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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 8 hours ago

Sugar Without The Insulin Spike

A natural, low-calorie sugar that doesn’t cause a spike in insulin sounds too good to be true. But it really does exist!

It’s called tagatose, and it comes in very small amounts in a few fruits and dairy products.

Now, scientists have figured out how to manufacture the rare sugar at larger scales.
The product is 92 percent as sweet as sucrose, and yet it doesn’t spike insulin levels.

Tagatose is mostly fermented in the gut, so only a small portion of it is actually absorbed into the bloodstream.

Unlike high-intensity artificial sweeteners, it can even be used in baked goods.

https://www.cell.com/cell-reports-physical-science/fulltext/S2666-3864(25)00592-2?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS2666386425005922%3Fshowall%3Dtrue

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 8 hours ago

Barnacle-inspired E. coli could treat IBD
Escherichia coli engineered to produce biological ‘glue’ could help to heal damage in the guts of people with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Researchers engineered E. coli to produce ‘cement proteins’ — similar to those that barnacles use to stick onto rocks — when they come into contact with blood, and a protein that boosts wound healing. In mouse models of IBD, the team found that the bacteria could stick onto internal wounds for ten days, and after that time the mice’s guts resembled those of healthy mice.

New Scientist 
 Nature Biotechnology paper

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 8 hours ago

Chronic wound bacterium prevents healing

The bacterium Enterococcus faecalis produces damaging molecules that can prevent chronic wounds such as diabetic foot sores from healing. These reactive molecules, such as hydrogen peroxide, trigger a stress response in keratinocytes, the skin cells responsible for wound healing, which effectively paralyzes them. Researchers found that treating skin cells with the antioxidant enzyme catalase can de-stress keratinocytes, which restores their healing capabilities. The team suggests that dressings infused with antioxidants could be a more effective way to treat chronic wounds than trying to kill E. faecalis with antibiotics.

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aeb5297

https://www.genengnews.com/topics/infectious-diseases/disarming-ant...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 8 hours ago

Phages evolve differently in microgravity

Viruses that infect bacteria, called phages, evolve different strategies to infect their targets on the International Space Station than they do on the ground. Researchers found that the phages took longer to infect E. coli in microgravity, and that the viruses developed microgravity-specific mutations, some of which helped them to better cling onto bacterial receptors. Understanding how phages adapt to different conditions could help researchers to optimize them for use against antibiotic-resistant bacteria on Earth.

https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pb...

https://www.livescience.com/health/viruses-infections-disease/virus...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 9 hours ago

Exhaled breath may carry clues to gut microbiome health

Exhaled breath contains volatile organic compounds produced by gut microbes, allowing noninvasive detection of gut microbiome composition. Breath analysis accurately reflected gut bacteria in both children and mice and predicted the presence of asthma-associated Eubacterium siraeum. This approach may enable rapid, noninvasive monitoring and diagnosis of gut health issues.

The gut microbiota shapes the human and murine breath volatilome, Cell Metabolism (2026). DOI: 10.1016/j.cmet.2025.12.013. www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/f … 1550-4131(25)00544-3

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 9 hours ago

Delayed stroke care linked to increased disability risk

Prolonged door-in-door-out (DIDO) times for transferring acute ischemic stroke patients to thrombectomy-capable centers significantly reduce the likelihood of receiving endovascular therapy and increase the risk of post-stroke disability. Only 26% of transfers met the recommended 90-minute window, with longer delays linked to worse functional outcomes and higher complication rates. Systemic improvements are needed to minimize transfer times and optimize patient recovery.

Door-in-door-out times and outcomes in patients with acute ischaemic stroke transferred for endovascular therapy in the U.S.: a retrospective cohort study, The Lancet Neurology (2026). DOI: 10.1016/S1474-4422(25)00478-8

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 9 hours ago

Domestication has changed the chemicals that squash flowers use to attract bees

Domestication alters the floral scent profiles of squash, resulting in lower overall levels of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) except for 1,4-dimethoxybenzene, which remains prevalent and attracts bees. Specialist squash bees detect and respond differently to VOCs from wild versus domesticated flowers, indicating that domestication changes plant–pollinator interactions.

Avehi Singh et al, Domestication Reduces Floral Volatile Richness in Squash (Cucurbitaceae: Cucurbita) But Conserves Key Compounds Critical for Pollinator Attraction, Journal of Chemical Ecology (2025). DOI: 10.1007/s10886-025-01664-5

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 9 hours ago

Cellular senescence linked to brain structure changes across lifespan

Researchers have characterized how cellular senescence—a biological process in which aging cells change how they function—is associated with human brain structure in both development and late life.

