Massive genomic study uncovers trove of variants linked to depression
By Rich Haridy
May 27, 2021
https://newatlas.com/science/global-gen ... sion-yale/
Researchers have catalogued 178 gene variants associated with major depression in one of the biggest genome-wide association studies ever conducted. The study looked at health records from several million people in the hope of developing a genetic test to detect those most at risk of depressive disorders.
Depression is a highly complex disorder with no single cause. A broad array of factors can contribute to depression from social, environmental, and psychological conditions to genetic or physiological factors.
Most recently a 2019 meta-analysis homed in on around 100 genetic variants associated with depression. It was estimated up to 40 percent of a person’s risk for major depression could be attributed to heritable genetic variants.
Now a study led by a team from Yale University has expanded that genetic library of risk factors. Health records were analyzed from 1.2 million subjects, including individuals from the US, UK and Africa. The research reports 178 genetic variants associated with major depressive disorder (MDD).
In a world first, scientists from the University of Sussex have recorded blood oxygen levels in the hippocampus and provided experimental proof for why the area, commonly referred to as 'the brain's memory center," is vulnerable to damage and degeneration, a precursor to Alzheimer's disease.
To understand why this region is so sensitive, the University of Sussex researchers, headed up by Dr. Catherine Hall from the School of Psychology and Sussex Neuroscience, studied brain activity and blood flow in the hippocampus of mice. The researchers then used simulations to predict that the amount of oxygen supplied to hippocampal neurons furthest from blood vessels is only just enough for the cells to keep working normally.
Dr. Catherine Hall, Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Sussex says:
"These findings are an important step in the search for preventative measures and treatments for Alzheimer's, because they suggest that increasing blood flow in the hippocampus might be really effective at preventing damage from happening.
A new study published in Nature Communications demonstrates that a consortium of bacteria designed to complement missing or underrepresented functions in the imbalanced microbiome of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) patients, prevented and treated chronic immune-mediated colitis in humanized mouse models. The study's senior author, Balfour Sartor, MD, Midget Distinguished Professor of Medicine, Microbiology and Immunology, Co-Director of the UNC Multidisciplinary IBD Center, said the results are encouraging for future use treating Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis patients.
"The idea with this treatment is to restore the normal function of the protective bacteria in the gut, targeting the source of IBD, instead of treating its symptoms with traditional immunosuppressants that can cause side effects like infections or tumors," Sartor said.
In a study of 11 medical-mystery patients, an international team of researchers led by scientists at the National Institutes of Health and the Uniformed Services University (USU) discovered a new and unique form of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Unlike most cases of ALS, the disease began attacking these patients during childhood, worsened more slowly than usual, and was linked to a gene, called SPTLC1, that is part of the body's fat production system. Preliminary results suggested that genetically silencing SPTLC1 activity would be an effective strategy for combating this type of ALS.
When activated, the autophagy protein Beclin 1/Becn1 (red) is localized to adiponectin vesicles (green) in fat cells to facilitate their secretion. Credit: Northwestern University
Enhancing autophagy—the cellular process that breaks down and removes unneeded components—in fat tissue could help treat diabetes, according to a Northwestern Medicine study published in Cell Reports.
Beclin 1/Becn1, an autophagy-promoting protein, sensitized cells to insulin through a pathway involving the hormone adiponectin. Congcong He, Ph.D., assistant professor of Cell and Developmental Biology and senior author of the study, said that while certain aspects of the process require further study, this mechanism could be exploited to treat insulin resistance in diabetes.
"If there's something that mimics or enhances the function of adiponectin, that might be therapeutically effective against diabetes," said He, who is also a member of the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University.
The human papillomavirus (HPV) can cause cancer and many countries run national vaccination programs to minimize the risk. Studies involving researchers at German Cancer Research Center, Karolinska Institutet and Tampere University now report on the longitudinal effect of common HPV vaccines. The results, which are published in The Journal of Infectious Diseases and Lancet Infectious Diseases, show lasting protection against more HPV variants than the vaccines were developed for.
Human papillomavirus (HPV) is a common and highly infectious sexually transmitted disease. While in most cases, the HPV infection heals on its own, it can become chronic and cause various kinds of cancer.
The HPV group comprises over 200 types of virus, thirteen of which are classified as high-risk causes of cancer. For example, HPV types 16 and 18 cause around 70 percent of all cases of cervical cancer; HPV types 6 and 11 cause benign genital warts.
The average IQ of adults who were born very preterm (VP) or at a very low birth weight (VLBW) has been compared to adults born full term by researchers from the Department of Psychology at the University of Warwick. Researchers have found VP/VLBW children may require special support in their education to boost their learning throughout childhood.
Birth before 32 weeks of gestation is classed as very preterm (VP) and those born weighing less than 1500g are classed as very low birthweight (VLBW).
Research has previously found that those who were born VP or VLBW had lower cognitive performance in childhood.
Scientists develop new method for ultra-high-throughput RNA sequencing in single cells https://phys.org/news/2021-06-scientist ... ncing.html
by CeMM Research Center for Molecular Medicine of the Austrian Academy of Sciences
RNA sequencing is a powerful technology for studying cells and diseases. In particular, single-cell RNA sequencing helps uncover the heterogeneity and diversity of our body. This is the central technology of the "Human Cell Atlas" in its quest to map all human cells. However, single-cell RNA sequencing reaches its limits in very large projects, as it is time-consuming and very expensive. To address these challenges, scientists from the research group of Christoph Bock, principal investigator at the CeMM Research Center for Molecular Medicine of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and professor at the Medical University of Vienna, developed a new method for sequencing huge numbers of single cells in an efficient manner. The study has now been published in Nature Methods.
Parkinson's disease (PD) is a common neurodegenerative disorder caused by the death of dopaminergic neurons in a part of the brain (known as substantia nigra pars compacta), which leads to a deficit of dopamine (DA), one of the main neurotransmitters active in the central nervous system. Symptomatic treatment focuses on increasing the concentration of dopamine into the brain.
However, dopamine is not directly administered, because it is unable to cross the so called blood-brain barrier, which prevents some of the substances circulating in the blood to penetrate into the nervous system. Thus, DA precursor levodopa (L-DOPA) –an amino-acid which participates in the synthesis of dopamine– is used, due to its better ability to cross such barrier. Nevertheless, long-term and intermittent administration of this drug is associated with important disabling complications, such as motor disorders and involuntary muscle movements.
