Tag: "placental" at biology news

Enzyme, lost in most mammals, is shown to protect against UV-induced skin cancer

...iring theselesions ?have apparently been lost from placental mammals over thecourse of evolution.Thus, most mammals, including humans, can only repair these lesionsthrough a much less direct and elaborate process called nucleotideexcision repair.In the new work, Dr. Bert van der Horst and colleagues studied th...

Placenta Is A Rich Source Of Blood Stem Cells

...study. ''If we figure out what's special about the placental environment, we may learn how to grow blood stem cells in large numbers for clinical application.'' Blood stem cells are used in treating blood cancers like leukemia and other blood diseases, and in patients receiving transplants, but growing them i...

PET/MRI scans may help unravel mechanisms of prenatal drug damage

... the placenta. It may be that this constriction of placental blood flow is one of the mechanisms underlying the harmful effects of cocaine exposure during pregnancy. The research was funded by the Office of Biological and Environmental Research within the Department of Energy's Office of Science and the Natio...

Determining The Fate Of Cells In The Human Body

...es, these proteins are associated with cardiac and placental tissue defects. Twist1 mutations are encountered at high frequency in patients with Saethre-Chotzen Syndrome. "By studying a disease in which things go wrong at the cellular level, we gain insight into how to correct these errors," said Dr. Firulli,...

Oxygen increase caused mammals to triumph, researchers say

...rresponds exactly to a really rapid rise of large, placental mammals," Falkowski says. "The more oxygen, the bi...ical sciences department at Rutgers. There were placental mammals on Earth at the time of the great extinction of dinosaurs about 65 million years ago, Falkow...

Discarded placentas deliver researchers promising cells similar to embryonic stem cells

Routinely discarded as medical waste, placental tissue could feasibly provide an abundant source of cells with the same potential to treat diseases and regenerate tissues as their more controversial counterparts, embryonic stem cells, suggests a University of Pittsburgh study to be published in th...

Scientists get first glimpse at how plants, most animals repair UV-damaged DNA

... photolyase molecule. Scientists believe that all placental mammals lost the ability to make this enzyme some 170 million years ago, said Zhong, an assistant professor of physics and adjunct assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry at Ohio State. That's why humans, mice, and all other mammals are pa...

Study uncovers placental microtransfusions lead to transmission of AIDS virus during childbirth

...hows strongly for the first time that what we call placental microtransfusions during birth are responsible for...umbilical cord blood samples -- a protein known as placental alkaline phosphatase as an indicator of maternal-fetal microtransfusion. "This enzyme, made in the ...

Marsupial genome reveals insights into mammalian evolution

...ly the platypus and echidna.) "Comparing genes of placental mammals, such as the human and the mouse, is not v...enomes fill this gap. They are easily aligned with placental mammal genomes, yet are different enough to pinpoint regions that have important functions and there...

Pain killer fights breast cancer by targeting key enzyme

...east tissue. They also tested the analogs on human placental cells to see if the analogs would stop aromatase p...ase production in the breast cells, but not in the placental cells. "Aromatase is necessary for normal functions of many tissues in the body," Brueggemeier said...

Key to early diagnosis of autism may be in the placenta

...ing together we might be able to determine if this placental abnormality could be a useful clinical marker." W...y Center, the group designed a study to see if the placental abnormality, specifically the presence of trophoblast inclusions, was a marker for ASD. The multidis...

Parental genes do what's best for baby

...we see for a lot of genes. “For example, during placental development the maternal and offspring genomes have to work together to produce a functional placenta. By expressing the genes they get from their mothers, the offspring are more likely to show an adaptive fit with their mother’s genes; they compleme...

Tiny bones rewrite textbooks

... split between pouched marsupials and live-bearing placental mammals. The St Bathans fossil field - which has also produced many other species of animals, including fish and birds - also promises to shed new light on climate change in the Australasian region, recording a massive shift from a warm, wet phase ...

Scientists explore how complex organs develop from a simple bud

... the genetic and cellular interactions critical to placental development. Research on this process in mouse kidneys generated a real-time tracking procedure which has significant implications for genetic manipulation. Ultimately, scientists hope analysis of branching morphogenesis will lead to the design of...

Molecules in blood foretell development of preeclampsia

... was accompanied by reduced levels of a substance, placental growth factor (PlGF). Both women with term preeclampsia and women with gestational hypertension had a simultaneous rise in soluble endoglin, and an increase in the ratio of sFlt1 to PlGF (high levels of sFlt1 and low levels of PlGF.) "Both soluble...

New findings could lead to vaccine for severe malaria

... believed." Now that scientists know that several placental receptors are involved in the binding mechanism, attention will be shifted to the parasite itself, and whether it produces many different surface proteins or if one and the same protein is able to bind to many host receptors. ...

Tumor-suppressor gene is critical for placenta development

...aving the embryos without a working Rb gene in the placental progenitor cells. These stem cells divided far ..."This suggests that Rb is important in maintaining placental stems cells, and that it plays a smaller or different role in the cells they give rise to," Leone sa...

Researchers publish first marsupial genome sequence

... It sheds light on the genetic differences between placental mammals, such as humans, mice and dogs, and marsup... "Marsupials are the closest living relatives of placental mammals. Because of this relationship, the opossum genome offers a unique lens though which to view ...

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