Women with endometriosis may be closer to finding relief from chronic inflammation and acute pain during menstruation after a group of international researchers have uncovered a new nonhormonal treatment target, neuropeptide S receptor 1.

A study led by researchers at Tsinghua University in Beijing has elicited the mechanism whereby the protein leucine-rich repeat kinase 2 prevents alveolar type II epithelial cell dysfunction, limiting profibrotic responses during progression of pulmonary fibrosis.

Investigators at MIT have identified a protein capable of delivering its own mRNA to cells, and engineered that protein to deliver mRNA sequences of their choosing. In a mouse model, the team used their approach to deliver the mRNA for two different proteins.

In Cell Metabolism, researchers working at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center reported that when fat cells (adipocytes) are chronically stressed, as is characteristic of obesity, they can release small vesicle exosomes that are respiration-competent and essentially portions of mitochondria.

Researchers from Denali Therapeutics Inc. have identified new functional links between progranulin, lysosomal function, and a subtype of frontotemporal dementia caused by progranulin deficiency (FTD-GRN) that suggest progranulin-mediated FTD could be conceptualized as a lysosomal storage disorder (LSD). They also showed that delivery of their experimental therapeutic PTV:PGRN, also known as DNL-593, reduced cell damage and symptoms of FTD in cell and animal models.

PARIS – A consortium led by French clinical and scientific experts has just published results in the Journal of Experimental Medicine of a study showing the contribution of a new simplified diagnostic test in better identifying the level of contagiousness of subjects infected with SARS-CoV-2.

The family trees of different cell types from different tissues and organs have been traced back to the fertilized egg that gave rise to the human body of which the cells formed a part, establishing a baseline for “normal” development and aging that could help improve understanding of the onset of disease.

A team of researchers has created peptide-like molecules – "peptoids" – with antiviral properties that could circumvent the naturally occurring antimicrobial peptides' shortcomings.

For most people, neither polyglutamine disorders nor neuromuscular disorders are likely to be among the things they associate with androgen receptor (AR) dysfunction. But the three are indeed linked. And researchers have reported new insights into the nature of those links that could lead to a treatment for spinal and bulbar muscular atrophy, and possibly other disorders linked to AR signaling dysfunction.

Investigators at MIT have identified a protein capable of delivering its own mRNA to cells, and engineered that protein to deliver mRNA sequences of their choosing.