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Category: health

How nanomedicine gets inside your cells and treats you from the inside out

Canadians swallow millions of pills every day to treat common health issues like high blood pressure, high cholesterol and Type II diabetes, but scientists are working at the molecular level to turn patients’ cells into pharmacies.

Nanotechnology, where atoms and molecules are manipulated on a tiny scale—a billion times smaller than a meter—is already incorporated into everyday products like sunscreen, waterproof clothing and smartphones.

In nanomedicine, it’s being used to prompt RNA to make protein-based drugs to treat diseases. Now we can fine-tune protein production by dialing it up or down, creating personalized medicine on an invisible scale.

People who consume ultra-processed foods have worse muscle health, study suggests

Researchers found that a diet high in ultra-processed foods is associated with higher amounts of fat stored inside thigh muscles, regardless of calorie or fat intake, physical activity or sociodemographic factors in a population at risk for knee osteoarthritis. Results of the study were published in Radiology. Higher amounts of intramuscular fat in the thigh could potentially increase the risk for knee osteoarthritis.

Ultra-processed foods usually have longer shelf lives and can be highly appealing and convenient. They contain a combination of sugar, fat, salt and carbohydrates which affect the brain’s reward system, making it hard to stop eating.

These foods include breakfast cereals, margarines/spreads, packaged snacks, hot dogs, soft drinks and energy drinks, candies and desserts, frozen pizzas, ready-to-eat meals, mass-produced packaged breads and buns, which all include synthesized ingredients.

Epigenetic biomarkers in neurodegenerative diseases: from molecular signatures to therapeutic targets

Epigenetic molecular signatures as biomarkers in neurodegenerative diseases.

Integration of multiomic data is driving the development of cell-type-resolved reference atlases and molecular signatures of neurodegeneration.

Next-generation epigenetic editors are enabling causal interrogation of disease associated marks, revealing disease driving and potentially modifiable epigenetic mechanisms.

Altered chromatin architecture and global epigenomic dysregulation are emerging hallmarks of neurodegenerative diseases, detectable not only in the brain but also in peripheral biofluids.

Peripheral chromatin accessibility and conformation signatures are emerging as clinically actionable biomarkers for early diagnosis, prognosis, and stratification.

Circulating DNA (hydroxy-)methylation profiles offer new avenues for noninvasive biomarker discovery for neurodegenerative diseases, but low yield and sensitivity in detecting neuronal signals remain key challenges. sciencenewshighlights ScienceMission https://sciencemission.com/Epigenetic-biomarkers-in-ND

Continue reading “Epigenetic biomarkers in neurodegenerative diseases: from molecular signatures to therapeutic targets” | >

Novel Opioid Offers Potent Pain Relief Without Classic Side Effects

Researchers have discovered a novel synthetic opioid that provided potent pain relief in preclinical models without many of the dangerous side effects that limit current opioid therapies.

The compound, N-desethyl-fluornitrazene (DFNZ), produced strong analgesia in rodents without causing respiratory depression, tolerance, or other indicators of potential addiction, reported the researchers, led by Michael Michaelides, PhD, with the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).

“Opioid pain medications are essential for medical purposes, but can lead to addiction and overdose. Developing a highly effective pain medication without these drawbacks would have enormous public health benefits,” NIDA Director Nora D. Volkow, MD, said in a news release.

A novel mu-opioid receptor agonist showed strong analgesia without respiratory depression, tolerance, or significant addiction signals in animal models.

Two bacteria join forces to turn chemical signals into electricity, opening up low-cost sensing options

Bacterial sensors usually rely on emitting light to transfer information about what they’re sensing, but that method isn’t practical in many settings. That’s why most information transmission is done via electricity. And while electricity-emitting bacteria exist, manipulating them into useful sensors has been quite challenging. Rice University professor Caroline Ajo-Franklin’s group, working in collaboration with researchers from Tufts University and Baylor College of Medicine, recently developed a flexible bioelectrical sensor system called electroactive co-culture sensing system (e-COSENS). The study is published in Nature Biotechnology.

“Bioelectrical sensing is by no means a new concept,” said Ajo-Franklin, the Ralph and Dorothy Looney Professor of Biosciences and corresponding author on this paper. “But e-COSENS is the first system that allows us to easily engineer bioelectronic sensors in a modular manner, like assembling Legos, allowing us to potentially use them to monitor everything from human health to environmental contaminants.”

Bioelectrical sensing requires bacteria that produce electricity and are easy for researchers to manipulate to respond to different substances. Ideally, the bacteria would be able to live in a variety of different places so that the system could be used in environments ranging from rivers to milk.

Skin-deep microneedle sensor tracks drug clearance and reveals early kidney and liver dysfunction

Wearable technologies are starting to reshape how people manage health. Continuous glucose monitors that measure blood sugar levels in diabetes patients have already shown the power of tracking an important molecule in real time. The next leap is to track other medically important molecules. However, doing so is far more difficult because most of those molecules are present at much lower concentrations than glucose.

One area such wearable technologies could transform is drug therapy. Many powerful medications are still managed through blood tests that offer only occasional snapshots of how a patient’s body is processing treatment. For drugs that must be dosed precisely to avoid harm, clinicians can miss the point at which dosing becomes ineffective or begins to threaten the organs responsible for processing the drug.

A UCLA-led research team has now developed a microneedle sensor platform designed to address that problem through continuous, minimally invasive monitoring in skin. In a study published in Science Translational Medicine, the researchers showed in rats that the sensors could operate continuously for six days, track drug concentrations over time and provide insight into kidney and liver function by measuring how quickly the body cleared those drugs.

Ancient viruses serve as gene delivery couriers to help bacteria resist antibiotics

Research has shed important new light on the enemies-turned-allies that allow bacteria to exchange genes, including those linked to antimicrobial resistance (AMR). The insights, which expand our understanding of the major global health threat of AMR, came as John Innes Center researchers investigated the curious phenomena of gene transfer agents (GTAs).

These gene-carrying particles look like bacteriophages (viruses that infect bacteria), but they have been domesticated from ancient viruses and put to beneficial use under the control of the bacterial host cell.

Acting as couriers, they take up parcels of host bacterial DNA and deliver them to neighboring bacteria. This “selfless” sharing, known as horizontal gene transfer, can rapidly spread useful traits including genes that confer resistance to antibiotic drugs used to treat infections.

Activities Like Reading May Reduce Alzheimer’s Risk by 38%

Intellectually engaging and stimulating activities like reading, writing, and learning new languages are linked to a lower risk of Alzheimer’s disease and mild cognitive impairment in later life. The corresponding study was published in Neurology.

“Our study looked at cognitive enrichment from childhood to later life, focusing on activities and resources that stimulate the mind. Our findings suggest that cognitive health in later life is strongly influenced by lifelong exposure to intellectually stimulating environments,” said study author, Andrea Zammit, PhD, of Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, in a press release.

For the study, the researchers analyzed data from 1939 adults with an average age of 80 years old who were dementia-free at the start of the study. They were followed for around eight years.

Abstract: Offering a topical strategy in skin cancer

https://doi.org/10.1172/JCI189044 Brian C. Capell & team identify the epigenetic regulator LSD1 as critical for epidermal development and find its inhibition suppresses tumors in two cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma mouse models by promoting immunosurveillance.

The image shows immunofluorescence from mice lacking LSD1 in the skin, revealing profound activation of cutaneous retinoid signaling (as measured by CRABP2 levels in green); keratin 14 (red); nuclei (blue).

1Department of Dermatology and.

2Penn Epigenetics Institute, University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

3Division of Allergy and Immunology, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

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