Even its name is a testament to how enigmatic the tingible macrophage has been. Tingible, which means stainable, certainly gives no clues to its functions – but was, at least, one thing that was known about the cells. Now, scientists at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research have tracked the lifecycle and function of tangible macrophages in the lymph nodes, with implications for understanding autoimmune disorders, which are still poorly understood. Published March 2, 2023, in the journal Cell, the study highlights intravital imaging techniques the scientists used to observe how macrophages formed within the lymph nodes and how they behaved in real time. Read More
Treatment with a cell-penetrating peptide that prevented nuclear export of unprocessed C9ORF72 RNA and its subsequent translation into neurotoxic dipeptide repeat proteins reduced motor neuron damage and death both in fruit fly models of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and in patient-derived induced neuronal precursor cells (iNPCs). The work suggests that targeting nuclear export could be a therapeutic option in ALS, and possibly also frontotemporal dementia (FTD), where C9ORF72 mutations also play a role. Read More
Primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC) is a rare chronic and progressive autoimmune bile duct disease that is strongly associated with several immune-mediated disorders, the shared etiology and underlying characteristics of which is not completely understood. Researchers from Baylor College of Medicine investigated the shared genetic architecture of PSC with a variety of clinical and epidemiological traits and aimed to identify new lead PSC risk-associated loci. Read More
Cocrystal Pharma Inc., Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp. and MSD R&D (China) Co. Ltd. have jointly patented new cap-dependent endonuclease (CEN) (influenza virus) inhibitors that are reported to be useful for the treatment of influenza. Read More
Research at Abbvie Inc. and Calico Life Sciences LLC has led to the development of proteolysis targeting chimera (PROTAC) compounds comprising an E3 ubiquitin ligase binding moiety covalently linked to tyrosine-protein phosphatase non-receptor type 2 (PTPN2; TCPTP) and/or PTPN1B. They are reported to be useful for the treatment of cancer, type 2 diabetes and nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). Read More
Obesity is tied to airway hyperresponsiveness and lung fibrosis, which may lead to patients with asthma and obesity poorly responding to asthma therapy. Blocking proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 (PCSK9) is known to reduce serum cholesterol levels and to exert anti-inflammatory effects. Read More
Genentech Inc. researchers have described phenol derivatives acting as probable global transcription activator SNF2L2 (SMARCA2; BAF190B; SNF2-α) and/or transcription activator BRG1 (SMARCA4; BAF190A; SNF2-β) degradation inducers reported to be useful for the treatment of cancer. Read More
TGF-β receptor type-1 (TGFBR1; ALK5; SKR4; TβR-I) inhibitors are reported in a recent Bisichem Co. Ltd. patent as potentially useful for the treatment of cancer, obesity, diabetes, fibrosis, autoimmune diseases and vascular disorders. Read More
Allogeneic mesenchymal stromal cell (MSC) therapy is well tolerated in patients with graft-vs.-host disease (GVHD) but results in clinical trials have shown that it lacks potent immunosuppressive effects. Researchers from the Mayo Clinic thus proposed enhancing MSC immunosuppression by bioengineering the first chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) MSCs (CAR-MSCs) and targeting E cadherin (anti-Ecad CAR-MSC), with a CD28 intracellular signaling domain to induce antigen-specific immunosuppressor effect. Read More
