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Showing posts from September, 2017

Novel label-free microscopy enables dynamic, high-resolution imaging of cell interactions

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Label-free and dynamic detection of stem cell adhesion makes use of the photonic crystal-enhanced microscope. Credit score: Yue Zhuo, College of Illinois Researchers from the College of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have invented a novel live-cell imaging technique that would sometime assist biologists higher perceive how stem cells rework into specialised cells and the way ailments like most cancers unfold. The Photonic Crystal Enhanced Microscope (PCEM) is able to monitoring and quantitatively measuring cell adhesion, a vital course of concerned cell migration, cell differentiation, cell division, and cell demise. "Our method is vital as a result of there are usually not presently label-free and high-resolution imaging instruments that permit cell-surface interactions to be quantified and imaged dynamically, though these processes are basic to issues like wound therapeutic, tissue...

How to make a motor neuron

"There is a lot of interest in generating motor neurons to study basic developmental processes as well as human diseases like ALS and spinal muscular atrophy," said Shaun Mahony, assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at Penn State and one of the lead authors of the paper. "By detailing the mechanisms underlying the direct programing of motor neurons from stem cells, our study not only informs the study of motor neuron development and its associated diseases, but also informs our understanding of the direct programming process and may help with the development of techniques to generate other cell types." The direct programming technique could eventually be used to regenerate missing or damaged cells by converting other cell types into the missing one. The research findings, which appear online in the journal Cell Stem Cell on December 8, 2016, show the challenges facing current cell-replacement technology, but they also outline a potential pa...

Stem cell memories may hold answer to their reproduction, study finds

Hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) are stem cells that reside in bone marrow and are responsible for maintaining the continuous production of blood throughout life. HSCs have been used clinically for decades to treat various blood-borne illnesses ranging from leukemia to severe combined immunodeficiency syndrome. However, a major barrier to treatment is the limited availability of stem cells. Clinicians and researchers have worked to expand stem cell numbers, but have been largely unsuccessful at facilitating reproduction of these cells. This research provides clues as to why these efforts have not succeeded -- because these cells count and retain a memory of their divisions, which control their potential for further reproduction. According to the researchers, the study found that slow cycling cells contained all of the long-term HSC activity among the aging cells in the bone marrow. The data collected further shows that age-related changes to the HSCs, including HSC expansion, are d...

Aging process increases DNA mutations in important type of stem cell

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Induced pluripotent stem cells produced for the examine and seen beneath a microscope. Credit score: Scripps Translational Science Institute As it's in a lot of life, the growing old course of is not type to an necessary kind of stem cell that has nice therapeutic promise. Researchers on the Scripps Translational Science Institute (STSI) and The Scripps Analysis Institute (TSRI) who regarded on the impact of growing old on induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) discovered that genetic mutations elevated with the age of the donor who offered the supply cells, in keeping with examine outcomes revealed by the journal  Nature Biotechnology . The findings reinforce the significance of screening iPSCs for doubtlessly dangerous DNA mutations earlier than utilizing them for therapeutic functions, mentioned lead investigators Ali Torkamani, Ph.D., director of genome informatics at STSI, and Kris...

Rare obesity syndrome therapeutic target identified

The findings were published online in the  Journal of Clinical Investigation . "While we've known for some time which genes are implicated in Prader-Willi syndrome, it has not been clear how those mutations actually trigger the disease," said lead author Lisa C. Burnett, PhD, a post-doctoral research scientist in pediatrics at CUMC. "Now that we have found a key link between these mutations and the syndrome's major hormonal features, we can begin to search for new, more precisely targeted therapies." An estimated one in 15,000 people have Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS). The syndrome is caused by abnormalities in a small region of chromosome 15, which leads to dysfunction in the hypothalamus -- which contains cells that regulate hunger and satiety -- and other regions of the brain. A defining characteristic of PWS is insatiable hunger. People with PWS typically have extreme obesity, reduced growth hormone and insulin levels, excessive levels of ghrelin (a...

Therapy response in brain tumor cells is linked to disease prognosis

Glioblastoma is a very aggressive tumor form and affected patients only survive for, on average, approximately a year after diagnosis. Researchers believe that the difficulties in treating the disease is caused by cells in the tumors called glioma-initiating cells (GICs), a kind of stem cells that can start growing again, after treatment has been finished. The new results from Uppsala University show that a single tumor contained GICs in different states that are differently resistant to therapy. Cell states that were resistant to radiation were also resistant to drugs, and states that were resistant to one drugs tended to be resistant to most of the other tested drugs. "Another interesting result was that th e GICs did not fall into distinct response groups. Instead the difference in their response can best be described as a continuum of cells with different resistance levels. We also discovered a relationship between the resistance level and molecular characteristics of ...

