The fight against a devastating lung condition in newborn babies could be helped by the discovery that it is caused by a deficiency in a particular protein.
Scientists have found that persistent pulmonary hypertension of the newborn (PPHN), which is characterized by high blood pressure in a baby's lungs, is triggered by the lack of an enzyme called AMPK.
Enzymes are proteins in the body that drive chemical reactions critical to normal cell function. The research team discovered the link between AMPK and PPHN in a study of mice.
Experts hope that by understanding more about how this enzyme works, new treatments can be developed to prevent premature deaths.
Lung development
PPHN occurs in around two in every 1,000 births. It usually occurs in babies born at term, but occurs in premature babies as well.
When a newborn's lungs fill with air, the blood vessels that take blood from the heart to the lungs open up allowing oxygen to flow from the lungs back to the heart. The oxygen is then pumped to the brain and the rest of the body once the umbilical cord is cut.
After birth, the blood vessels that feed the lungs and the airways that supply them with oxygen branch and multiply to provide babies with the ability to take in more oxygen as they grow.
Last edited by weatheriscool on Tue Apr 11, 2023 4:24 am, edited 1 time in total.
A team of international scientists led by the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) has discovered that Neisseria—a genus of bacteria that lives in the human body—is not as harmless as previously thought, and can cause infections in patients with bronchiectasis, asthma, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
In a study published today in Cell Host & Microbe, the team showed conclusive evidence that Neisseria species can cause disease in the lung and are linked to worsening bronchiectasis (a type of lung disease) in patients.
Bronchiectasis is a long-term condition where the airways of the lungs become abnormally enlarged for unknown reasons in up to 50% of Singaporean patients. The disease is up to four times more prevalent among Asians as compared to their Western counterparts and can also occur following recovery from tuberculosis. In Singapore, research at Tan Tock Seng Hospital described 420 incident-hospitalized bronchiectasis patients in 2017. The incidence rate is 10.6 per 100,000 and increases strongly with age.
People with a disease characterized by lung scarring that has no obvious cause are more likely to die if they live in areas with higher levels of air pollution composed of chemicals associated with industrial sources and vehicular traffic, according to new research led by University of Pittsburgh scientists.
The study, published today in JAMA Internal Medicine, is the first to link the chemical composition of fine particulate air pollution to worsened fibrotic interstitial lung disease (fILD) outcomes. It is also the largest study ever done to evaluate the impact of air pollution on these patients.
"Some people with these lung diseases have an expected lifespan from diagnosis to death of only a few years, and yet it's a mystery as to why they developed the disease, why their lungs become so scarred," said lead author Gillian Goobie, M.D., doctoral candidate in the Pitt School of Public Health's Department of Human Genetics. "Our study points to air pollution—specifically pollutants from factories and vehicles—as potentially driving faster disease progression and premature death in these patients."
A team of researchers from Toronto General Hospital Research Institute, Unither Bioelectronics Inc., and Techna, University Health Network, has demonstrated the feasibility of using drones to carry human organs for transplantation to nearby locales. In a Focus piece, published in the journal Science Robotics, the researchers outline the factors that went into the groundbreaking event, and what it could mean for future patients around the world.
As drone technology has become more reliable, engineers have begun to use them for more critical applications. In this instance, a drone carried a human lung donated by a deceased patient at one hospital in downtown Toronto, Canada, to another patient needing a new lung waiting in another hospital, also in downtown Toronto.
The feasibility study was not the first to use a drone to carry human organs or medical supplies, but it is perhaps the most stringent. The effort was meant to test the use of drones for carrying donated organs on a regular basis. To that end, they began by selecting a drone—the Chinese-made M600 Pro, which has proven to be a workhorse.
Researchers discover exploiting microbiome bacteria in patients with lung infections improves low oxygen levels https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-01- ... -lung.html
by Professor Dr. Claudio De Simone , Medical Xpress
Newspaper headlines from the U.S. to the U.K. and most places in between highlight the surge in sick patients suffering from respiratory viruses. The so-called "tripledemic" of lung infections including respiratory synclinal virus (RSV), influenza (flu) and COVID-19 (coronavirus) is likely to last throughout the winter season. This explosion of infections requires more treatment options to support overloaded hospitals and overworked medics as they restore people's health.
