A new at­las il­lus­trates how the hu­man ret­ina is de­vel­op­ing.

De­tail of a cross-​section of a ret­inal or­ganoid. Dif­fer­ent tis­sue struc­tures are made vis­ible with dif­fer­ent colors.
Pho­to­ Credit: Wahle et al. Nature Bi­o­tech­no­logy 2023

What cell types are found in which hu­man tis­sue, and where? Which genes are act­ive in the in­di­vidual cells, and which pro­teins are found there? An­swers to these ques­tions and more are to be provided by a specialized at­las – in par­tic­u­lar how the dif­fer­ent tis­sues form dur­ing em­bryonic de­vel­op­ment and what causes dis­eases. In cre­at­ing this at­las, re­search­ers aim to map not only tis­sue dir­ectly isol­ated from hu­mans, but also struc­tures called or­ganoids. These are three-​dimensional clumps of tis­sue that are cul­tiv­ated in the labor­at­ory and de­velop in a way sim­ilar to hu­man or­gans, but on a small scale.

“The ad­vant­age of or­ganoids is that we can in­ter­vene in their de­vel­op­ment and test act­ive sub­stances on them, which al­lows us to learn more about healthy tis­sue as well as dis­eases,” ex­plains Bar­bara Treut­lein, Pro­fessor of Quant­it­at­ive De­vel­op­mental Bio­logy at the De­part­ment of Biosys­tems Sci­ence and En­gin­eer­ing at ETH Zurich in Basel.

To help pro­duce such an at­las, Treut­lein, to­gether with re­search­ers from the Uni­ver­sit­ies of Zurich and Basel, has now de­veloped an ap­proach to gather and com­pile a great deal of in­form­a­tion about or­ganoids and their de­vel­op­ment. The re­search team ap­plied this ap­proach to the or­ganoids of the hu­man ret­ina, which they de­rived from stem cells.

Researchers develop model for how the brain acquires essential omega-3 fatty acids

Step-by-step process of lipid transport across blood-brain barrier.
Illustration Credit: Ethan Tyler from NIH Medical Arts

Researchers at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at UCLA and the National Institutes of Health have developed a zebrafish model that provides new insight into how the brain acquires essential omega-3 fatty acids, including docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and linolenic acid (ALA). Their findings, published in Nature Communications, have the potential to improve understanding of lipid transport across the blood-brain barrier and of disruptions in this process that can lead to birth defects or neurological conditions. The model may also enable researchers to design drug molecules that are capable of directly reaching the brain.

Omega-3 fatty acids are considered essential because the body cannot make them and must obtain them through foods, such as fish, nuts and seeds. DHA levels are especially high in the brain and important for a healthy nervous system. Infants obtain DHA from breastmilk or formula, and deficiencies of this fatty acid have been linked to problems with learning and memory. To get to the brain, omega-3 fatty acids must pass through the blood-brain barrier via the lipid transporter Mfsd2a, which is essential for normal brain development. Despite its importance, scientists did not know precisely how Mfsd2a transports DHA and other omega-3 fatty acids.

X-ray beams help researchers learn new tricks from old metals

 

An intense X-ray beam (in pink) is focused into a small spot on a single nanoscale grain of a platinum electrode (highlighted within the droplet). Diffraction interference patterns from that grain were collected on an X-ray detector (the black screen).
Illustration Credit: Dina Sheyfer, Argonne National Laboratory.

A research team led by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory used powerful X-ray beams to unlock a new understanding of materials important to the production and use of hydrogen. The goal is to make hydrogen production and usage more efficient and less expensive, offering a better fuel for transportation and industry.

“Efficient hydrogen production is key,” said Hoydoo You, an Argonne senior physicist. ​“Hydrogen is the lightest energy storage material. Hydrogen can be produced from water using renewable energy or excess energy, transported as a fuel, and converted back to water to produce energy for consumers. Platinum and its alloys are best in catalyzing and boosting the water-splitting process by accelerating the exchange of electrons.”

Understanding and developing materials enabling efficient production and usage of hydrogen are key to the hydrogen economy. The researchers made a first step in developing a tool that enables them to characterize the materials with a new level of detail, ultimately producing the best materials for hydrogen production and use.

