Category Health/Medical

SARS-CoV-2 can Infect Dopamine Neurons causing Senescence

SARS-CoV-2 can infect dopamine neurons causing senescence
Stained tissue from the midbrain of a COVID-19 patient shows DNA in the cells’ nuceli (blue), dopamine neurons (green) and phosphor-alpha-synuclein (red). Credit: Liuliu Yang

A new study reported that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID, can infect dopamine neurons in the brain and trigger senescence—when a cell loses the ability to grow and divide. The researchers from Weill Cornell Medicine, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons suggest that further research on this finding may shed light on the neurological symptoms associated with long COVID, such as brain fog, lethargy, and depression.

The findings, published in Cell Stem Cell on Jan...

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Research demonstrates that Killer T cells can support Tissue Regeneration

Killer T cells support tissue regeneration
Wound healing and target killing are both effector mechanisms of CD8 T cells. (A) Combined proliferation and killing assay in the presence of influenza-specific CD8 T cells and varying amounts of pulsed peptides on MRC-5 and HaCaT cells seeded in a 30:70 ratio. Left, representative image with labels (0 versus 5 h; T cells only versus T cells + 100 ng/ml peptide). Right, representative quantification of Cas3/7 activity (green) and HaCaT proliferation (red) with titrated amounts of influenza peptide, with statistical verification across experiments using normalized area under the curve (AUC, n = 3, one-way ANOVA, symbols indicate individual experiments). Scale bars = 400 µm; enhanced for improved visibility...
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Novel Regulator of Immune Evasion in Cancer identified

Novel regulator of immune evasion in cancer identified
Representative images from immunohistochemical staining of PD-L1, ATXN3, IRF1, and HIF-2α in human lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) and melanoma patients. Courtesy of Deyu Fang, PhD. Credit: Journal of Clinical Investigation (2023). DOI: 10.1172/JCI167728

Northwestern Medicine investigators have identified a previously unknown regulator of tumor immune evasion, which may help improve the efficacy of current and future antitumor immunotherapies, according to recent findings published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

“The study provides a molecular insight into understanding why some cancer patients cannot be treated by the checkpoint blockade antitumor therapy, but others can,” said Deyu Fang, Ph.D...

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Study: In patients with Long COVID, Immune cells don’t follow the rules

Kailin Yin speaking with Nadia Roan in the lab
Kailin Yin (left), a postdoctoral fellow in the Roan Lab and co-first author of the study, collaborates with Gladstone Senior Investigator Nadia Roan. Their study revealed unusual activity among certain immune cells in people with long COVID.

People with long COVID have dysfunctional immune cells that show signs of chronic inflammation and faulty movement into organs, among other unusual activity, according to a new study by scientists at Gladstone Institutes and UC San Francisco (UCSF).

The team analyzed immune cells and hundreds of different immune molecules in the blood of 43 people with and without long COVID...

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