Category Biology/Biotechnology

Sleeping mouse (stock image). “What is amazing is finding the same mechanism for sleep-wake cycle control in an insect and a mammal,” said Matthieu Flourakis, the lead author of the study. “Mice are nocturnal, and flies are diurnal, or active during the day, but their sleep-wake cycles are controlled in the same way.” Credit: © Iosif Szasz-Fabian / Fotolia

In studies of fruit flies and mice and the brain circadian neurons governing the daily sleep-wake cycle’s timing, the researchers found that high sodium channel activity in these neurons during the day turn the cells on and ultimately awaken an animal, and high potassium channel activity at night turn them off, allowing the animal to sleep.

“This suggests the underlying mechanism controlling our sleep-wake cycle is ancient,” said Prof...

Intraoperative ovarian cancer treatment based on the combinatorial effect of a targeted photodynamic therapy (PDT) associated with suppression of the DJ-1 protein, one of the key players in the ROS defense of cancer cells. Ovarian cancer tumors exposed to a single dose of combinatorial therapy were completely eradicated from the mice and the treated animals showed no evidence of cancer recurrence.

A combination of techniques by Oregon State University researchers achieved complete cancer cell elimination with no regrowth of tumors. It may offer a novel mechanism to address this aggressive and often fatal cancer that kills 14,000 women in the US each year. Ovarian cancer has a high mortality rate because it often has metastasized into the abdominal cavity before it’s discovered...

A population of liver cells has been found that are better at regenerating liver tissue than hepatocytes. The study is the first to identify these so-called ‘hybrid hepatocytes,’ and show that they are able to regenerate liver tissue without giving rise to cancer.

Of all major organs, the liver has the highest capacity to regenerate – that’s why many liver diseases, including cirrhosis and hepatitis, can often be cured by transplanting a piece of liver from a healthy donor. The liver’s regenerative properties were previously credited to a population of adult stem cells known as oval cells. But recent studies concluded that oval cells don’t give rise to hepatocytes; instead, they develop into bile duct cells...

This is Drosophila intestine associated with lactobacilli bacteria, seen in red. The green GFP-positive tissue on the edges is a measure of the upregulation of Nrf2-responsive cytoprotection genes. Credit: Rheinallt Jones

A helpful subset of the intestinal microbiome, lactobacilli, stimulates the cytoprotective Nrf2 pathway in both flies and mice. The findings could potentially lead to advances in the use of bacteria to treat intestinal diseases or mitigate the effects of radiation therapy for cancer. “The body’s response to bacteria is often seen through the lens of the immune system,” says Prof. Andrew Neish, MD. “The pathway we’ve identified is not inflammatory or immunoregulatory; rather, it’s cytoprotective.”

While many types of bacteria that live in our intestines are inert or even h...