Category Health/Medical

Colibactin is a powerful toxin produced by Escherichia coli and other bacteria living in the human gut. This highly unstable bacterial product causes mutations in DNA that have been linked to colorectal cancer. Because it breaks down quickly, isolating and studying it has been difficult, but now scientists in the U.S. have discovered exactly how colibactin attacks DNA.

Using advanced tools such as mass spectrometry (MS) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, the team studied the toxin at the atomic level, as reported in a paper published in the journal Science...

Microplastics could be fueling neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, with a new study highlighting five ways microplastics can trigger inflammation and damage in the brain.

More than 57 million people live with dementia, and cases of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s are projected to rise sharply. The possibility that microplastics could aggravate or accelerate these brain diseases is a major public health concern.

Pharmaceutical scientist Associate Professor Kamal Dua, from the University of Technology Sydney, said it is estimated that adults are consuming 250 grams of microplastics every year—enough to cover a...

New research published in Nature Communications has linked a normal cellular process to an accumulation of DNA mutations in cancer and identified cancer-driving mutations in an underexplored part of the genome.

Led by Dr. Jüri Reimand of the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR), the study centers around a protein called TOP2B, part of a family of enzymes that serve an important function in cells and are targets of common cancer chemotherapies.

Strands of DNA are long and complex, and they often get looped and tangled. When that happens, TOP2B and other topoisomerase proteins make cuts to DNA strands to help untangle and repair them...

Researchers have identified a molecular mechanism that helps explain why growing up in a stimulating environment enhances memory. In contrast, a lack of stimulation can impair it. The team from the Institute for Neurosciences (IN), a joint research center of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and Miguel Hernández University of Elche (UMH), was led by researcher Ángel Barco.

Their study, conducted in mice and published in Nature Communications, demonstrates that the environment during childhood and ado...