Epithelium in Biological News

Malfunction of the respiratory epithelium is a cause of allergy?

... aberrant immunoresponses. Only lately the role of epithelium as the first line of defense against allergens ... groups aimed to clarify what happens in the epithelium immediately after allergen exposure, before the ... enters and travels through conjunctival and nasal epithelium of allergic patients but not of healthy subjects ...

Origin of cells for connective tissues of skull and face challenged

... do not come from a portion of embryonic neural epithelium called the neural crest, as widely believed, but ... he said. Weston argues that this non-neural epithelium is indeed distinct from the neural crest, because ... that marks cell surfaces in the non-neural epithelium reveals a very sharp boundary between this ...

New lab test offers better prediction of HIV microbicide safety

... lining, or epithelium. That could cause more harm than good: When the epithelium becomes inflamed, T cells flock to the damaged area which might actually ... may also compromise a microbicide's safety. The cells of the vaginal epithelium normally are tightly packed together, forming an impermeable barrier to ...

Scientists discover why teeth form in a single row

... birth, their formation starts early in development. Teeth develop from the epithelium and mesenchyme, two key tissue layers within the mammalian embryo. The first sign of tooth development in mammals is the thickening of the epithelium along the jaw line to form a band of cells called the dental lamina. ...

USC researchers identify alternate pathway that leads to palate development

... palate develops," he says, "But when Smad4 was blocked, normal palate epithelium still covered the palatal shelf. The team found that p38 MAPK (mitogen ... Chai says. When either one or the other is inactivated, the palate epithelium will still form properly, failing to form only if both signaling molecules ...

Pitt team first to profile genes in acutely ill idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis patients

... which is the tissue that covers the surface of the air sacs, were rapidly dying. "That could mean that drugs that are used to protect the epithelium in other illnesses, such as cancer, might help IPF patients survive an exacerbation," said study co-author Kevin Gibson, M.D., associate professor in ...

Our microbes, ourselves

... plant polysaccharides and carbohydrates. The effect is to boost production of SCFAs, particularly acetate, which will be taken up by the intestinal epithelium and converted to fat. The result over time may be increasing weight, eventually leading to obesity. While weight regulation involves a complex ...

The role of stem cells in renewing the cornea

... (CHUV), challenges this prevailing opinion that the limbus is the only place where corneal stem cells reside. The researchers demonstrated that the epithelium of the cornea also contains stem cells, and that these cells have the capacity to generate two different epithelial tissues: corneal (covering the ...

Possible link between baby swimming and breathing problems in children

... been suggested that indoor environmental factors (airway irritants) such as volatile chlorination products for indoor swimming pools can affect lung epithelium and contribute to the development of respiratory illnesses like asthma among children. The connection between respiratory problems and baby ...

Irritating smells alert special cells, NIH-funded study finds

... line the inside of the nose. The research team, under the guidance of Diego Restrepo, Ph.D., found that solitary chemosensory cells scattered in the epithelium inside the front of the nose respond to high levels of irritating odors and relay signals to trigeminal nerve fibers. This elegant research ...

Mice use specialized neurons to detect carbon dioxide in the air

... in China, led by Minmin Luo at the National Institute of Biological Sciences in Beijing, found that all the GC-D expressing neurons in the olfactory epithelium were activated by exposure to carbon dioxide. Conversely, all the cells in the lining of the nasal cavity that were activated by carbon dioxide are ...

Scientists discover why cornea is transparent and free of blood vessels, allowing vision

... already aware from clinical experience that the epithelium most likely played a role in suppressing blood ... blood vessels, implicating the role of the epithelium in suppressing blood vessel growth To further ... to grow, formally demonstrating that the corneal epithelium is key to suppression of blood vessels and that ...

Olfactory system detects pheromones that control reproduction

... whether sensory neurons in the main olfactory epithelium and the VNO were connected to neurons in the ... to LHRH neurons from the main olfactory epithelium and the structures that comprise the primary ... strains that lacked either a functional olfactory epithelium or vomeronasal organ. They also studied the ...

Penn study on olfactory nerve cells shows why we smell better when we sniff

... The septal organ is only about 1 percent the size of the main olfactory epithelium and isn't shared by all mammals. Mice, for example, have a septal organ. ... study, Ma's group found that 50 percent of the cells in the main olfactory epithelium are sensitive to physical stimuli, suggesting that mechanosensitivity of ...

Researchers discover new details about HIV-1 entry and infection

... barrier to the virus. The isolated preparation of intact, viable, vaginal epithelium permitted examination of immune cells that normally migrate out of the vaginal epithelium into deeper tissues shortly after exposure to HIV-1. The researchers ...

Research Using Mouse Models Reveals A Novel Key Player In The Initiation Of Colon Cancer

... protein show a similar accumulation of the beta-catenin protein in the epithelium layer, yet they do not get cancers. However, combining the Foxl1 ... in the mesenchymal layer of the colon leads to altered signaling to the epithelium layer and results in increased cell proliferation and turnover of this ...