Study sheds light on how the immune system protects the body

Photo Credit: RDNE Stock project

Researchers explore how patients with a rare and severe immunodeficiency were still able to defend themselves normally against viruses, including COVID-19

The first study of humans with a rare immunodeficiency reveals how the immune system protects the body against pathogens known to cause serious diseases, such as tuberculosis and COVID-19. The research involving McGill University, paves the way for new therapies to treat autoimmune diseases, chronic inflammatory diseases, and new approaches to vaccine development.

The immune system responds differently to various types of pathogens, like bacteria, parasites, and viruses. However, scientists are still trying to uncover how this complex network functions together and the processes that can go wrong with immunodeficiencies.

“The immune system plays a vital role in protecting the body from harmful germs that make people ill. It’s made up of a complex network of organs, cells, and proteins – like IRF1 or regulatory factor 1, which is key in the regulation of an early immune response to pathogens,” says co-author of the study David Langlais, an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Human Genetics and Microbiology and Immunology at McGill University.

Prolonging the survival of patients with gastric cancer

Zolbetuximab is given as an intravenous infusion to patients with advanced gastric cancer in combination with chemotherapy.
Photo Credit: Hiroshi Tsubono

Gastric cancer is the fifth most commonly diagnosed malignancy worldwide. It ranks a sad third in cancer-related causes of death. The reason for this is late diagnosis coupled with rapid spread of tumor cells in the body. In an international clinical study co-chaired by investigators from Leipzig University’s Faculty of Medicine, researchers investigated a substance that is expected to prolong the survival of patients and also established a new clinically relevant biomarker. The results have been published in the renowned journal “The Lancet”.

“The results of the study are important for cancer research. They show that patients with gastric cancer who have been treated with zolbetuximab live longer. The progression of the tumor disease is delayed and overall survival of patients is improved. We expect that the study will lead to the approval of this drug in Europe and as a result also in Germany. This is an important step for those affected by this serious and often fatal cancer,” said Professor Florian Lordick, director of the University Cancer Center Leipzig. The experienced oncologist helped to design the recently published study at the international level and ensured that German patients were able to participate.

Efficient synthesis of indole derivatives, an important component of most drugs, allows the development of new drug candidates

Efficient synthesis of indole derivatives, an important component of most drugs,  allows the development of new drug candidates. 
Illustration Credit: Reiko Matsushita

A research group at Nagoya University in Japan has successfully developed an ultrafast and simple synthetic method for producing indole derivatives. Their findings are expected to make drug production more efficient and increase the range of potential indole-based pharmaceuticals to treat a variety of diseases. Their findings were published in Communications Chemistry. 

An indole is an organic compound consisting of a benzene ring and a pyrrole ring. Heteroatom alkylation at the carbon atom next to the indole ring is particularly useful to create a wide range of new indole derivatives and many anti-inflammatory, anticancer, and antimicrobial treatments contain them.

In the past, this heteroatom alkylation has proven difficult because indoles easily and rapidly undergo unwanted dimerization/multimerization, processes in which two or more molecules combine during the reaction to form unwanted larger molecules. These unwanted by-products limit the yield of the desired product.  

The evolution of honey bee brains

European honey bee worker. The researchers studied honey bees exhibiting different behaviors: foragers, nurse bees, and queens. Honey bees in general have been a key insect model for better understanding learning and memory for more than 100 years.
Photo Credit: ©2023 Hiroki Kohno

Researchers have proposed a new model for the evolution of higher brain functions and behaviors in the Hymenoptera order of insects. The team compared the Kenyon cells, a type of neuronal cell, in the mushroom bodies (a part of the insect brain involved in learning, memory and sensory integration) of “primitive” sawflies and sophisticated honey bees. They found that three diverse, specialized Kenyon cell subtypes in honey bee brains appear to have evolved from a single, multifunctional Kenyon cell-subtype ancestor. In the future, this research could help us better understand the evolution of some of our own higher brain functions and behaviors.

Are you “busy as a bee,” a “social butterfly” or a “fly on the wall”? There are many ways we compare our behavior to that of insects, and as it turns out there may be more to it than just fun idioms. Studying insects could help us understand not only how their behavior has evolved, but also the behavior of highly evolved animals, including ourselves. Mammalian brains are big and complex, so it is difficult to identify which behaviors and neural and genetic changes have co-developed over time. By comparison, insect brains are much smaller and simpler, making them useful models for study.

