paleoanthropologists due to its implications for physiology, climate adaptation, and diet. Previous…

AbstractOrganisms detect temperature signals through peripheral neurons, which relay them to central circadian networks to drive adaptive behaviors. Despite recent advances in Drosophila research, how circadian circuits integrate temperature cues with circadian signals to regulate sleep/wake patterns remains unclear. In this study, we used the FlyWire brain electron microscopy connectome to map neuronal connections, identifying lateral posterior neurons LPNs as key nodes for integrating temperature information into the circadian network. LPNs receive input from both circadian and temperature-sensing neurons, promoting sleep behavior. Through connectome analysis, genetic manipulation, and behavioral assays, we demonstrated that LPNs, downstream of thermo-sensitive anterior cells (ACs),…

Warning – this post is pretty snarky, originally posted at Panda’s Thumb (which, if you don’t follow, you should!) A new article has been published in the illustrious journal BIO-Complexity [sic]: Burgess, S. (2022). Why the Ankle-Foot Complex Is a Masterpiece of Engineering and a Rebuttal of “Bad Design” Arguments. BIO-Complexity, 2022. The foot and ankle of the chimpanzee (A) and human (B). T: axis of transverse tarsal joint; U: axis of upper ankle joint; L: axis of lower ankle joint. Note: All bones are conserved and homologous. Credit: Elftman, H., & Manter, J. (1935). The evolution of the human foot,…

Citation: Werner JM, Gillis J (2024) Meta-analysis of single-cell RNA sequencing co-expression in human neural organoids reveals their high variability in recapitulating primary tissue. PLoS Biol 22(12): e3002912. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002912Academic Editor: Madeline Lancaster, University of Cambridge, UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELANDReceived: November 19, 2023; Accepted: October 24, 2024; Published: December 2, 2024Copyright: © 2024 Werner, Gillis. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.Data Availability: The source data and code used for…