Mitochondria are the energy-making machines in the cell. Also, since evolutionarily they are thought to evolve from symbiotic bacteria, they have their own little genomes, which are mainly evolved through the maternal side, and also maybe because of their important function, mutations in genes affecting them are very damaging, and even lethal. However, mitochondrial DNA […]
The close interconnection between the gut and the central nervous system is already well described, what is new is the possibility of some of the brain’s defense systems originating in the gut. New research in mice published in the journal Nature found that immune cells are first trained in the gut and then migrate to […]
Loss of gene function is a common occurrence in evolution that is usually associated with loss of fitness. However, it seems that as many say: “where there’s a problem, there is an opportunity“, for as researchers from Leuven University led by Rob Jelier have recently reported , gene loss was found to drive adaptation. To […]
Going through a break up is kind of traumatic. We all have felt it sometime, not only your heart is broken but your brain feels like out of sync and incapable of proper functioning. Well, this is not just an impression, new research has found there is a relationship between a broken heart and a […]
Parkinson’s disease is characterized by neuronal loss in the brain’s substantia nigra region. What if another cell type, namely, astrocytes, could replace them? The work of two research groups recently published Zhou, H. et al. Cell 181, 590–603.e16 (2020). shows that, at least in mice, transforming astrocytes (a non-neuronal cell type in the brain) into […]
A chimera was a mythological animal in the Antique Greece, but now a biological chimera is an animal with cells from different organisms. In recently published research in Science Advances , researchers show the result of the newest trial to introduce human cells into a mouse embryo. The last human mouse chimera. This was not […]
Like intelligence, height is genetically determined, however there are thousands of genes implicated in height determination. That is why the finding by researchers from Harvard Medical School of a gene variant responsible for shortening the average height of Peruvians in about 2.2 centimetres is so interesting. There are other rare gene variants known that cause […]
How can we experience a sensation that is not real? How to mimic a sensory stimulus in its absence? How to smell a smell when there is none there? By activating certain neurons, it seems. A group of researchers at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine have recently published an article in Science […]
We all know some of the symptoms of sleep deprivation: bad mood, tiredness…but when bad comes to worst, this lack of sleep can even lead to death. A recently published article by neuroscientists at Harvard Medicine School have shown, in flies, that lack of sleep might be killing from the gut. Because flies share many […]
Amyloid plaques are a hallmark of some neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s. Even though the exact role of amyloid protein in the disease is not clear, being able to follow amyloid protein misfolding and plaque formation could be a step forward for the study of the disease. Now, Matthew Lew’s lab has developed a […]