How hallucinogenic substance in psilocybin mushrooms works on the molecular level

Once it was hot research. Then it was banned. Now, research on psychedelic substances is both hot and legal. There is a revival in psilocybin research in labs and clinics all over the world, including at SDU.
Photo Credit: Artur Kornakov

Psilocybin is a hallucinogenic compound found in about 200 mushroom species, including the liberty cap (Psilocybe semilanceata). For millennia, our ancestors have known and used this substance, and in recent years, it has received renewed interest from scientific researchers and therapists.

The substance has the potential to revolutionize the way we treat conditions such as severe depression and substance addiction, according to many. This is also the opinion of SDU researchers Himanshu Khandelia and Ali Asghar Hakami Zanjani from the Department of Physics, Chemistry and Pharmacy.

The two researchers have recently published the scientific paper The Molecular Basis of the Antidepressant Action of the Magic Mushroom extract, Psilocin. The article is the third in a series on the same topic from the two researchers (Interaction of psychedelic tryptamine derivatives with a lipid bilayer and Magic mushroom extracts in lipid membranes). The newest study's co-authors are Teresa Quynh Tram Nguyen and Luise Jacobsen. 

UM scientist develops innovative strategy to combat childhood brain cancer

Dr. Tanveer Sharif
Photo Credit: Courtesy of University of Manitoba

A discovery made by a University of Manitoba researcher could lead to safer and more effective treatments for childhood brain cancer.

Dr. Tanveer Sharif, assistant professor of pathology at the Max Rady College of Medicine, Rady Faculty of Health Sciences, is studying a childhood brain cancer called Group 3 medulloblastoma and he’s developed an approach to target cancer cells using precision medicine.

“Brain tumors are the leading cause of cancer-related death in people under the age of 20 and medulloblastoma is the most common childhood brain malignancy,” said Sharif, who is a Canadian Cancer Society Emerging Scholar. “Current treatment options for this deadly cancer are very toxic and haven’t changed much over the last 20 years. For patients who do survive, they suffer from long-lasting side effects linked to chemotherapy and radiation treatments. There is an urgent need to have a safer therapeutic strategy for medulloblastoma.”

Sharif’s findings were published today in Nature Communications, and his research is supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

Stress increases Alzheimer’s risk in female mice but not males

Stress causes the levels of Alzheimer's proteins to rise in females' brains but not males' brains, according to a new study in mice by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. This difference may contribute to women's greater risk of developing Alzheimer's disease.
Photo Credit: Karolina Grabowska

Women are about twice as likely as men to be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Some of that is age; in the U.S., women outlive men by five to six years, and advanced age is the strongest risk factor for Alzheimer’s. But there’s more to it than that, so Alzheimer’s researchers continue to look for other reasons why women have an elevated risk of the deadly neurodegenerative disease.

Stress may be one such reason. A study by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis shows that the effect stress has on the brain differs by sex, at least in mice. In stressful situations, levels of the Alzheimer’s protein amyloid beta rises sharply in the brains of females but not males. In addition, the researchers identified a molecular pathway that is active in brain cells from female mice but not male mice, and showed that it accounts for the divergent responses to stress.

The findings, published May 2 in Brain, add to a growing collection of evidence that sex matters in health and disease. From cancer to heart disease to arthritis, scientists have found differences between males and females that could potentially affect how men and women respond to efforts to prevent or treat chronic diseases.

Exercise Increases the Number of Cancer-Destroying Immune Cells in Cancer Patients

Two new Finnish studies show that short bouts of light or moderate exercise can increase the number of immune cells in the bloodstream of cancer patients.
Photo Credit: Zen Chung

Exercise decreases the risk of cancer and reduces side effects of cancer treatments. In addition, it improves patients’ quality of life and the prognosis of cancer patients.

 “It was previously thought that cancer patients should just rest after a cancer diagnosis. Today, we have more and more researched information that exercise can even improve the prognosis of cancer. However, it is not yet fully known how exercise controls cancer,” explains Research Assistant Tiia Koivula.

Previous preclinical studies have found that exercise affects the functioning of the immune system so that more immune cells are transferred to the tumor site and they become more active in destroying cancer cells. Two studies conducted at the Turku PET Centre of the University of Turku in Finland aimed to find out whether a short exercise bout affects the mobilization of immune cells in cancer patients.