It has been known for a long time that intubation of an infant with any lung condition, or even an adult with severe COVID-19 using either ventilation or extra-corporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), comes with risks and side effects that could cause permanent damage not limited to the lungs. However, hypoxia, which means oxygen deficiency, is a medical emergency that is a common complication of severe lung infections. If not treated, it can lead to severe disability and even death.
Gut receives nearly one-third of the body's oxygen
Consider this fact: The human intestine receives almost one-third of the body's cardiac output. What if we could spare oxygen in the gut and redistribute oxygen to other body districts to avoid intubation of certain vulnerable patient groups?
I decided to explore this question before the COVID-19 pandemic arrived. As a retired professor of gastroenterology and immunology, I spent most of my career focusing on the gut microbiome. When the COVID-19 pandemic was declared, I immediately became involved in studies pivoting to coronavirus.
Much of what is known in general medicine today about the microbiome focuses on the large intestine. Indeed, earlier in my career I developed and patented the De Simone Formulation multi-strain probiotic mostly used in the dietary management of gastrointestinal disorders including IBS, ulcerative colitis, pouchitis and chronic liver diseases. Now, it was time to investigate uncharted territory and focus on the performance of the small intestine and its role in oxygenating the human body.
Everybody understands that our gastrointestinal tract processes nutrients to keep us all alive. Most often, patients think of nutrients as vitamins and minerals like vitamin C or iron. However, it is important to remember that while you can't exactly squeeze it into a thirst-quenching mineral drink or a delicious energy snack bar, oxygen is also, in fact, a nutrient that human bodies need to not only survive but thrive.
Scientists have developed a world-first diagnostic test, powered by artificial intelligence, that can identify known respiratory viruses within five minutes from just one nasal or throat swab. The new diagnostic test could replace current methods that are limited to testing for only one infection—such as a lateral flow test for COVID-19—or otherwise are either lab-based and time-consuming or fast and less accurate.
The new virus detection and identification methodology is described in a paper published in ACS Nano, authored by Department of Physics DPhil student Nicolas Shiaelis along with corresponding authors Professor Achillefs Kapanidis from the Department of Physics and Dr. Nicole Robb from the University of Warwick and Visiting Lecturer at Oxford's Department of Physics.
The paper demonstrates how machine learning can significantly improve the efficiency, accuracy and time taken to not only identify different types of viruses, but also differentiate between strains.
Ground-breaking testing technology
Nicolas Shiaelis and Dr. Robb collaborated with the John Radcliffe Hospital to validate the new method that uses AI software to identify viruses. The ground-breaking testing technology combines molecular labeling, computer vision and machine learning to create a universal diagnostic imaging platform that looks directly at a patient sample and can identify which pathogen is present in a matter of seconds—much like facial recognition software, but for germs.
Preliminary research demonstrated that this test could identify the COVID-19 virus in patient samples and further work determined that the test could be used to diagnose multiple respiratory infections.
In the study, the researchers began by labeling viruses with single-stranded DNA in over 200 clinical samples from John Radcliffe Hospital. Images of labeled samples were captured using a commercial fluorescence microscope and processed by custom machine-learning software that is trained to recognize specific viruses by analyzing their fluorescence labels, which show up differently for every virus because their surface size, shape and chemistry vary.
The gold standard for storing lungs for transplant procedures has been to pack them in ice in coolers, which keeps them at roughly 4 °C (39 °F). But a look back at lung transplant research has revealed that there's an even better temperature at which to store donor lungs, which will dramatically improve the time during which they remain viable.
The first lung transplant was conducted in 1963. Since that time, when lungs are removed from patients, they are packed in a cooler with ice and rushed to the location of the recipient. Generally, this method can keep the lungs viable for roughly six to eight hours. Wondering if they could improve on this time, researchers led by a team of scientists from the University Health Network in Toronto looked back at experimental data from decades ago.
"Our approach to solving this problem was finding an optimal lung storage temperature (by) looking at data from experiments performed over 30 years ago, where lung transplant pioneers looked at very low temperatures, all the way to body temperature, to see what would be the ideal lung preservation temperature," said study first author Dr. Aadil Ali, Adjunct Scientist at the Toronto General Hospital Research Institute.
Respiratory syncytial virus hospitalizes tens of thousands of people each year in the United States. Now there’s a powerful new tool against it: the first-ever RSV vaccine.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced May 3 that it had granted approval for an RSV vaccine made by GlaxoSmithKline to be used in people 60 and older.
