An interesting article where Lee et al. develop a new chemical label for studying the dynamics of select glycolipids found in tuberculosis bacteria. They target specific types of glycolipids that are involved in pathogenesis, opening the door to new insights on tuberculosis. As tuberculosis kills more than a million people every year, tools for studying the disease are sorely needed. #chemicalbiology #chemistry #microbiology
Central sensitization: analysis by physio meets science.
Neurophysiological Mechanism of Central Sensitization in the Spinal Cord following Surgery:
▶️ Central sensitization was first described by Woolf in 1983 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6656869/) as a form of long-term adaptive neuroplasticity that amplifies the transmission of nociceptive information by affecting spinal cord neurons and is believed to be a principal neurophysiological mechanism with regard to pain persistence.
▶️ Peripheral nociception can trigger a prolonged increase in the excitability of dorsal root ganglia (DRG) neurons, which transmit nociceptive signals to the spinal cord, resulting in central sensitization.
▶️ This condition involves heightened responsiveness of spinal neurons, driven by signaling molecules like adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and neurotransmitters such as glutamate (Glu) and substance P (SP).
▶️ These molecules activate specific receptors on spinal neurons, including purinergic receptor 2 (P2-R), N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR), α-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazolepropionic acid receptor (AMPAR), and neurokinin 1 receptor (NK1R).
▶️ The activation of these receptors sets off a cascade of intracellular pathways involving enzymes like calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II (CaMKII), protein kinase C (PKC), protein kinase A (PKA), mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR), phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K), and extracellular signal-regulated kinases 1/2 (ERK1/2), all of which amplify the transmission of nociceptive signals to the brain.
Key Takeaways A study found that some organs age faster than a person’s actual ageFaster organ aging is linked to diseases like cancer, dementia and heart diseaseA blood test could help detect early signs of organ aging.
MONDAY, March 17, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Your organs might be aging faster than you are — and that could increase your risk for serious diseases, including cancer, heart disease and dementia.
We move thanks to coordination among many skeletal muscle fibers, all twitching and pulling in sync. While some muscles align in one direction, others form intricate patterns, helping parts of the body move in multiple ways.
In recent years, scientists and engineers have looked to muscles as potential actuators for “biohybrid” robots—machines powered by soft, artificially grown muscle fibers. Such bio-bots could squirm and wiggle through spaces where traditional machines cannot. For the most part, however, researchers have only been able to fabricate artificial muscle that pulls in one direction, limiting any robot’s range of motion.
Now MIT engineers have developed a method to grow artificial muscle tissue that twitches and flexes in multiple coordinated directions. As a demonstration, they grew an artificial, muscle-powered structure that pulls both concentrically and radially, much like how the iris in the human eye acts to dilate and constrict the pupil.
A new study probing quantum phenomena in neurons as they transmit messages in the brain could provide fresh insight into how our brains function.
In this project, described in the Computational and Structural Biotechnology Journal, theoretical physicist Partha Ghose from the Tagore Centre for Natural Sciences and Philosophy in India, together with theoretical neuroscientist Dimitris Pinotsis from City St George’s, University of London and the MillerLab of MIT, proved that established equations describing the classical physics of brain responses are mathematically equivalent to equations describing quantum mechanics. Ghose and Pinotsis then derived a Schrödinger-like equation specifically for neurons.
Our brains process information via a vast network containing many millions of neurons, which can each send and receive chemical and electrical signals. Information is transmitted by nerve impulses that pass from one neuron to the next, thanks to a flow of ions across the neuron’s cell membrane. This results in an experimentally detectable change in electrical potential difference across the membrane known as the “action potential” or “spike”
The device provides a range of sensations, such as vibrations, pressure, and twisting. A team of engineers led by Northwestern University has developed a new wearable device that stimulates the skin to deliver a range of complex sensations. This thin, flexible device gently adheres to the skin, offering more realistic and immersive sensory experiences. While it is well-suited for gaming and virtual reality (VR), the researchers also see potential applications in healthcare. For instance, the device could help individuals with visual impairments “feel” their surroundings or provide feedback to those with prosthetic limbs.
In a groundbreaking moment for cancer, Chinese researchers turned the immune response provoked by organ transplants to fight the leading cause of death worldwide.
According to Columbia University’s Department of Surgery, 10–20% of patients who undergo transplant surgery will experience at least one rejection. However, researchers in China ingeniously turned that negative into a positive by directing that powerful impulse to attack cancer cells.
Called a “tumor-to-pork” strategy, a new study published in Cell earlier this year demonstrated immense success in engineering a virus that tricked the human body into believing that cancer cells were pig tissue, according to the South China Morning Post, thereby triggering a hyperacute inflammatory response. The virus began attacking the tumor with a staggering 90% success rate, to the point of curing a patient with advanced cervical cancer.
The landmark advance builds on a 2013 study by the team, published in Science, which described the construction of the first GRO. In that study, the researchers demonstrated new solutions for safeguarding genetically engineered organisms and for producing new classes of synthetic proteins and biomaterials with “unnatural,” or human-created, chemistries.
Ochre is a major step toward creating a non-redundant genetic code in E. coli, specifically, which is ideally suited to produce synthetic proteins containing multiple, different synthetic amino acids.
📝 — Ching, et al.
Full text is available 👇
The spike protein (S-protein) is a crucial part of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), with its many domains responsible for binding, fusion, and host cell entry. In this review we use the density functional theory (DFT) calculations to analyze the atomic-scale interactions and investigate the consequences of mutations in S-protein domains. We specifically describe the key amino acids and functions of each domain, which are essential for structural stability as well as recognition and fusion processes with the host cell; in addition, we speculate on how mutations affect these properties.