Synthetic gene circuits that only trigger powerful, tumor-specific immune responses when they detect certain disease markers may help immunotherapies to fight cancer more effectively, according to a new study. Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge suggest that their artificial DNA-encoded circuits may help to overcome some of the problems that have...
Category: <span>Immunology</span>
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Alterations in gene regulation make gastric cancer cells less visible to the immune system
Gastric cancer cells are helped to evade the immune system by alterations in gene regulation, according to new work by A*STAR researchers. This mechanism might apply to a wide range of cancers, and could be exploited to improve cancer treatments. Gastric cancer is among the most common and deadly forms of the disease and has...
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Penn Study Shows How Female Immune Cells Keep Their Second X Chromosome Shut Off
Autoimmune diseases tend to strike women more than men and having multiple X chromosomes could be the main reason why. While a process called X chromosome inactivation serves to balance out gene dosage between males and females, some genes on the “inactive X” chromosome in immune cells can sometimes escape this process, giving women an...
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Compound Found in Red Wine Boosts Immune Cell Function
At low doses, resveratrol enhanced human T-cell activity in vitro, while at high doses it interfered with cell signaling. A compound found in red wine that has been linked to a diverse range of therapeutic properties in lab animals has now been shown to enhance human T-cell function, but only at low doses, according to...
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Researchers release the brakes on the immune system
(from left) These are the researchers analyzing the immunological data. Many tumors possess mechanisms to avoid destruction by the immune system. For instance, they misuse the natural “brakes” in the immune defense mechanism that normally prevent an excessive immune response. Researchers at the University of Bonn have now been able to remove one of...
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Possible new immune therapy target in lung cancer
Fluorescence microscopy images of blood vessels supported by perivascular cells. The top row shows vessels with perivascular cells from normal lung tissue compared to vessels supported by tumor-derived perivascular cells (bottom row). The …more A study from Bern University Hospital in collaboration with the University of Bern shows that so-called perivascular-like cells from lung tumors...
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P53 ‘master switch’ remains top target in gene signaling network controlling cancer
The lab of Joaquin Espinosa, Ph.D., find no essential “second in command” in gene signaling network controlled by tumor-suppressor gene p53. There are two important categories of genes involved in cancer development, oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes. When oncogenes gain function, e.g. through mutation, they actively promote cancer – drugs that turn them off...
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A new CRISPR-engineered cancer model to test therapeutics
One major challenge in cancer research is developing robust pre-clinical models for new therapies, ones that will accurately reflect a human response to a novel compound. All too often, a potential treatment that initially looked promising in cells or animal models will not have the same effects in a human cancer patient. Given the enormous...
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FUS Mutant Human Motoneurons Display Altered Transcriptome and microRNA Pathways with Implications for ALS Pathogenesis
Highlights We performed transcriptome analysis of hiPSC-derived ALS FUS mutant motoneurons Bioinformatics analysis revealed cell adhesion pathways associated to sporadic ALS miR-375 expression is affected by FUS mutation in motoneurons Impairment of miR-375 alters RNA metabolism and increases pro-apoptotic factors Summary The FUS gene has been linked to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). FUS is a ubiquitous RNA-binding protein, and the mechanisms...
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Genetic body/brain connection identified in genomic region linked to autism
For the first time, Whitehead Institute scientists have documented a direct link between deletions in two genes — fam57ba and doc2a — in zebrafish and certain brain and body traits, such as seizures, hyperactivity, enlarged head size, and obesity. “Finding the molecular connections between a brain and a body phenotype is indeed really paradigm shifting,”...