Scientists discover key to Hepatitis A Virus Replication, show Drug Effectiveness

Fluorescence microscopy image of HAV-infected cultured human liver cell. viral RNA targeted by ZCCHC14 appears green, and the virus’s protein red. (Credit: Maryna Kapustina, PhD)

The viral replication cycle is crucial for a virus to spread inside the body and cause disease. Focusing on that cycle in the hepatitis A virus (HAV), UNC School of Medicine scientists discovered that replication requires specific interactions between the human protein ZCCHC14 and a group of enzymes called TENT4 poly(A) polymerases. They also found that the oral compound RG7834 stopped replication at a key step, making it impossible for the virus to infect liver cells.

These findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, are the first to demonstrate an effective drug treatment...

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Signaling Molecule potently Stimulates Hair Growth

Hedgehog signaling in murine fibroblasts induces new hair growth and hair multiplication
•Hedgehog activation increases fibroblast heterogeneity and drives new cell states
•TGF-β pathway downstream of dermal Hedgehog mediates hair growth hyper-activation
•SCUBE3 is a new mesenchymal niche factor that activates hair growth

SCUBE3 identified as possible therapeutic treatment for androgenetic alopecia. University of California, Irvine-led researchers have discovered that a signaling molecule called SCUBE3 potently stimulates hair growth and may offer a therapeutic treatment for androgenetic alopecia, a common form of hair loss in both women and men.

The study, published online today in Developmental Cell, determined the precise mechanism by which the dermal papilla cells — speciali...

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A Ceramic Aerogel made with Nanocrystals and Embedded in a Matrix for use in Thermal Insulation Applications

A ceramic aerogel made with nanocrystals and embedded in a matrix for use in thermal insulation applications
Multiscale design of hypocrystalline ceramic nanofibrous aerogel. a, Deformation modes and the corresponding ν and α of crystalline (C), amorphous (A) and hypocrystalline (H) ceramic fibrous cells under mechanical and thermal excitations. The colored scale bar indicates the variation of ceramics from amorphous to crystal by using a local-entropy-based fingerprint to characterize the crystallinity of each atom in the simulated system. b, Illustration of the zig-zag architecture design based on hypocrystalline fibrous ceramics. The units of the colored scale bars are millimeters, presenting absolute displacement values in ν and α calculation. The triangle, square and pentagon cells are the building units to assemble the fibrous aerogel structure. Credit: Nature (2022). DOI: 10...
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ATLAS and CMS release results of most comprehensive studies yet of Higgs Boson’s properties

Atlas and CMS
From top to bottom, pictures of the ATLAS and CMS detectors (Image: CERN)

Today, exactly ten years after announcing the discovery of the Higgs boson, the international ATLAS and CMS collaborations at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) report the results of their most comprehensive studies yet of the properties of this unique particle. The independent studies, described in two papers published today in Nature, show that the particle’s properties are remarkably consistent with those of the Higgs boson predicted by the Standard Model of particle physics...

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