Neutral evolution has helped shape our genome
...hromosomes. While chimps have a comparable number, mice and rats only have around 600 numts. Since they increase in frequency as species advance, it suggested there was some evolutionary purpose to keeping them around. Strikingly, however, none of these numts contained the blueprint (an actual gene) to...A gene that protects from kidney disease
... opening up novel ways to treat the disease. Our mice show striking similarities with NPHP patients, say...heir lives their kidney cells start to die and the mice develop all the characteristic disease symptoms. It is the first time that a mouse model reveals inc...Specific type of cell death may accelerate decompensated heart failure
...Dr. Hill and his colleagues genetically engineered mice in which the autophagic response was either muted ...the role of autophagy by inducing heart failure in mice with the varying autophagic responses. Mice with amplification of autophagy fared worse in terms ...Tracing Parkinson's lethal mechanism
...ey say suggests a new treatment pathway. In both mice and human patients, the researchers have found evi...e, they found that activating Prx2 in MPTP-treated mice prevented the loss of dopamine-producing neurons. And they experimentally demonstrated that the acti...Common environmental chemicals in diet affect fetal ovarian development
...s of single compounds, and have usually done so in mice and rats. Dr. Fowler and his colleagues decided to study the effect of long-term, low-level exposure to a cocktail of chemicals and heavy metals in an animal which has a long pregnancy, therefore better replicating the situation in the human. Our ......, producing a lethal by-stander effect. In nude mice animals with an inhibited immune system engrafte...up to 68.5 percent in the animals, and none of the mice exhibited any signs of toxic side effects. However, none of the animals remained tumor-free. The p...News tips from the Journal of Neuroscience
... tolerance and vasoprotection. LPS did not protect mice lacking iNOS or nox2. Likewise, protection was reversed by FeTPPS [5,10,15, 20-tetrakis(4 sulfonatophenyl)porphyrinato iron (III)], which catalyzes peroxynitrite breakdown. Thus, vasoprotection appears to be an important component of ischemic precond...Faulty cell membrane repair causes heart disease
...opathy in mice. Furthermore, heart damage in these mice is exaggerated by vigorous exercise or by inherent...eurology. The UI team initially found that young mice that lacked dysferlin showed no heart damage, which is consistent with what is seen in humans with d...American Chemical Society's Weekly PressPac -- June 27/July 3, 2007
...sion. Their research involved imaging laboratory mice with LOIS before and after an injection of gold nanorods, minute rod-shaped clusters of gold atoms that are being evaluated by other scientists for uses ranging from carriers for cancer-treatment drugs to digital data storage. Very low concentrations...Manganese levels increase in scrapie-infected sheep before clinical symptoms develop
.... The research builds on the 2002 discovery that mice infected with scrapie have higher levels of manganese. This is the first time that tissue from farm animals infected with prion diseases have been studied in this way. One of the most interesting findings from this study came from the analysis of b...JCI Table of Contents -- July 2, 2007
...opment of skin cancer. They show that D6-deficient mice are acutely sensitive to SCC formation and that D6...cient mice. Cardiac damage was even more severe in mice bred by crossing dysferlin-deficient and dystrophin-deficient mice. Lack of dystrophin is involved i...p53 gene mutations and inflammation trigger skin cancer
...opment of skin cancer. They show that D6-deficient mice are acutely sensitive to SCC formation and that D6 expression is induced in cells in close proximity to invasive SCC cells from human oral SCCs. In the absence of D6, skin inflammation sensitizes skin cells to tumor formation. In an accompanying co...Tick-related disease thrives on cholesterol, study suggests
... transmitted by the bites of ticks, a new study in mice suggests. Scientists infected mice with Anaplasma phagocytophilum, the bacterium that causes human granulocytic anaplasmosis (HGA), a d...New approaches to endometriosis treatment -- mouse experiments point the way
...ted an experimental model of endometriosis in nude mice in order to test whether dopamine agonists, much used in other infertility treatment such as the prevention of ovarian hyper-stimulation syndrome, could be a new strategy for inhibiting endometrial lesions. We know that dopamine agonists are a safe...Early environmental exposure may accelerate age-related neurodegeneration
...or Age Research found that feeding iron to newborn mice made them more susceptible to paraquat, which incr...ho did not participate in the study. Ten-day-old mice were fed iron for a week. At ages from two months to two years, they were then exposed to paraquat f...Nanoparticles carry chemotherapy drug deeper into solid tumors
...o tumors improves the effectiveness of the drug in mice and increases their survival time, according to a ...d colleagues compared tumor growth and survival in mice that were given doxorubicin in the nanocarriers or on its own. Doxorubicin delivered by nanocarri...News tips from the Journal of Neuroscience
...ain SV in position at the active zone. However, in mice lacking three synapsins, SV position was unchanged, and filaments linking them together were still present despite a significant drop in SV number. Thus, the cytomatrix appears not to depend on the integrity of synapsins. 2. Early Glucocorticoids ...Cord blood may preserve insulin levels in children with type 1 diabetes
...entists elsewhere were able to reverse diabetes in mice by taking bone marrow from one animal and infusing it into its identical sibling without using chemotherapy or radiation therapy. And in the lab, scientists have been able to coax stem cells isolated from cord blood into making insulin. The man asked...MIT researchers reverse symptoms in mice of leading inherited cause of mental retardation
... Academy of Sciences the week of June 25-29. The mice were genetically manipulated to model Fragile X Sy...ersed. Reversing behavioral symptoms The FXS mice exhibited symptoms similar to those in FXS patients. These included hyperactivity; purposeless, repe...Omega-3 fatty acids protect eyes against retinopathy, study finds
...ct of omega-3 fatty acids, the researchers studied mice fed a diet modeled after a traditional Japanese diet (more omega-3 than omega-6 fatty acids) and mice fed a diet modeled after a traditional Western diet (lower amounts of omega-3 fatty acids). In addit...