The Biology Blogger

In the intestines, there lurk these bacteria that aid in the digestion of different foods. In essence, they are a particular type of bacteria that is in a mutualistic relationship. Called commensals, there are typically anywhere from 300-500 of these bacteria in the intestines. The interesting thing is that despite the fact that they are bacteria, the immune system does not attack them. They live in our intestines and aid in a health digestive tract which seems almost contradictory because of the word bacteria going with them.

But, what a team of scientists have found is that these commensals do a lot more than just aid in the health of the digestive tract. Because the immune system has to deal with all different types of bacteria, it can have a hard time determining the difference between a commensal and an actual pathogen. In certain autoimmune diseases such as Crohn’s, the immune system attacks these commensal bacteria. So, how is it that the immune system knows typically not to attack the commensal bacteria?

By means of a certain interaction between the commensal bacteria and particular T-cells in the intestines, these commensals are able to stay alive. By binding with the receptor called Toll-like receptors (TLR), the commensal bacteria are given a means of survival. But, this doesn’t explain how they are able to help the immune system in fighting against pathogens.

The answer is in the immune cells called Tregs. They recognize the commensal bacteria and by recognizing them, help the immune system direct their attention to harmful pathogens. But, because of the existence of these Tregs, the other T-cells are kept at bay which is, in essence, a ‘weaker’ immune system. When a pathogen comes along, though, the DNA of these bacteria binds with TLR9, a receptor on the immune cells. By this occuring, Tregs are kept limited and other T-cells can come into being.

Since this happens, the T-cells can then go and attack the pathogen. But, because the commensal’s ‘aided’ in the attack, the T-cells don’t attack them; instead, they focus on the pathogens. It’s like the saying: ‘my enemies enemy is my ally.’

This leaves a lot of opportunities for certain therapies in oral and autoimmune diseases. But, the real question I have is: are we going to begin leaving antibiotics and perhaps using bacteria against themselves? It would be interesting to see what other kind of therapies can come from the research gained from this experiment.

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What happens when you have a really great medication to try and treat spinal chord and brain injuries, but you can’t get it to the part of the body? You are left with a medication that can’t be used and injuries that go untreated. But, what happens when you pull in a growing field of chemistry (that happens to be my chemistry professor’s interest) and throw it into the medical field?

You wind up with a mix of medicine and nanotechnology that results in the possibility to treat brain and spinal chord injuries. Researchers, led by Richard Borgen at Purdue University, developed a method of treatment which allows for the transport of medications to the brain and spinal chord by using silica nanoparticles.

Previous to studying the use of nanoparticles on medication transfer, Borgen and his team studied the effects of polyethylene glycol (PEG). What the team found was that PEG helped to treat rats with brain damage and dogs with spinal chord injuries. The way that PEG works is that it targets the damaged cells and seals the area that is injured. According to Borgen, it also restores cell function.

But, what Borgen and his team found was that if you dilute it too much, you can turn it into ethylene glycol which is found in antifreeze. That’s toxic. And, if they didn’t dilute it enough, it turned into a very viscous liquid which is hard for injections. So, despite the fact that the team found the great benefits of PEG, they were unable to use it to the max degree.

But, they found that if they coated silica nanoparticles with PEG, they could transport it right to the part of the body that needed repairing. Because nanoparticles are so tiny (some as small as a large virus), the ability to inject as many as they need became a real possibility. There are tiny holes in the nanoparticles that, when they have reached their destination, release the medicine.

I don’t know much about nanotechnology other than the fact that the things they are dealing with are incredibly tiny. But, I have always held the opinion that the trick to curing problems is not the big route, but the tiny route. By coating these nanoparticles, they are making it so that they can send as much medicine to the problem as they need to.

Do I think this is good research? Yes. But, the big argument I can see being presented is: how much would all these nanoparticles cost? Is there a considerable cost to producing nanoparticles? Weighing the pluses and minuses will definitely happen.

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For some time now, scientists knew that tiny snippets of RNA called “microRNA” were found in the body and aided the DNA in creating much needed proteins.  But, as scientists researched this microRNA, they found that it was located only in certain places: the cardiovascular system.  What this suggested to scientists was that microRNA was directly connected to the cardiovascular system and more importantly, its development.

To study this, scientists took miR-126.  The reason they chose this is because miR-126 is only found in endothelial cells.  Endothelial cells line the inside of blood vessels and are responsible for so many different things: the development of new blood vessels in embryos, the repair of injured blood vessels, and the creation of blood vessels to support growing tumors.  That last part is what is most interesting.