The study, published in Cell, provides new insight into how molecular signatures of cellular senescence that are present during development and aging mirror those associated with brain volume and cortical organization.

Cellular senescence is commonly defined as a state characterized by permanent cell cycle arrest in the absence of cell death, in which cells have altered function.

While cellular senescence has been implicated in aging and disease, its role in shaping human brain structure—both during development and aging—has remained unclear till now.

The research team developed a method to define senescent cells in human brain tissue and used the resource to examine how senescence-related gene expression is associated with brain structure.

Among the study's most striking findings was evidence that cellular senescence plays distinct roles in brain structure depending on cell type and stage of life. Genes associated with senescence in microglia—the primary immune cells in the brain—were linked to larger brain volumes, while senescence-related genes in excitatory neurons were associated with smaller brain volumes in the aging brain. Notably, the excitatory neuron findings were also observed early in life, providing the first evidence that senescence-related processes are at work soon after embryonic development.

The results support brain cellular senescence as an example of 'antagonistic pleiotropy'—the idea that some genes help survival or fertility early in life but cause harm later, contributing to aging and disease. 

Establishing the relationship between brain cellular senescence and brain structure, Cell (2026). DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2025.10.014. www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(25)01179-1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 9 hours ago

Chemotherapy rewires gut bacteria to curb metastasis, research reveals

Chemotherapy commonly damages the intestinal lining, a well-known side effect. But this injury does not remain confined to the gut. It reshapes nutrient availability for intestinal bacteria, forcing the microbiota to adapt.

In Nature Communications, researchers report that chemotherapy-induced damage to the intestinal lining alters nutrient availability for gut bacteria, reshaping the microbiota and increasing the production of indole-3-propionic acid (IPA), a tryptophan-derived microbial metabolite.

Rather than acting locally, IPA functions as a systemic messenger. It travels from the gut to the bone marrow, where it rewires immune cell production. Elevated IPA levels reprogram myelopoiesis, reducing the generation of immunosuppressive monocytes that facilitate immune evasion and metastatic growth.

By reshaping the gut microbiota, chemotherapy sets off a cascade of events that rewires immunity and makes the body less permissive to metastasis.

Ludivine Bersier et al, Chemotherapy-driven intestinal dysbiosis and indole-3-propionic acid rewire myelopoiesis to promote a metastasis-refractory state, Nature Communications (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-67169-7

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 9 hours ago

The researchers then transplanted skin from the face, scalp, back and abdomen of mice onto the backs of control mice. After the transplants had engrafted, they repeated the experiment on the transplanted skin. As before, wounds in the skin transplanted from the faces of the donor mice expressed lower levels of scarring-associated proteins.
They isolated fibroblasts from skin samples from the four body sites in the donor mice and injected them into the backs of control mice. They observed reduced levels of scarring-associated proteins on the recipient animals' backs injected with fibroblasts from the donor animals' faces as compared with fibroblasts from the scalp, back or abdomen.
The researchers identified changes in gene expression between facial fibroblasts and those from other parts of the body and followed these clues to identify a signaling pathway involving a protein called ROBO2 that maintains facial fibroblasts in a less-fibrotic state. They also saw something interesting in the genomes of fibroblasts making ROBO2.
In general, the DNA of the ROBO2-positive cells is less transcriptionally active, or less available for binding by proteins required for gene expression, These fibroblasts more closely resemble their progenitors, the neural crest cells, and they might be more able to become the many cell types required for skin regeneration."
In contrast, the DNA in fibroblasts from other sites of the body allows free access to genes like collagen that are involved in the creation of scar tissue.

"It seems that, in order to scar, the cells must be able to express these pro-fibrotic genes.
"And this is the default pathway for much of the body."

ROBO2 doesn't act alone. It triggers a signaling pathway that results in the inhibition of another protein called EP300 that facilitates gene expression. EP300 plays an important role in some cancers, and clinical trials of a small drug molecule that can inhibit its activity are underway. Li and his colleagues found that using this pre-existing small molecule to block EP300 activity in fibroblasts prone to scarring caused back wounds to heal like facial wounds.

Now that we understand this pathway and the implications of the differences among fibroblasts that arise from different types of stem cells, we may be able to improve wound healing after surgeries or trauma, say the researchers.

Fibroblasts of disparate developmental origins harbor anatomically variant scarring potential, Cell (2026). DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2025.12.014. www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(25)01427-8

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