RSV is a respiratory virus that causes cold-like symptoms for many people, but can cause serious illness, hospitalization and death for infants and older people. In the United States, an estimated 60,000 to 160,000 older adults are hospitalized each year with lung infections caused by RSV, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 6,000 to 10,000 of them die from RSV infections each year. Older adults with chronic heart or lung disease, and those with weakened immune systems are especially vulnerable.
Inhibiting a protein on the surface of immune cells could offer new strategies for treating severe asthma, Cleveland Clinic researchers found.
Researchers discovered a new way a protein called MCEMP1 contributes to severe inflammation in the airway and lungs. The discovery, published in Nature Communications, provides critical information for developing therapeutic interventions to treat long-term lung conditions, including asthma, on a biological level.
The study was conducted in a lab led by Jae Jung, Ph.D., chair of the Cancer Biology Department, director of the Infection Biology program, and director of the Sheikha Fatima bint Mubarak Global Center for Pathogen & Human Health Research.
Severe asthma is caused by airway inflammation in response to a trigger, like allergens or air pollution. The inflammation causes the airway to swell up and become narrower and stiffer, which makes breathing difficult. Asthma currently affects more than 25 million people in the U.S and 300 million people worldwide.
Overly active immune cells are often behind lung damage in diseases such as COVID-19. Researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have developed an RNA agent for a lung spray that slows the activity of these cells, known as macrophages. A new, sugar-based transport mechanism is especially effective in bringing the therapeutic to its target.
The team led by Stefan Engelhardt, Professor of Pharmakology and Toxikology, has developed an RNA-based active ingredient called RCS-21 to prevent severe lung inflammation and fibrosis, i.e., scarring of the lung tissue, for example in SARS-CoV2 infections.
In the cell, RCS-21 stops the activity of the molecule microRNA 21. This nucleic acid, which Engelhardt and his team have been researching for a long time, is one of the triggers for the excessive activity of macrophages in severe lung infections.
Drug docks onto sugar receptors
Publishing in the scientific journal Nature Communications, the team describes how the active substance RCS-21 is delivered to its target particularly effectively via an inhaler. To do this, the researchers took advantage of a special feature of macrophages. These scavenger cells are also present in large numbers in the healthy lung. There, they perform the important task of destroying bacteria and fungal spores as quickly as possible.
The macrophages identify their targets among other things based on complex sugar molecules on the surface of the invaders. "We have determined in single cell analyses that the corresponding sugar receptors are, on the one hand, among the most common receptors on macrophages," says Stefan Engelhardt. "On the other hand, the receptors are, in a sense, a unique feature of macrophages—they hardly occur anywhere else."
Researchers at Yale University, New Haven, have optimized a polymer-based mRNA vehicle for targeted lung delivery and demonstrated the potential of the platform for mucosal vaccination against respiratory pathogens.
In a paper, "Polymer nanoparticles deliver mRNA to the lung for mucosal vaccination," published in Science Translational Medicine, the team introduces their creation of inhalable messenger RNA (mRNA) for therapeutic use.
Clinical research has been searching for an efficient and targeted way to deliver mRNA to the lungs for various therapeutic applications, including protein replacement therapies, gene editing and vaccination. The main challenges have been maintaining mRNA stability and avoiding immune interference.
Drug development for lung diseases is complicated. Most clinical trials that test novel drugs fail due to the fact that laboratory models cannot accurately replicate human physiology.
Currently specific molecular pathways are often modeled in highly artificial conditions using one or two different cell types in a culture dish in the laboratory. Such simple systems do not fully replicate the tissue environment of the lung, and therefore these laboratory models are lacking representation of therapeutically relevant cell-cell communication pathways.
Revolutionizing pre-clinical drug development: Organotypic model system for lung research
A new promising experimental model to mechanistically study lung disease emerged recently: so-called human precision-cut lung slices (hPCLS). These are thin sections of lung tissue, that can be used for experiments in the lab.
Immune cells play an active and intimate role in directing the growth of human lung tissue during development, researchers find, revolutionizing our understanding of early lung development and the role of immune cells outside of immunity.
The research offers new insights for understanding and treating respiratory conditions, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Respiratory conditions account for almost 20% of all deaths in children under five years worldwide.
The work reveals a surprising coordination between the immune and respiratory systems, much earlier in development than previously thought. This discovery raises questions about the potential role of immune cells in other developing organs across the body.
Researchers from the Wellcome Sanger Institute, University College London (UCL) and their collaborators at EMBL's European Bioinformatics Institute used advanced single-cell technologies to map the development of early human lung immune cells over time.
