Deep learning tools for protein design can also be used to create molecules that bind to them. Certain peptides, such as intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs), are challenging to target due to their variable nature. However, scientists from the lab of Nobel laureate David Baker have developed a method to generate binders for IDPs by searching the world’s largest protein database with their AI-powered tool RFdiffusion.
Researchers from the Cleveland Clinic and National Institutes of Health investigated the role of the neurobeachin (NBEA) gene in predicting weight loss response to glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists.
In a recent publication, researchers from The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University (China) and collaborators investigated the association between phosphoglycerate kinase 1 (PGK1) expression in thyroid cancer tissues and clinicopathological features, postoperative recurrence and prognosis in papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC). These observations may help advance clinical assessment and provide references for intervention strategies.
Collaborators in Australia, South Africa, Sweden and the U.K. have linked reduced levels of neuronal cell adhesion molecule (NrCAM) in maternal or placental blood to greater risk of fetal growth restriction
in newborns and of preeclampsia in the mothers, based on analysis of various cohorts of patients from several countries.
Thoracic aortic dissection can progress to a highly lethal cardiac emergency, but it cannot usually be detected in early stages, so suitable biomarkers of progression are needed. Levels of C-reactive protein in serum rise during progression, but they also rise in infectious or autoimmune conditions, making the biomarker nonspecific.
Immune evasion continues to limit the effectiveness of cancer immunotherapies. Among emerging regulatory molecules, transfer RNA-derived small RNAs (tsRNAs of 13-48 nucleotides), generated through tRNA cleavage, are gaining attention for their roles in controlling gene expression at both the transcriptional and translational levels. Recent research suggests that abnormal tsRNA expression is closely associated with the development and progression of colorectal cancer.
Researchers have identified bi-allelic variants in the POPDC2 gene as the cause of a rare inherited cardiac syndrome characterized by sinus node dysfunction, atrioventricular (AV) conduction defects and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.
Abdominal aortic aneurysm is a life-threatening cardiovascular disease characterized by chronic inflammation and irreversible dilatation of the abdominal aorta and is asymptomatic at the early stages of the disease, with diagnosis usually relying on imaging techniques and surgery being the main approach for treating it.
Hypertensive nephropathy is a major complication of hypertension characterized by inflammation and fibrosis in the kidneys. Recent findings have suggested that agrin may play a critical role in some tissue types such as in the heart or skeletal muscle.
The switch will be flicked today to make the world’s largest dementia-related proteomics dataset freely available to researchers, at the same time as members of the consortium which compiled it publish the proteomics signatures of major neurodegenerative diseases that they uncovered in a first trawl of the data.