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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 4 hours ago

Cancer can smuggle mitochondria in neighboring cells and put them to work

Cancer cells provide healthy neighboring cells with additional mitochondria to put them to work. This has been demonstrated by researchers  in a new study. In this way, cancer is exploiting a mechanism that frequently serves to repair damaged cells.

Tumors have developed many strategies and tricks to gain advantages in the body. Researchers have now discovered another surprising trick that certain tumors resort to in ensuring their survival and growth.

In a study published in the journal Nature Cancer, biologists show that skin cancer cells are able to transfer their mitochondria to healthy connective tissue cells (fibroblasts) in their immediate vicinity. Mitochondria are the cell compartments that provide energy in the form of the molecule ATP.

The cancer cells use tiny tubes made of cell membrane material to transfer the mitochondria and connect the two cells—much like in a pneumatic tube system.

The mitochondrial transfer reprograms the fibroblasts functionally into tumor-associated fibroblasts, which mainly support cancer cells: tumor-associated fibroblasts usually multiply faster than normal fibroblasts and produce more ATP, while also secreting higher amounts of growth factors and cytokines. And all this benefits the tumor cells: they also multiply faster, making the tumor more aggressive.

The hijacked fibroblasts also alter the cell environment—the so-called extracellular matrix—by increasing the production of certain matrix components in such a way that cancer cells thrive. The extracellular matrix is vital for the mechanical stability of tissues and influences growth, wound healing and intercellular communication.

Finally, the researchers also clarified the molecular mechanism behind the mitochondrial transfer. Some proteins were already known to assist in transporting mitochondria. The researchers investigated which of these proteins were present in large numbers in cancer cells that transfer mitochondria and came across the protein MIRO2. This protein is produced in very high quantities in cancer cells that transfer their mitochondria.

The researchers detected MIRO2 not only in cell cultures, but also in samples of human tissue—especially in tumor cells at the edges of tumors that grow invasively into the tissue and occur in close proximity to fibroblasts.

The new findings offer starting points for arresting tumor growth. When the researchers blocked the formation of MIRO2, the mitochondrial transfer was inhibited, and the fibroblasts did not develop into tumor-promoting fibroblasts.

The MIRO2 blockade worked in the test tube and in mouse models. Whether it also works in human tissue remains to be seen, say the researchers.

Michael Cangkrama et al, MIRO2-mediated mitochondrial transfer from cancer cells induces cancer-associated fibroblast differentiation, Nature Cancer (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s43018-025-01038-6

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 5 hours ago

Scientists move toward developing vaccine against pathogenic Staphylococcus aureus

Antibiotics are the old medicine cabinet standby for treating infections caused by multidrug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, but as antimicrobial resistance continues to mount globally, scientists say there's a need for new strategies.

While vaccines are a potential answer, achieving an effective way to immunize against multidrug-resistant S. aureus has led scientists down dozens of blind alleys. Ten candidate vaccines that looked promising in preclinical animal studies in recent years failed miserably in human clinical trials.

Now, scientists are investigating a way to sidestep the myriad problems that plagued vaccine investigators in the past by choosing not to target a whole antigen. Instead, they say, it's time to home in on a critical "surface loop" as a vaccine target. The infinitesimal loop is located on the S. aureus antigen known as MntC.

The loop is an ideal target, scientists  say, because it has been shown to be essential for aiding survival in S. aureus by mitigating oxidative stress. By triggering vaccine-induced antibodies that zero in on that site, survival is impossible. As a vaccine target, the surface loop is known as an epitope.

Writing in Science Translational Medicine, researchers at institutions from throughout China report on the creation of a first-of-its-kind vaccine that has been tested in animal models based on a target pinpointed in samples from human clinical trials. The evolving strategy overcomes past obstacles and confers protection against drug-resistant S. aureus with a vaccine.

Xiaokai Zhang et al, An epitope vaccine derived by analyzing clinical trial samples safeguards hosts with prior exposure to S. aureus against reinfection, Science Translational Medicine (2025). DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.adr7464

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 5 hours ago

It's a tough job, but a crucial one because studies show that the roots of many diseases, including heart disease, cancer, and some psychiatric disorders, lie outside the well-understood, protein-coding regions of the genome.

Non-protein coding genes have key regulatory roles, turning certain genes on and off or altering their shape.

Do any of that at the wrong time, and things start to break down.

Scientists think that these RNAs act like software, orchestrating the protein 'hardware' into a functioning symphony.
Not junk at all.
You might have heard that you share 60% of your DNA with a banana.

It's not strictly speaking true, unfortunately, but there is a germ of truth there.