This study has created a first-of-its-kind immune cell atlas of the developing lung. It is part of the international Human Cell Atlas initiative, which is mapping every cell type in the human body, to transform our understanding of health, infection and disease.
The findings, published in Science Immunology, will help shed light on the mechanisms behind childhood lung diseases.
Researchers have found an inexpensive tool that may help reduce rates of pneumonia for hospitalized patients—and it comes with bristles on one end.
A new study by investigators from Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute examined whether daily toothbrushing among hospitalized patients is associated with lower rates of hospital-acquired pneumonia and other outcomes.
The team combined the results of 15 randomized clinical trials that included more than 2,700 patients and found that hospital-acquired pneumonia rates were lower among patients who received daily toothbrushing compared to those who did not. The results were especially compelling among patients on mechanical ventilation.
Scientists at Tulane University School of Medicine have developed a promising new model to study a pneumonia-causing fungus that has been notoriously difficult to culture in a lab.
Researchers were able to use precision-cut slices of lung tissue to study Pneumocystis species, a fungus that causes Pneumocystis pneumonia in immunosuppressed patients and children.
This innovation overcomes a major hurdle in fungal research—the difficulty of growing this pathogen outside of a living lung—so scientists can more easily test new drugs to fight the infection. The fungus was recently listed among the top 19 fungal priority pathogens by the World Health Organization.
"Pneumocystis is likely the most common fungal pneumonia in children and attempts at culturing the organism have largely not been successful," said corresponding author Dr. Jay Kolls, John W Deming Endowed Chair in Internal Medicine at Tulane. "Thus, we have not had new antibiotics in over 20 years as they have to be tested in experimental animal studies."
Promising trial results indicate that a new type of cell therapy could improve the prognosis of those who are critically ill with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) resulting from severe COVID-19.
The findings are published in the journal Nature Communications. Professor Justin Stebbing of Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) is the joint senior author of the new study investigating the use of agenT-797, MiNK Therapeutic's allogeneic, unmodified invariant natural killer T (iNKT) cell therapy.
The iNKT cell therapy has the effect of rescuing exhausted T cells and prompting an anti-inflammatory cytokine response, potentially activating anti-viral immunity to help these patients fight infection as well as to reduce severe, pathogenic inflammation of the lung.
Zinc has been found to be important in keeping lung infections at bay in people with cystic fibrosis, whose immune cell’s natural bacteria-fighting ability has been reduced by the genetic mutation that causes the disease. The discovery could result in treatments that reactivate the immune system, reducing infections.
The first ward I worked on as a brand-new registered nurse was the cystic fibrosis (CF) ward. Most of the patients were in their late teens and early 20s, many had recently transferred from the nearby Children’s Hospital. They both amazed and inspired me with their gritty determination and resilience in the face of what was, 25 years ago, a likely early death. While life expectancy has greatly improved since then, people with CF are still prone to complications resulting from the condition.
A mutation in the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) gene causes an excessive build-up of mucus in the lungs and dysregulated airway inflammation, making those with the condition susceptible to recurrent infections. Now, researchers from the University of Queensland (UQ), Australia, have identified a potential way of reducing infections in people living with CF, which hinges on zinc.
Sleep apnea can negatively impact health and well-being, but treatment is limited to poorly tolerated positive pressure masks (CPAP) and, in the worst cases, surgery. However, in a recent trial, a nasal spray showed promise as a treatment for the most common sleep-related breathing disorder.
Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) occurs when the upper airway collapses during sleep, reducing or completely blocking airflow. It’s primarily caused by a combination of impaired throat anatomy and inadequate muscle function during sleep. This leads to a drop in oxygen intake and arousal from sleep, which can have negative health and safety consequences, including daytime tiredness, difficulty focusing, and high blood pressure.
Scientists at King's College London have discovered a new cause for asthma that sparks hope for treatment that could prevent the life-threatening disease.
Most current asthma treatments stem from the idea that it is an inflammatory disease. Yet, the life-threatening feature of asthma is the attack or the constriction of airways, making breathing difficult. The new study, published in Science, shows for the first time that many features of an asthma attack—inflammation, mucus secretion, and damage to the airway barrier that prevents infections—result from this mechanical constriction in a mouse model.
The findings suggest that blocking a process that normally causes epithelial cell death could prevent the damage, inflammation, and mucus that result from an asthma attack.
