You Won't Believe What Happened in Biology This Week
By: Erin Heim
1. You’re a unique individual, a special snowflake even. Now each of your cells can be too! Scientists have found a way to put a barcode on the genes in your cells, so that the profile of each cell can be read individually without needing single-cell technology. WOW! Now that pesky tumor can be studied cell-by-cell instead of assuming all of the cells in that tumor are the same. Source.
Wow look at all of those individuals in that crowd!
2. Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is currently used to treat some neurological issues such as Parkinson's disease, addiction, and OCD, but the brain gets a huge electrical shock for only temporary results - OUCH! Scientists have combined this technique with another drug that is used for transiently treating addiction and have found it leads to long term results. You read that right - mice have been completely cured of their cocaine addictions! Both DBS and the drug treatment are FDA approved individually, so this could actually be tested in humans pretty soon. Hopefully it can cure my Netflix addiction! Source.
Not anymore with just a little electricity and some drugs!
3. Sometimes proteins don’t do what they’re supposed to do. Sometimes these proteins build up, forming aggregates. Then these proteins in their big, bad aggregated form cause Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, and Huntington’s. Bad proteins! What can we do to stop this?! Who will save us?! BACTERIA MAN! Scientists have found a protein in bacteria that inhibits bacterial protein aggregation and found it also does this for a human protein that tends to aggregate! Bacteria can save us all! Ok maybe not yet, there’s still a lot of work to be done, but it’s a start. Source.
BACTERIA MAN!!!
4. Inflammatory bowel disease and Crohn’s disease are a pain in the butt. No one really knows the why and how, but there’s speculation it may have to do with the microbiome. Everyone’s been going on and on about bacteria (cough, see above), but now it seems like we have a new player to worry about. The gut virome (the viruses that make up the microbiome) is different in people with bowel diseases compared to healthy patients. And these differences are disease specific! So we not only have to worry about the pain in our rear, we have to worry about the bacteria in our rear, and the viruses that associate with those bacteria. Crohn’s, bacteria, and viruses, oh my! Source.
Thanks microbiome, thanks.
5. You know how when The Hunger Games came out, everyone decided they needed to get fit ASAP otherwise they’d be killed off by the capitol? Well that happens to cells in flies. Scientists have identified a gene in flies (called azot ) that goes around killing off all of the unfit cells. When azot expression goes up, lifespan and tissue health increase. When a zot expression goes down, tissues degenerate. Basically for this gene, the pros are happy, efficient, smooth running tissues that are less likely to form tumors and degenerate. But the cons – the fit cells can’t volunteer to be killed off for their weak siblings, so we can’t make a movie out of it. Source.
Azot says "No you don't, sit down."
6. Ever wonder why you’re so frigging hungry all the time, other than boredom, food addiction, and using food as an excuse to take a 4 hour lunch break during work? Well, scientists have found a group of neurons in the hypothalamus that are directly involved with appetitive behaviors. When the scientists stimulated these neurons in mice, the mice acted like me at all-you-can-eat sushi. When these neurons were inhibited, the mice act like I do for the 24-hour period following all-you-can-eat sushi. Even cooler is that they used calcium-based microscopy to see that different neurons are required for the desire for food, the consumption of food, and the lack of consumption for food. They could actually see different individual neurons light up as these three different behaviors occurred. So, your desire for food and the actual eating of the food – not related. Source.
Luckily, that's unrelated to the actual eating part!
7. Ok, I’m going there. It’s controversy time! Today’s subject: GMOs. Now, I don’t want to get into the debate on good vs bad, hippies vs Monsanto, etc, but this week has provided a great way to span this divide. One worry with GMOs is that they’ll proliferate beyond their desired boundaries due to insufficient biocontainment methods. Scientists are starting to find ways to stop this. Using protein engineering methods, scientists have modified a GMO to require non-standard amino acids for survival. What that means is that humans HAVE to provide this nutrient in order for the organism to survive - it literally cannot survive without this externally provided amino acid - thus preventing it from spreading anywhere the person does not want it to. We’ve outsmarted evolution by making GMOs into …. GMOs! Source.
Solving problems.
8. Everything causes cancer these days. Seriously. Everything. Did you know that even itty-bitty stretches of RNA (microRNA) can cause cancer? Well they can. Scientists have been trying to target these guys to degrade them and stop the cancer, but have thus far been unsuccessful in turning it into a possible therapeutic. UNTIL NOW! A collaboration of scientists have found this cool way of tricking cells into uptaking microRNA blockers (antimiRs) using the cells’ own normal functions. The protein they use essentially flips the antimiRs right into the cell (adorably called pHLIP proteins). The coolest part is that antimiRs are relatively easy to make and thus easy to target different types of tumors! WOAH. Source.
What I picture the proteins doing.
9. Guys! Get this! Metformin, the diabetes drug, can cure cancer. That is all.
Ok, not exactly, but there is now some evidence that it helps some cells in the immune system do their job better when combating tumors. Pretty sweet. Source.
And I may have fewer tumors than you, too!
