Researchers from the University of Illinois at Chicago and Harvard University have published details on the chemical synthesis and microbiological evaluation of a ribosome-binding antibiotic – cresomycin (CRM) – that was able to overcome antimicrobial resistance of major pathogenic bacteria including Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and others.

It is well known that protein tau forms aggregates in the brain in neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD) that are also known as tauopathies. Accumulation of protein tau in the brain leads to the cell toxicity and promotes the loss of synaptic plasticity, which in turn causes memory loss. As reported on Feb. 1, 2024, in The Journal of Clinical Investigation, assistant professor Tara Tracy and her research team from the Buck Institute for Research on Aging have discovered a protein in the brain that could restore this damage induced by protein tau.

Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs), such as anti-CTLA-4 antibodies, are widely used in cancer immunotherapy. CTLA-4 blockers such as Yervoy (ipilimumab, Bristol Myers Squibb Co.) stimulate antitumoral immune responses, but may also induce toxicity, such as colitis, a common immune-related adverse event that can lead to treatment discontinuation.

In an article published on Dec. 18, 2023, in Nature, researchers from the Centre for Genomic Regulation in Barcelona (Spain) and Wellcome Sanger Institute in Hinxton (U.K.) reported achieving a milestone regarding KRAS targeting in cancer. The team quantified the impact of >26,000 KRAS variants and how these mutations affected protein folding and its interaction with the six main effectors – RAF1, PIK3CG, RALGDS, SOS1, K27 and K55.

Lung adenocarcinoma may be cornered by a recent finding coming from a study published on Nov. 30, 2023, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. This investigation has unveiled that a tumor suppressor molecule called RNA-binding motif protein 10 (RBM10) partners with two ribosomal proteins, which in turn inactivate the well-known oncogene Myc proto-oncogene protein (c-Myc).

By sequencing the bacterial mRNA that bacteria break down (the degradome) during protein synthesis, a novel approach called 5PSeq was able to analyze how environmental exposure stress, including that of antibiotics, affected bacterial translational dynamics. This is what researchers from the Karolinska Institutet led by Vicent Pelechano have discovered in their study published on May 22, 2023, in Nature Microbiology.

Implanting brain organoids into the brains of mice may allow the more realistic study of microglial cells during both healthy and disease states. This is what researchers from the Salk Institute and their collaborators found in a study published on May 11, 2023, in Cell.

A rare cell type in the gut, the enterochromaffin (EC) cell, drove both gut discomfort and anxiety symptoms in animal models of gastrointestinal pain. Furthermore, the cells reacted differently in male and female mice, opening up new ways to understand and investigate the higher prevalence of gut disorders in women.

The intended use of gene editing tools on pre-implantation human embryos would be to avoid the development of congenital diseases in the upcoming baby. But it may have its own risks. Those risks were illustrated in a publication in the March 7, 2023, issue of Nature Communications, where researchers from the Center for Embryonic Cell and Gene Therapy, Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) showed that the method that is most frequently used for evaluating the effects of gene editing zygotes did not always result in an accurate picture of those edits.