Scientists discover new bone-forming growth factor that reverses osteoporosis in mice

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CRI researchers performed three experiments to find the position of Osteolectin (1 and a couple of) and decide whether or not remedy with Osteolectin might reverse bone loss attributable to osteoporosis (three). Credit score: Picture courtesy of UT Southwestern Medical Middle A staff of scientists on the Youngsters's Medical Middle Analysis Institute a t UT Southwestern (CRI) found a brand new bone-forming progress issue, Osteolectin ( Clec11a ), which reverses osteoporosis in mice and has implications for regenerative medication. Though Osteolectin is understood to be made by sure bone marrow and bone cells, CRI researchers are the primary to indicate Osteolectin promotes the formation of latest bone from skeletal stem cells within the bone marrow. The research, revealed in  eLife ,  additionally discovered that deletion of Osteolectin in mice causes accelerated bone loss throughout...

Scientists produce functional heart pacemaker cells

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Dr. Stephanie Protze, post-doc fellow, and Dr. Gordon Keller, Director of the McEwen Centre for Regenerative Medication, study a cell cuture plate with human pacemaker cells generated from pluripotent stem cells for the primary time. This growth paves the way in which for a organic pacemaker taking the place of an digital one. Credit score: Courtesy of the McEwen Centre for Regenerative Medication Scientists from the McEwen Centre for Regenerative Medication, College Well being Community, have developed the primary purposeful pacemaker cells from human stem cells, paving the way in which for alternate, organic pacemaker remedy. Their findings, "Sinoatrial node cardiomyocytes derived from human pluripotent cells perform as a organic pacemaker," revealed on-line in  Nature Biotechnology  on Dec. 12, element how human pluripotent stem cells might be coaxed in 21 days to grow to be pacemak...

Researchers turn back the clock on human embryonic stem cells

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Left to proper: Photos of an early, three day-old human embryo, 5 day-old human embryo, a colony of the brand new 3i human ESC cells developed by the Zambidis laboratory, and a colony of a traditional human ESC, which is developmentally extra mature. Human ESC colonies are stained for nuclei (blue), the stem cell marker OCT4 (pink), and the stem cell marker TRA-1-8 1 (inexperienced). Credit score: Elias Zambidis and Yulian Zhao Johns Hopkins scientists report success in utilizing a cocktail of cell-signaling chemical compounds to additional wind again the organic clock of human embryonic stem cells (ESCs), giving the cells the identical flexibility researchers have prized in mice ESCs. The investigators say the flexibility to reset the stem cells' developmental clock to an earlier stage gives new alternatives to efficiently coax human stem cells into making any form of cell on demand to be ...

Chinese herbal treatment shows signs of effectiveness in bone marrow recovery

More than 80 percent of cancers have increased telomerase activity, and other medical conditions are also associated with decreased or abnormal telomerase function. The ability to increase or decrease telomerase activity has important implications for treating cancers in which insufficient numbers of blood cells are produced. When a person's bone marrow is unable to keep up with the need for healthy blood cells, bone marrow failure is triggered. Bone marrow failure affects about seven in 100,000 people annually. TSY-1 has been used in China for many years to treat aplastic anemia, a condition in which the body stops producing enough new blood cells and myelodysplastic syndrome or preleukemia; both are associated with telomerase abnormality. The five-year study, led b y UCLA Jonsso n Comprehensive Cancer Center member Dr. Jianyu Rao, measured the ability of TSY-1 to affect telomerase activity in cancer cells lines, including one known as HL-60, as well as normal peripheral b...

New findings about stem cells in the brain of patients with epilepsy

"We have confirmed what earlier studies indicated, and gained new knowledge about molecular characteristics of these neural stem cells," says Milos Pekny, professor at the Institute of Neuroscience and Physiology. Neural stem cells with the ability to form new neurons in the brain are normally present in the hippocampus (the part of the brain connected to learning and memory) and in the subventricular zone of the brain. However, in 8 of 14 patients in the study, neural stem cells were present outside these regions, namely in the epileptic brain tissue that was surgically removed. Over 50 operations of this kind are conducted in Sweden each year, of which about 20 in Gothenburg, with most patients becoming seizure-free or having significant reduction in seizure frequency. After an extensive investigation aiming at the precise localization of the epileptic focus, brain tissue that is damaged due to malformation, injury or other cause, is surgically removed. Good teamwo...