Researchers have discovered that DnaK, a protein of the bacterium mycoplasma, interferes with the mycoplasma-infected cell's ability to respond to and repair DNA damage, a known origin of cancer. The study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and suggests that bacterial infections may contribute to far more cancers than previously thought.
Youth winter sports are underway, and with a recent increase in national attention on the possible dangers of head trauma for athletes, it is important for coaches, parents and players to recognize symptoms of a concussion and also help lessen their likelihood of occurring.
A team of investigators from the University of Pittsburgh has identified compounds that block the reactivation of latent HIV-1 in a human cell line containing the latent virus. The research is published in Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, a journal of the American Society for Microbiology.
A new decision tool to help emergency physicians identify patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) who are at high risk of complications, including death, performs better than current practice, according to the Ottawa COPD Risk Scale in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).
Genome editing technology is helping A * STAR scientists unravel how the Influenza A virus (IAV) exploits human anti-viral responses. IAV remains a key challenge for global health resources, not least because of the wide variations in symptom severity experienced by different people, even when they are infected by the same strain. This implies that there are host factors at play during the initial host-viral interaction.
Now, physicists from the US Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory and Yale University have synthesized borophene on copper substrates with large-area (ranging in size from 10 to 100 micrometers) single-crystal domains (for reference, a strand of human hair is about 100 micrometers wide). Previously, only nanometer-size single-crystal flakes of borophene had been produced. The advance, reported in Nature Nanotechnology, represents an important step in making practical borophene-based devices possible.
New research on the types of bacteria living in babies' noses could offer clues as to why some recover quickly from their first cough or cold, while others suffer for longer. The study, published in ERJ Open Research, suggests that babies who have a wide variety of different bacteria living in their noses tend to recover more quickly from their first respiratory virus, compared to those who have less variety and more bacteria from either the Moraxellaceae or Streptococcaceae family.
Teens and young adults who are prescribed opioids by dental clinicians are at increased risk for persistent use and for abuse in the next year, a retrospective cohort study suggests. Investigators used claims data from 2015 to identify 14,888 privately insured 16- to 25-year-olds who obtained their first prescription from a dentist or oral surgeon, likely mainly to manage pain after the extraction of third molars (wisdom teeth). The investigators then matched this group by sex and age with 29,776 youths who had not filled an opioid prescription.