stromal cells tagged posts

Two different aspects of fat: left, mature human fat cells grown in a Petri dish (green: lipid droplets); right, a section of mouse fat tissue with in the middle, a blood vessel (red circle) surrounded by Aregs (arrows), newly discovered cells capable of suppressing adipogenesis. Credit: Bart Deplancke/EPFL

A study has revealed a new cell type that resides in the body’s fat depots where it can actively suppress fat cell formation. This discovery was made using single-cell transcriptomics and opens entirely new avenues to combat obesity and related diseases such as diabetes.

Adipogenesis – the formation of mature fat cells from their precursor cells – has been linked to obesity and related health problems such as cardiovascular disease and type-2 diabetes...

A new study reveals that thymus atrophy may stem from a decline in its ability to protect against DNA damage from free radicals. The damage accelerates metabolic dysfunction in the organ, progressively reducing its production of pathogen-fighting T cells. Common antioxidants may slow thymus atrophy and be a Rx strategy for protecting elderly from infections.

“The thymus ages more rapidly than any other tissue in the body, diminishing the ability of older individuals to respond to new immunologic challenges, including evolving pathogens and the vaccines that may otherwise offer protection from them,” says Howard Petrie of SRI. Starting around puberty, the thymus rapidly decreases in size and loses capacity to produce enough new T cells...