Humans and bananas (and everything else) all evolved from the same soup of bacteria and single-celled organisms about four billion years ago, and some of our DNA has been conserved over that time because it performs fundamental functions in our cells.

Studies have shown that about 10% of the human genome shows obvious conservation, but the rest is harder to pin down.

Scientists suspect that the remaining approximately 90% of the genome harbors many conserved RNA structures that are invisible to traditional approaches—hidden regulatory elements camouflaged in the genome.
Which is where the the newly developed AI—a tool called ECSFinder—comes in. It has been detailed in a paper in the journal Nucleic Acids Research.
Scientists trained the program on known RNA structures to detect secrets hidden in the genome. The program outperformed other available tools and is now ready to be unleashed on the entire genome.

They expect to uncover hundreds of thousands of new RNA structures, adding a new dimension to our understanding of the genome.

The holy grail of medicine right now is personalized therapy, treatments designed specifically for your individual illness.

One day, it's hoped, clinicians will be able to take a sample of your cancer's DNA, map its genome, then design ultra-specific drugs around its weaknesses, all within a few weeks.

And if the secrets of all gene-driven illnesses are hidden somewhere in the dark genome, learning how to read it is imperative.

Because RNA structures can be targeted by drugs, they present an exciting new frontier for therapies.

 Vanda Gaonac'h-Lovejoy et al, ECSFinder: optimized prediction of evolutionarily conserved RNA secondary structures from genome sequences, Nucleic Acids Research (2025). DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkaf780

Part 2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 5 hours ago

AI tool targets RNA structures to unravel secrets of the dark genome

We mapped the human genome decades ago, but most of it is still a black box. Now,  scientists have developed a tool to peer inside and what they find could reshape how we think about disease.

Your genome is the genetic map of you, and we understand almost none of it.
Our handle on the bits of the genome that tell the body how to do things ("make eyes blue," "build heart tissue," "give this person sickle cell anemia") is OK, but there are vast areas of the genome that don't appear to do anything.
Scientists long assumed this was just "junk" DNA, leftovers from the billions of years it took us to evolve from primordial soup into the complex life we know today. But it turns out we just didn't know what to look for, nor how to look for it.
Now, new tools developed by researchers are helping us understand just how important the dark genome really is.

Understanding that, scientists hope, will offer new avenues for drug discovery, and transform how we think about disease and even life itself.

Your genome is broken up into protein-coding genes (around 2%), and the rest.

Proteins are the little machines that do the actual work of running an organism;protein-coding genes are the instructions for those proteins.

The other 98% doesn't build proteins, it doesn't follow the same rules, and it's much harder to understand. It contains "long non-coding RNAs," the stuff that was long dismissed as junk.

Scientists are  trying to decode the logic circuitry of the human genome—the hidden rules that tell our DNA how to build and run a human being.

Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa yesterday

The AI breakthrough that uses almost no power to create images

From creating art and writing code to drafting emails and designing new drugs, generative AI tools are becoming increasingly indispensable for both business and personal use. As demand increases, they will require even more computing power, memory and, therefore, energy. That's got scientists looking for ways to reduce their energy consumption.

In a paper published in the journal Nature, researchers describe the development of an AI image generator that consumes almost no power.

AI image generators use a process called diffusion to generate images from text. First, they are trained on a large dataset of images and repeatedly add a statistical noise, a kind of digital static, until the image has disappeared.

Then, when you give AI a prompt such as "create an image of a house," it starts with a screen full of static and then reverses the process, gradually removing the noise until the image appears. If you want to perform large-scale tasks, such as creating hundreds of millions of images, this process is slow and energy intensive.

Shiqi Chen et al, Optical generative models, Nature (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-09446-5

Daniel Brunner, Machine-learning model generates images using light, Nature (2025). DOI: 10.1038/d41586-025-02523-9

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa yesterday

Placebo pain relief works differently across the human body

Researchers have used placebo pain relief to uncover a map-like system in the brainstem that controls pain differently depending on where it's felt in the body. The findings may pave the way for safer, more targeted treatments for chronic pain that don't rely on opioids.

Like a highway, the brainstem connects the brain to the spinal cord and manages all signals going to and from the brain. It produces and releases nearly all the neurochemicals needed for thinking, survival and sensing.

Published in Science, the study used 7-Tesla functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)—one of the most powerful brain scanners available—to pinpoint how two key brainstem regions manage pain through placebo effects. 

Researchers exposed 93 healthy participants to heat pain on different body parts and applied a placebo pain-relief cream while secretly lowering the temperature, conditioning them to believe the cream was alleviating their pain.

