Medical Research

Sweat glands heal injuries
Biologists and medics use stem cells to obtain new tissue to replace cells that are damaged or diseased. They play a particularly important role in healing wounds. Stem cells taken from the patient's own body are ideal because there is no chance of the body rejecting them. Getting at them, however, requires a cumbersome operation to extract the stem cells either from bone marrow or from the blood.

"The sweat glands are significantly easier to get to. All that is required is a short walk-in walk-out visit to your dermatologist. We can obtain stem cells from less than 3 millimeters of underarm skin," explains Kruse. When grafted to a skin injury, these stem cells can have a very beneficial effect on the healing process. Whether it is the cells themselves that build new skin cells and blood vessels or whether their role is to manage healing processes by releasing growth hormones that in turn activate immune cells is currently undergoing investigation. MedicalXpress

Infusion of human umbilical cord derived mesenchymal stem cells effectively relieves liver cirrhosis in DEN induced rats
It was demonstrated that infusion of hUCMSCs effectively relieved liver cirrhosis by facilitating the breakdown of collagen fibers in a dose‑dependent manner and multiple infusions caused a relatively greater improvement in cirrhosis compared with a single infusion of hUCMSCs. Hong J, Jin H, Han J, Hu H, Liu J, Li L, Huang Y, Wang D, Wu M, Qiu L, Qian Q. Mol Med Rep. 2014 Jan 30. [Epub ahead of print] PMID: 24481983

Black Death may have caused convergent evolution in the immune systems of two distinct populations
The Rroma left North India and settled in Europe 1,000 years ago. By the 14th century, when the Black Death devastated Europe, both Rroma and European Romanians had established themselves in Romania. However, the two populations had not interbred much and therefore, their genomes remained distinct. Because of this, the researchers thought studying the two groups would provide valuable information about the evolution of genetic responses to disease. They hypothesized that the extreme evolutionary pressure caused by the plague would have led to convergent evolution in the immune systems of both populations. MedicalXpress

Longevity mutation found in flies far and wide
For years, researchers have been investigating how mutations of a gene called Indy (for “I’m Not Dead Yet”) affect metabolism, life span, and reproductive fitness in both mammals and fruit flies. So far mutations in Indy have been studied experimentally only in the lab. No longer. A new study reports that a particularly important variation of the gene with much the same life-governing consequences has actually been widespread among fruit flies, judging by lines gathered from the wild across the entire globe for 60 years. Brown University

Paper offers insights into network that plays crucial role in cell function and disease
The microtubule assembly and dynamics are precisely controlled, and a key regulator is the microtubule destabilizer known as stathmin. Stathmin's precise method of action has been open to debate and has remained controversial. One proposed model is that it reduces polymer indirectly by sequestering microtubule units. Another model is that stathmin acts directly on microtubules by an as yet unknown mechanism.

The new paper by the Goodson and Alber groups provides a resolution to this debate by explaining how stathmin works. The experiments (primarily designed and performed by Kamlesh Gupta) present experimental evidence that stathmin can act directly on microtubules and it does so by binding and destabilizing segments of the assembling microtubule before they can be incorporated into the final microtubule structure. Accompanying computer simulations show that this type of molecular activity could produce the experimentally observed effects of microtubule dynamics. Eurekalert!

Production of exceptionally large surface protein prevents bacteria from forming clumps
A genetic mechanism that controls the production of a large spike-like protein on the surface of Staphylococcus aureus (staph) bacteria alters the ability of the bacteria to form clumps and to cause disease, according to a new University of Iowa study.

The new study is the first to link this genetic mechanism to the production of the giant surface protein and to clumping behavior in bacteria. It is also the first time that clumping behavior has been associated with endocarditis, a serious infection of heart valves that kills 20,000 Americans each year. The findings were published in the Dec. 2103 issue of the journal PLOS Pathogens. MedicalXpress