Scientists found when studying mice that when they removed miR-126 from the mice, 40% died almost immediately after birth or even before birth.  They found that the remaining that did make it to adulthood were able to live fine as if nothing had happened.  But, when scientists simulated a heartattack, those that lacked the miR-126 were unable to survive which suggests that miR-126 is only necessary for development and then when there is severe damage done to the blood vessels.

Another study that they conducted was on aortial cut sections.  They wanted to study the branching of blood vessels that occured when there was and was not miR-126 in the tissue.  Scientists found that when there was, branching occured regularly.  But, when there was no miR-126, branching did not take place nearly as much as when there was miR-126.

What this suggests is a lot of potential therapies for those that have heart problems.  By being able to manipulate miR-126 and numerous other microRNAs, scientists might be able to stop certain cancers from coming as well.  As I stated earlier in the article, endothelial cells are responsible for creating new blood vessels to tumors.  Well, if you get rid of miR-126, endothelial cells which line the inside of those blood vessels won’t exist and the vessel, therefore, won’t be able to supply blood to the tumor.  No blood, no tumor.

What do you think, though?  Do you think that this is a new, great way of potentially treating cancer or do you think it’ll last for a week and then something new and greater will come along?  Leave a comment letting us know!

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A lesson to be reminded of is that biology comes hand in hand with behavior.  Biology influences behavior, and behavior also can influence a person’s biology.  This is an important facet in the mental health world.  It is without a doubt that there is a biological perspective on most mental disorders; which is why so many have the impulse to treat such disorders with medication.  At times, breakthroughs in the mental health world have to do with “backwards science;” realizing the biology of a disorder AFTER a drug is administered due to the effects of the drug.  However, there are also breakthroughs in how to treat a mental disorder due to the discovery of a biological nature.  This happened to be the case in which Rainer K. Reinscheid1 and his associates from the University of California Irvine found exciting implementations of Neuropeptide S.

Neuropeptide S (NPS) is a transmitter that has been recently identified in 2002.  Its main function in the brain is to modulate arousal and anxiety.  Therefore, a person’s experience of any sort of stimulus that may cause them to experience a sense of panic or fear is regulated by this neuropeptide.  What the researchers found was the expression of NPS in the amygdala at a high level.  This allowed them to draw the conclusion that NPS plays a role in emotional behavior.

When NPS is given to rats while they are experiencing anxiety-like behavior, it was found that it can have effects that seem to relieve the anxiety.

NPS increases the time mice spend exploring the less protected or brighter areas of their test environments (e.g., open field, light-dark box, elevated plus maze). On the other hand, NPS administration reduces the time mice spend burying unfamiliar objects (i.e., marbles), demonstrating an overall anxiolytic profile for the peptide.

The implications of this research are promising.  Drugs that modulate the function of this neuropeptide can be applicable for a variety of disorders, even insomnia.  Panic attacks and post traumatic stress disorder, in which the brain is actually biologically changed as a result of some stimulus, could be examples of where this treatment can be used.  It is not so much that it is a memory eraser of any fear producing event, but rather a mechanism for regulating your arousal states in those conditions in which you view traumatic.

Sources: PychCentral, Reinscheid et al. (2005)

Barbara is a recent graduate with a BA in Social Work and Psychology.  She runs her own blog called The You Movement.

For so long, it was believed that brain cells and nerves did not ever regenerate.  If you damaged a nerve, that nerve was forever destroyed.  If you had brain damage, whatever cells were damaged were gone for good.  This was definitely a frustrating thing for so long until stem cells came along.  The hope was that by using these stem cells, they could recreate brain cells and thus help cure diseases such as Parkinsons as well as those that had brain damage.

What scientists found was even more exciting recently.  They found a different place where adult stem cells originate in the brain.  What they found was that these dormant cells could, if stimulated and activated, actually begin to make new brain cells.  That’s exciting news because patients who have Parkinsons could get these cells activated and thus get brain cells back that were otherwise lost for good.

The brain is made up of these hollow ventricles.  And, lining these ventricles are cells called ependymal.  Some scientists believe that trying to target these ependymal cells is too difficult, but others believe that each ependymal cell is actually its own stem cell.  These cells lay dormant, but with a little activation, they would start replicating and that is where a person could get new cells.  But, is it really possible?  Scientists are not sure yet, but they are excited.  The only other therapy is implantation.  These are your OWN cells…That could lead to great things.

So…What do you think?  Do you see this working or do you think that scientists are just getting way too excited?