The temperature used was individually adjusted to be moderately painful as perceived by each participant. Researchers used a self-report scale, where 0 was no pain and 100 was the worst pain imaginable, and sought a temperature between 40 and 50 for each participant.

Later, the same pain stimulus was applied to the placebo-treated area as well as a separate untreated area for comparison. Up to 61% of participants still reported less pain in the area where the placebo cream was originally applied, typical of a true placebo response.

They  found that upper parts of the brainstem were more active when relieving facial pain, while lower regions were engaged for arm or leg pain.

Two key brainstem regions are involved in this process: the periaqueductal gray (PAG) and the rostral ventromedial medulla (RVM). These areas showed distinct patterns of activity depending on where pain relief was directed, with the upper parts of the PAG and RVM more active for facial pain, while lower parts were more active for arm or leg pain.

The brain has a built-in system to control pain in specific areas. It's not just turning pain off everywhere; but working in a highly coordinated, anatomically precise system.

Understanding which brainstem areas are linked to different parts of the body may open new avenues for developing non-invasive therapies that reduce pain without widespread side effects.

The study also challenges long-held assumptions about how placebo pain relief works. Instead of relying on the brain's opioid system, experts say a different part of the brainstem—the lateral PAG—is not only responsible but works without using opioids and could instead be linked to cannabinoid activity.

Opioid-based pain relief typically activates central areas of the brain and can affect the whole body, whereas the cannabinoid circuit that they identified now appears to operate in more targeted regions of the brainstem.

Knowing exactly where pain relief is happening in the brain means we can target that area or assess whether a drug is working in the right place.

Lewis S. Crawford et al, Somatotopic organization of brainstem analgesic circuitry, Science (2025). DOI: 10.1126/science.adu8846

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa yesterday

Inflammation may explain why women with no standard modifiable risk factors have heart attacks and strokes

Several people ask me this question: Why do people who lead very healthy lives get heart attacks and strokes?

Yes why?

Cardiologists have long known that up to half of all heart attacks and strokes occur among apparently healthy individuals who do not smoke and do not have high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or diabetes, the "standard modifiable risk factors" which doctors often call "SMuRFs."

How to identify risk among the "SMuRF-Less" has been an elusive goal in preventive cardiology, particularly in women who are often under-diagnosed and under-treated.

A new study now has found hsCRP—a marker of inflammation—can help identify women who are at risk but are missed by current screening algorithms.

Results were presented at a late-breaking clinical science session at the European Society of Cardiology Congress (ESC) and simultaneously published in The European Heart Journal.

Women who suffer from heart attacks and strokes yet have no standard modifiable risk factors are not identified by the risk equations doctors use in daily practice.

Yet the new data clearly shows that apparently healthy women who are inflamed are at substantial lifetime risk. Medical professionals should be identifying these women in their 40s, at a time when they can initiate preventive care, not wait for the disease to establish itself in their 70s when it is often too late to make a real difference.

As part of the study, researchers studied 12,530 initially healthy women with no standard modifiable risk factors who had the inflammatory biomarker hsCRP measured at study entry and who were then followed over 30 years.

Despite the lack of traditional risks, women who were inflamed as defined by hsCRP levels > 3 mg/L had a 77% increased lifetime risk of coronary heart disease, a 39% increased lifetime risk of stroke, and a 52% increased lifetime risk of any major cardiovascular event.

Additionally, researchers released a new analysis of randomized trial data showing that "SMuRF-Less but Inflamed" patients can reduce their risk of heart attack and stroke by 38% using statin therapy.

While those with inflammation should aggressively initiate lifestyle and behavioral preventive efforts, statin therapy could also play an important role in helping reduce risk among these individuals, say the researchers.

 Paul Ridker et al, C-Reactive Protein and Cardiovascular Risk Among Women with No Standard Modifiable Risk Factors: Evaluating The "SMuRF-Less but Inflamed", (2025). DOI: 10.1093/eurheartj/ehaf658

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa yesterday

 Microbes in soil may affect hormones tied to love, mental health and social bonds

Experts are exploring evidence that microbes in the soil and the environments around us can affect human microbiota and the "gut-brain axis," potentially shaping emotional states and relationship dynamics—including aspects of romantic love.

They outline the idea in a review article in mSystems proposing how the human gut microbiome might influence hormonal pathways involved in emotions commonly associated with love.

This is not claiming microbes 'cause' love or hatred. The aim is to map plausible biological routes, grounded in microbiology and endocrinology, that researchers can now evaluate with rigorous human studies.

The mini-review, "Does a microbial-endocrine interplay shape love-associated emotions in humans? A hypothesis," synthesizes evidence that microbes can modulate hormones and key neurotransmitters such as dopamine, serotonin and oxytocin.

