Category Archives: Medical news

  Home Cognibrain  /  MEDSIGHTS  /  Medical news
Gene Therapy for Genetic Male Infertility
Categories Medical news

New Molecular Technique to Overcome the Genetic Male Infertility

Author krishna kumar 0 Comments Posted on

Male infertility refers to inability of a man to cause pregnancy in a fertile woman. Though there are many causes for this infertility such as low sperm count, and hormonal imbalances, but common cause of this infertility in man lies in genetic defects.

Generally X and Y chromosomes are responsible for the sex determination. It is well known that combination of two X chromosomes (XX) results in baby girl, and combination of one X and one Y chromosomes (XY) results in baby boy. Observations from several investigations reported that one in 500 men will possess an extra X or Y chromosome, and this extra chromosome will interrupt the formation of mature and active spermatozoa and this condition is referred to Klinefelter syndrome (XXY) or double Y syndrome (XYY).

Considering the research work published in the journal Science, researchers at Francis Crick Institute in London, in collaboration with the University of Kyoto (Japan) has developed a new technique and experimented in mice.

In this study, researchers collected small tissue fragments from the XXY and XYY mice and developed fibroblasts which then converted to stem cells, and in the process of conversion, some of stem cells lost the extra sex chromosome. In the laboratory chemical signals were employed to convert these new stem cells to mature spermatozoa, and created mouse pups through assisted reproduction. This technique is at preliminary stage, but offers a potential approach to overcome genetic cause of male infertility.

Anti-Lipidemic Drug
Categories Medical news

Anti-Lipidemic Drug Have Potential to Halt Infectious Diseases

Author krishna kumar 0 Comments Posted on

For researchers, there is a great interest in identifying new therapeutic applications for the existing class of drugs, now, Duke Scientists choose Statins, cholesterol lowering drugs.

Article from Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, gave a new insight for Dennis C. Ko (assistant professor of molecular genetics and microbiology at Duke University School of Medicine) to understand the mechanisms that govern human susceptibility for various infectious diseases, particularly Salmonella bacteria, that uses cholesterol of cell membranes to infect host cells.

As a first step, Ko and his team conducted studies on human cell lines by exposing them to green fluorescent tagged Salmonella typhi and observed differences in bacterial invasion rates between cell lines. Researches had already found that a single nucleotide of DNA in VAC14 gene is associated with bacterial invasions.

By knocking out this VAC14 gene, researchers observed an equal rate of bacterial invasion. Unexpectedly, they also observed that a higher rate of invasion was associated in the cell lines with high cholesterol levels.

Considering the cholesterol levels, Monica Alvarez, researcher at Ko lab, run an experiment on zebra-fish by adding cholesterol lowering drug (Ezetimibe or Zetia) to the waters and injected the fish with Salmonella typhi. She found that fishes in drug treated water are very less susceptible for infection compared to the non-treated.

Considering this mechanism, Ko said that, identifying such new therapeutic applications for the existing class of drugs will lead us to a step ahead in research.

Gene Critical To Pancreatic Cancer Cell Growth Identified
Categories Medical news

Gene Critical To Pancreatic Cancer Cell Growth Identified

Author krishna kumar 0 Comments Posted on

Pancreatic cancer is a deadly disease with too little options of effective treatment so far. But the study conducted at Yale Cancer Centre has identified a gene critical to the growth of pancreatic cancer cells, revealing new options in its field of treatment.

Cancer cells require specific nutrients to survive and divide quickly. This property of cancer cells has been utilized in this study conducted by Narendra Wajapayee, associate professor of pathology, and his team. They searched the sets of genes involved in metabolism regulation in pancreatic cancer tissue. Out of the 13 metabolic genes identified, they narrowed their search to four genes, which when blocked reduced the growth of pancreatic cancer cells.

Further studies depicted one particular gene, PON2 that was required for the growth of pancreatic tumours and their spread to other organs like liver and lungs. The gene PON2 was found to increase the ability of pancreatic cancer cells to use glucose for their survival and migration to other parts of the body.
On the basis of this study, Wajapayee and his team are further working to develop inhibitors for blocking the gene PON2 and thus inhibit the growth of pancreatic cancer.

New Ultrafast Antibiotic Resistance Test developed
Categories Medical news

New Ultrafast Antibiotic Resistance Test developed

Author krishna kumar 0 Comments Posted on

Antibiotic resistance is a growing health concern owing to the incorrect use of antibiotics for treatment. The problem can only be counteracted by reliable, quick, and easy methods for determination of bacterial resistance patterns and providing the right antibiotic from the beginning. But the current methods take too long to determine the antibiotic resistance.

Therefore, researchers at Uppsala University have developed a test to rapidly determine the resistance or susceptibility of bacteria to antibiotics. The test initially determined for urinary tract infections enables the patients to take home the right antibiotic right after the first appointment with the doctor.
“The new method allows determination of bacterial resistance patterns in urinary tract infections in 10 to 30 minutes as compared to the current methods that require one to two days,” says Ph.D. student Ozden Baltekin, who performed most of the experimental work.

This method is based on sensitive optical and analytical techniques to study the behaviour of individual bacteria. Monitoring whether individual bacteria grow in the presence or absence of antibiotics reveals their resistance or susceptibility within few minutes.

“Astrego Diagnostics AB is now developing this method into a user-friendly product that could be used in the hospitals and health centres for rapid determination of antibiotic resistance and reduce unnecessary use of antibiotics,” says Dan Andersson, one of the researchers behind this study. He further believes in the utility of the method for other infections like blood where the correct and prompt choice of antibiotic is more crucial for the patient.

high fat diet diminish the neural activity
Categories Medical news

Localized Inflammation in the Brain Linked To Overeating and Weight Gain

Author krishna kumar 0 Comments Posted on

Researchers from the University of California, San Francisco and University of Washington Medical Center have shown that consumption of a fat-rich diet increases the number of brain immune cells called microglia which triggers a local inflammation within the mediobasal hypothalamus (MBH) and causes an individual to eat more food, burn fewer calories, and gain more weight.

A series of experiments were conducted on two groups of mice. One group was fed a fat-rich diet for four weeks and the other with a healthier low-fat diet. Comparing the results, the group that was fed with fat-rich diet consumed more food, burnt fewer calories and exhibited substantial weight gain.

The researchers further gave the mice on a fatty diet an experimental drug called PLX5622 which depleted the number of microglia in the mice. These mice ate 15 percent less appetite and gained 20 percent less weight than untreated mice on the same diet.

The results were confirmed by giving microglial inflammation activating drug to the mice fed with healthy, low-fat diet. This resulted in the mice eating 33 percent more food, burning 12 percent less energy and 400 percent increase in weight gain.

“It can be confidently concluded that the inflammatory activation of microglia is sufficient to alter the regulation of energy balance in the hypothalamus, leading to overeating and weight gain,” said Joshua Thaler, associate professor of medicine at the UW Medicine Diabetes Institute and senior co-author of the study.

1 2 3 4 5 … 10