Quantum Entanglement of Photons Doubles Microscope Resolution

Using a "spooky" phenomenon of quantum physics, Caltech researchers have discovered a way to double the resolution of light microscopes.
Photo Credit: Lance Hayashida/Caltech

In a paper appearing in the journal Nature Communications, a team led by Lihong Wang, Bren Professor of Medical Engineering and Electrical Engineering, shows the achievement of a leap forward in microscopy through what is known as quantum entanglement. Quantum entanglement is a phenomenon in which two particles are linked such that the state of one particle is tied to the state of the other particle regardless of whether the particles are anywhere near each other. Albert Einstein famously referred to quantum entanglement as "spooky action at a distance" because it could not be explained by his relativity theory.

According to quantum theory, any type of particle can be entangled. In the case of Wang's new microscopy technique, dubbed quantum microscopy by coincidence (QMC), the entangled particles are photons. Collectively, two entangled photons are known as a biphoton, and, importantly for Wang's microscopy, they behave in some ways as a single particle that has double the momentum of a single photon.

Since quantum mechanics says that all particles are also waves, and that the wavelength of a wave is inversely related to the momentum of the particle, particles with larger momenta have smaller wavelengths. So, because a biphoton has double the momentum of a photon, its wavelength is half that of the individual photons.

Let’s get cracking: Sandia scientists detect gases from fractured rock

Steve Bauer, a retired Sandia National Laboratories geoscientist, is preparing his sensitive mass spectrometer to detect the gases released by crushing a piece of granite. Recently he detected noble gases released by a test explosion underground. Someday this research might improve the prediction of earthquakes or detection of underground explosions.
Photo Credit: Craig Fritz

Geoscientists have detected specific gases being released from fractured rocks in real time after a series of small chemical explosions set underground.

This fundamental research, led by Sandia National Laboratories geoscientist Steve Bauer, could one day improve the prediction of earthquakes or detection of underground explosions.

“In the different shots, we were able to measure different relative amounts of noble gases, which we hope is consistent with the amount of deformation caused by the explosion,” said Bauer, who recently retired. “The chemical explosions had the same amount of TNT equivalent, but produced different amounts of liquids and gases, so they deformed the rock to different extents. My pie-in-the-sky goal is to measure the amount of noble gas at a location after an explosion or earthquake and then be able to understand the amount of strain the rock has experienced.”

Fossil find in California shakes up the natural history of cycad plants

Three-dimensional reconstruction of the whole cone and different views of the same cone scale. Scale bar: cone = 400 microns; cone scales = 200 microns.
Image Credit: Andres Elgorriaga, Brian Atkinson

Cycads, a group of gymnosperms which can resemble miniature palm trees (like the popular sago palm houseplant) were long thought to be “living fossils,” a group that had evolved minimally since the time of the dinosaurs. Now, a well-preserved 80-million-year-old pollen cone discovered in California has rewritten scientific understanding of the plants.

The findings are detailed in a paper by two University of Kansas paleobotanists just published in the journal New Phytologist.

“Cycads aren’t well-known but make up a significant part of plant diversity, accounting for around 25% of all gymnosperms,” said lead author Andres Elgorriaga, postdoctoral researcher with the KU Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology and KU Biodiversity Institute and Natural History Museum3. “Cycads are plants that have thick stems and short stature, with thick, palm-like leaves on top. They produce cones like pine cones and are related to other seed-bearing plants that also don’t produce flowers, like Ginkgo and the monkey puzzle tree. But they’re also highly endangered, with the highest level of endangerment among all plant groups. Trafficking of cycads also is a significant issue.”

Essential mechanism for bacterial gut colonization discovered

Tomogram of a Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron cell.
Image Credit: Matthew Swulius / Pennsylvania State University
(CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

New light has been shed on a key event that contributes to the successful colonization of bacteria in the gut of mice, according to a new study from Yale University and Penn State. The study, published in Science, reveals that a physical process called "liquid-liquid phase separation" is essential for the survival and colonization of the beneficial bacteria Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron in the gut.

“In our field we are trying to understand how bacteria can colonize your gut and what the molecular components are that allow these organisms to reside in your intestines, because not all bacteria can,” said Guy Townsend, assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at the Penn State College of Medicine and an author on the paper. Prior to this work, researchers did not understand the mechanisms that allowed B. thetaiotaomicron to thrive in the gut of mammals.

The researchers demonstrated the crucial role played by an “intrinsically disordered domain” (IDR) within a particular protein in the bacterium, called Rho, that facilitates liquid-liquid phase separation.

Liquid-liquid phase separation is when two liquids that don't mix well separate into different parts because of their chemical differences. This process helps cells create structures that don't have a membrane and are important for many cell functions.