The researchers are exploring how the evolutionary underpinnings of microbial-endocrine interactions could provide important insights into how microbes influence emotions beyond love, including hate and aggression.

If these pathways are confirmed, the findings could open avenues for microbiome-informed strategies to support mental health and relational well-being. For now, it provides a roadmap for careful, hypothesis-driven science.

Jake M. Robinson et al, Does a microbial-endocrine interplay shape love-associated emotions in humans? A hypothesis, mSystems (2025). DOI: 10.1128/msystems.00415-25

Xin Sun et al, Unforeseen high continental-scale soil microbiome homogenization in urban greenspaces, Nature Cities (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s44284-025-00294-y

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa yesterday

How pigments affect the weight of bird feathers

Birds are some of the most striking creatures on Earth, coming in a rainbow of colors that serve several important functions, such as attracting a mate and communicating with other birds. These vibrant hues are produced by pigments, primarily melanin, but a major unknown until now was how much these pigments weigh. Since wings need to be as light as possible for flight, understanding pigmentation weight may tell us something about the trade-off between the evolutionary benefits of colored feathers and the physical cost of carrying that weight.

In a new study published in the journal Biology Letters, scientists  have investigated how much melanin adds to the weight of feathers and the difference in weight between the two main chemical forms of melanin—eumelanin (responsible for brown and black colors) and pheomelanin (responsible for reds and lighter colors).

The researchers analyzed the feathers from 109 bird specimens across 19 different species, including the common kingfisher (Alcedo atthis), the golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos) and the Eurasian bullfinch (Pyrrhula pyrrhula). They examined feathers with mixed colors and those with single, pure colors, and used a chemical process involving sodium hydroxide or caustic soda, as it is more commonly known, to extract the pigments. Once extracted, they were weighed and compared to the original weight of the feathers.

According to the scientists, melanin pigments account for about 22% of a feather's total weight, and in the most pigmented feathers, this weight is no more than 25%. Additionally, the two types of pigments don't weigh the same. Eumelanin, which makes feathers black or brown, was significantly heavier than pheomelanin, which produces lighter colors.

The paper suggests that a bird has to expend more energy to carry the weight of certain feather colors, which could explain why birds have evolved such a wide variety of hues, as the scientists write in their paper. 

The researchers suggested that birds in cold climates, like snowy owls, didn't just evolve white feathers for camouflage. The lack of a heavy pigment would allow them to grow thicker, more insulating feathers without adding too much weight. Therefore, they can stay warm and still be able to fly. Additionally, migratory birds may have evolved lighter feathers to reduce the energy cost of flying long distances.

Ismael Galván et al, Pigment contribution to feather mass depends on melanin form and is restricted to approximately 25%, Biology Letters (2025). DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2025.0299

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa yesterday

Glow-in-the-dark succulents that recharge with sunlight could pave way to plant-based lighting systems

From mushrooms that cast a soft green glow to plankton that glimmers sparkling blue, glowing plants are nothing new to nature. Now, scientists are bringing that light to houseplants.

Reporting in the journal Matter, researchers crafted glow-in-the-dark succulents that recharge in sunlight. Injected with light-emitting compounds, the plants can shine in various colors and rival a small night light at their brightest. The simple, low-cost method may help lay the foundation for sustainable, plant-based lighting systems.

Researchers used afterglow phosphor particles—materials similar to those found in glow-in-the-dark toys. These compounds absorb light and release it slowly over time.

For the particles to travel through leaf tissues, the researchers had to get the size just right: around 7 micrometers, roughly the width of a red blood cell.

Smaller, nano-sized particles move easily within the plant but are dimmer. Larger particles glowed brighter but couldn't travel far inside the plant.

The team then injected the particles into several plant species, including succulents and non-succulents like golden pothos and bok choy. But only the succulents produced a strong glow, thanks to the narrow, uniform, and evenly distributed channels within the leaf that helped to disperse the particles more effectively. After a couple of minutes of exposure to sunlight or indoor LED light, the modified plants glowed for up to two hours.

The particles diffused in just seconds, and the entire succulent leaf glowed.

By using different types of phosphors, the researchers created plants that shine in various colors, including green, red, and blue. They even built a glowing plant wall with 56 succulents, bright enough to illuminate nearby objects and read texts.

Each plant takes about 10 minutes to prepare.

The glowing succulents' light fades over time, and the team is still studying the long-term safety of the materials for the plants.

Sunlight-powered multicolor and uniform luminescence in material-engineered living plants, Matter (2025). DOI: 10.1016/j.matt.2025.102370

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