Genetic pathways to curable and incurable forms of pancreatic cancer identified

... gene is eliminated, lead to cancer by a different path, beginning with the creation of a distinct class of precancerous lesions in the ductal epithelium called mucinous cystic neoplasms (MCN). This initiates a process that results in the rarer but far less deadly cystic pancreatic cancer. MCN ...

Scientists find new genes for Crohn's disease

... Institute and at the Université de Montréal, the identification of the PHOX2B gene in this study suggests that neuroendocrine cells of the intestinal epithelium have a key role to play in Crohn's. In addition, the identification of the NCF4 gene indicates that the production of altered reactive oxygen ...

Embryonic patterning makes the feathers fly

... increased with higher inhibitor dosage and earlier times of administration. But which skin layer was the major target of FGF/MAPK activity, the epithelium or the mesenchyme" The researchers grew skin explants in an environmental chamber that enabled them to continually observe cell movements and track ...

Plant-derived molecules, genetic manipulation point to future chemoprevention methods

... IGF-1 have been associated with significant increases in colon cancer risk" said Olivo-Marston. "Since IGF-1 inhibits apoptosis and stimulates colon epithelium proliferation, we hypothesized that reducing, if not eliminating, its function could prove an effective deterrent against colon cancer growth. This ...

Bone marrow may restore cells lost in vision diseases

... believe it may be possible to also grow new cells in the retina to replace cells lost to injury or disease. "In people, retinal pigment epithelium can become damaged with age," said Jeffrey Harris, a graduate student in the department of molecular cell biology in UF's College of Medicine and ...

Promising cell protein may play role in infection and dry eye

... with Rb2/p130 and chromatin modeling enzymes may affect how PAI-2 is expressed. "There is a different expression of the protein between the epithelium of the cornea and conjunctiva cells," says Massaro-Giordano, an assistant professor of ophthalmology, cataract and refractive surgery at Scheie. ...

AIDS-related cognitive impairment exists in two separate forms

... Ph.D., director of Genetic and Preventive Medicine at Jefferson, used the array to first characterize the miRNA expression pattern in intestinal epithelium purified from normal colon tissue. This epithelial inner lining of the colon contains about 50 million test-tube shaped crypts that line the ....

Markers of gene, protein, or micro-RNA activity predict outcome in prostate and colorectal cancers

... Ph.D., director of Genetic and Preventive Medicine at Jefferson, used the array to first characterize the miRNA expression pattern in intestinal epithelium purified from normal colon tissue. This epithelial inner lining of the colon contains about 50 million test-tube shaped crypts that line the ....

Stowers scientists demonstrate mechanism of vertebral formation

... that generates the vertebrae and the periodic production of their precursors." The Snail factors which are known to control the transition of the epithelium to a mesenchyme state have been actively studied in cancer, where they are thought to play a role in controling tumor invasion. Understanding their ...

The brain is broadly wired for reproduction

... the animal to be able to sense pheromones. The redundancy might guard against the loss of a pheromone receptor from either the VNO or the olfactory epithelium causing a devastating loss of pheromone detection." The studies showed that the odor of clean bedding also activated some neurons upstream of GnRH ...

New study examines how sense of smell affects mating and aggression in mice

... behaviors such as mating and aggression. The new study findings show, however, that male mice require intact functioning of the main olfactory epithelium (MOE) in order to detect pheromones that elicit sexual behavior and fighting. The MOE covers the olfactory region of the nasal cavity and contains ...

Scientists focus on 'dwarf eye'

... was completely missing from nanophthalmos patients. In a normal human eye, the MFRP protein is located on the surface of the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE), which is located beneath the retina and helps maintain photoreceptors, the eye's light-detecting cells. Blindness occurs when these cells die ...

Human Eggs Can Develop From Ovarian Surface Cells In Vitro

... Research has shown for the first time that human eggs may develop directly from cultured ovarian surface epithelium (OSE) cells derived from adult human ovaries. Oocytes derived from the culture of OSE cells developed in vitro into mature eggs suitable for ...

Hirsute Or Hairless? Two Proteins May Spell The Difference

... a targeted cluster of cells into a hair bud. During the budding process, overlapping signaling pathways from two adjacent embryonic cell layers—the epithelium and the mesenchyme—direct morphogenesis. The mesenchymal cells initiate the cell-to-cell “crosstalk?that controls bud formation by first directing a ...

Asthma gene clusters identified

... 10 issue of the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. The study is based on an Affymetrix "GeneChip" analysis of RNA isolated from the nasal epithelium of children who have an acute case of asthma or asthma stabilized with medication. The analysis revealed two distinct gene expression profiles in ...

Study of genomic DNA leads to new advances in cancer diagnostics

... is protected during malignancy. This effect was confirmed using three pairs of cell types (normal melanocytes and melanoma cells, normal breast epithelium and breast carcinoma cells, and normal fibroblasts and fibrosarcoma cells) and diagnostic biopsy samples. Will these methods help clinicians in ...