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Epilepsy is a neurological disorder that can be characterized by repeat, unprovoked seizures.  It is a common disorder with over 50,000 people having it at one point or another.  Unfortunately, it can not be cured and therefore, must be treated with a constant use of different medications.  One of those medications is topiramate.  Topiramate is an epilepsy drug that doubles as a migraine medication.  What scientists found, though, disturbed them.

A study was conducted on women who got pregnant while on topiramate both on its own or along with another drug.  What they found was incredibly upsetting.  Out of 178 babies born, 16 of them had severe birth defects.  Three of these babies came from mothers who only took topiramate.  The other thirteen came from mothers who took topiramate and other epilepsy drugs.  Four babies had cleft lips in this study which was eleven times more than what normally would happen.  And four of the boys had genital birth defects.

Researchers, though, understand that they need to do more research to really determine just how horrible the effects of topiramate are on babies.  Furthermore, since topiramate is used for both epilepsy and migraines, the question that pops into their heads is whether there is a difference in birth defects if it is used for migraine purposes rather than for epilepsy purposes.  Regardless, if it is causing these birth defects, researchers need to get more information so it can be taken off the market.

If a drug causes harm such as this, it needs to be removed from the market.  We need to stop letting these pharmaceutical companies put out these harmful drugs just because their bottom lines are important.  If this drug does do harm, it needs to be removed from the market.  But, what do you think?  Looking at the results, do you think that it was some freak accident or do you think that topiramate really is causing this?  Regardless of what you feel, I do think that more research should be done on a larger scale.  Rather than under 200 woman, try one thousand or even more.  If there is a bigger study group, the results will be better.

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When we get a cold, we are sick for a few days and then, over time, we get better.  The virus runs its course and the body finally beats it.  Even if we get the flu, the same thing happens.  For so long, there was this back and forth struggle between humans and viruses to see who was the dominant.  The virus would evolve thus forcing the human to evolve thus forcing the virus to evolve and it was a continuous struggle back and forth for thousands of years.  Now, though, scientists seem to have found a protein that originated millenia ago.

Called APOBEC3G, this protein is effective in changing the DNA around on a virus thus making it inactive.  But, before they knew about the APOBEC3G, the researchers used a virus called HERV-K to see just what it could do to modern day cells.  See, it’s a retrovirus that had not been around for a long time.  What the scientists found was that numerous different immune response molecules were released to try and destroy the virus.  What they found, though, was the release of APOBEC3G had its lasting effect, even today, on the old virus.

What does this mean, though?  It means that we have held on to some of the things that evolved with us even after so many thousands of years.  It can be assumed then that because of our war with viruses thousands of years ago, we are now stronger and more capable of going against them these days.  Although that is not always the case, it is interesting to see these molecules pop up that were not always there and then appeared and now are there permanately.

This is exciting because it is a first hand experience of, as the researcher put it, the battle between host and virus.  Who will win, though?  The battle continues to wage…One day the virus is stronger and then suddenly, the human evolves a bit and changes and adapts, thus making him/her immune to the virus.  And back and forth.  It is interesting to see the very definite appearance of a molecule that was used so long ago still being used today.  I wonder what else they may find when testing viruses vs. human cells.

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I seem to be doing a lot of environmental posts recently, but it is definitely something I am passionate about so I guess it makes sense for me to write about it.  A recent study conducted by scientists suggests there is a way for us to cut back on CO2 in the atmosphere by adding lime to sea water.  Before you get excited, I don’t mean lime as in the fruit you may cut up and put in a Corona.  I mean lime as in calcium oxide (CaO).  Scientists have found that when you add CaO to water, it increases the alkalinity which allows the water to increase its CO2 in take. But not only can the water take in more CO2, it also releases a lot less because of the increased alkalinity.

The downfall, though, for some time was how to get the CaO in high levels.  It was argued for some time that it was too expensive to get that much limestone (where CaO comes from) and that the amount of CO2 that is released into the air from the process was too much to bother trying.  However, scientists now have the hope that if they do use this technique, it could help get rid of double the amount of CO2 that it takes to make the CaO; therefore, it’s a negative CO2 release.

In essence, if 1G of CO2 is released because of the extraction of limestone, then that lime that is used in the water will remove 2G of CO2 from the atmosphere, thus removing a total of 1G from the atmosphere after the release of the limestone.  In other words…It’s good!  Already the ocean absorbs 2bn tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere.  Just imagine if a lot of lime was added and just a few percent was increased in the amount of absorbtion in the ocean.  Imagine how much CO2 could be removed from the atmosphere.

This idea really is a fantastic one and one that I support completely.  If scientists can remove the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, it can definitely decrease global warming which is incredibly important.  Using nature to try and clean up the world is a great technique, but it can be very costly.  I see this as being a very good way of cleaning up the atmosphere.  Add in Gore’s plan to decrease our carbon-foot print and we can definitely have a very clean environment.  What do you think?  A good idea.

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Scientists from Canada and Europe have recently come across some findings that are incredibly interesting and, more importantly, very important to women.  What scientists found was one of the genes responsible for the regulation of ovulation.  In essence, this gene is required for the woman to ovulate.  Without it, the woman won’t ovulate and the rest is history.  Called the Lrh1 gene, this gene has become a very interesting source of information for the scientists.

What they did was took a mouse and genetically modified it so that the Lrh1 gene was turned off.  What they found was that this mouse, when her gene was turned off, did not ovulate.  In essence, no matter what reproduction happened, there would be no egg there to fertilize.  The reason this finding is so interesting is because of the pharmaceutical reasons.  There is a lot of money to be made in the ability to turn off the Lrh1 gene.

But more importantly and my reason for finding it so interesting is its contraceptive methods.  Current contraceptive plays around with the hormones, making the body believe its pregnant.  However, it’s not full proof.  If you are able to turn off the gene that causes ovulation, you won’t release an egg.  Without an egg, there’s no fertilization.  Without fertilization, there’s no baby.

Fortunately, there’s more than just the contraceptive behind it.  While scientists can synthesize a drug that can be used to prevent pregnancy, they can go the other way as well and create a therapy that will make the gene work again.  By doing that, women that were, at one time, infertile because they could not ovulate can suddenly ovulate all over again.  This will make women couldn’t have babies suddenly get that miracle of life.

I love science, but sometimes, something comes along that is just really nice to know.  There are few side effects, scientists hope, from turning off the hormone so the contraceptive side of things is great.  And, add the fact that they might be able to create a therapy to increase the chances of a woman getting pregnant and you really find that these findings are really quite interesting.  What do you think, though?  Is it a good idea or a bad idea to play around with this gene?

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On Thursday, Al Gore stepped before a group of people and made the argument that we, as a nation, need to be carbon-free in ten years.  He said that this was possible and that if we wanted it enough, we could have it.  We put a man on the moon less than a decade after John F. Kennedy said he wanted to see that happen.  Yet, this is causing an uproar amongst different political groups and it interests me.  But, aside from politics, what’s the biology behind it and can it really work?

To really understand if it can or cannot work, we need to step in and observe the details of what Al Gore was talking about.  He mentioned three things to try and eliminate our carbon usage.  The first was solar power, the second was geothermal energy, and the third was wind power.  All three are great, but which one is the greatest?  Well…Let’s first glance at what they do.

Solar:

By using the power of the sun, we can take the energy and convert it into electricity.  It’s great because it is free energy without any output.  The sun hits the Earth anyways so we might as well use it.  The downfall I see is that if it’s a cloudy or rainy day, you don’t get any energy.  Sure, you get a little bit, but not nearly as much as you would with a sunny day.  This requires batteries to be charged in case of this.

Geothermal

This is using the heat from the Earth.  Simply put, the heat deep in the Earth is collected and then it is used to turn a turbine which therefore generates electricity.  The downfall is you have to dig to get to the heat.  It can expensive digging quite so much and more importantly, where do you put it?  How much land would be required to have a very efficient plant?

Wind Power

If it’s a windy day, it’s perfect to use.  The wind turns the turbines and this provides electricity.  It’s great; however, scientists have found that it can disrupt bird navigation patterns.  So, while we get our electricity, we’re also being forced to disrupt nature which can have catastrophic responses.

So…Which one is the best one to use?  Personally, I feel that we should use solar.  Solar is a great thing and it doesn’t require huge fields like wind power.  People can get rebates, buy the solar panels, put them on their roof or in their back yard and only use the electricity that they need.  And, if they have more, they can sell it back to the electric companies.

Unfortunately, this is not happening as much as it should.  I am a firm believer in trying to eliminate our carbon footprint.  I would love if we could get electricity without having to use coal or anything like that.  But, who is going to pay it?  T. Boone Pickens is working on a huge wind farm, but is it going to work?

If we try and actually work on effectively getting off carbon, I think we can.  But it’s not going to be pure government funded.  Sure, the government needs to help and I agree with Al Gore.  Private markets need to get involved as well like Pickens is doing.  The more that the private sector gets involved, the faster it’ll happen.  I’d put solar panels on my house if I owned a house.

What do you think?  Leave a comment telling which of the three you think is the best for us to use.  Solar, Wind, Geothermal; which is the best?  And…Do you think Al Gore is right?  Can we get off of carbon for good?