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MIT scientists find a hidden cancer risk of the keto diet

1 week 5 days ago
A ketogenic diet increased small-intestinal tumors in cancer-prone mice while reducing tumors in the colon, revealing a strikingly different response within neighboring parts of the gut. Researchers traced the increased risk not to ketones, but to the way intestinal stem cells processed the diet’s high levels of fat. That fat-burning activity pushed the cells to multiply more rapidly, potentially raising the chance of cancerous changes.

Scientists reveal what seven days of fasting does to the human body

1 week 6 days ago
Scientists found that prolonged fasting triggers major changes throughout the body, but many of the most interesting effects only appeared after about three days without food. The results suggest fasting may influence health in ways that go beyond weight loss and could eventually inspire treatments that mimic its effects.

Vagus Nerve Stimulation Could Help New Skills Stick

1 week 6 days ago
Stimulating the vagus nerve after practice helped mice develop stronger long-term motor learning, revealing a potentially important window when the brain is still locking in a new skill. The effect was linked to rhythmic changes in brain blood vessels, hinting that body-to-brain signals may help prepare the brain for lasting change.

Scientists discover a human brain gene that can jump through DNA

1 week 6 days ago
Scientists have discovered a human gene with a remarkable double life: it appears to play an important role in brain cells while still retaining the ability to jump around the genome. Called BC200, the gene evolved millions of years ago from a mobile piece of DNA known as a transposon, but unlike most genes that arose this way, it never lost its mobility. Researchers even found BC200 embedded inside a human poxvirus, suggesting it may have jumped from infected skin cells into the virus.

Decoding epithelial-mesenchymal transitions with multi-omics

1 week 6 days ago
Epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) is a highly dynamic and plastic cellular programme essential for embryonic development, tissue repair and ageing, and it is co-opted in pathological conditions such as cancer and fibrosis. The continuum of intermediate states and pronounced cellular heterogeneity that characterize EMT have historically limited systematic investigation across regulatory layers, including the transcriptome, epigenome, proteome and metabolome. Recent advances in...
Nitin Narwade

Chaperone-mediated autophagy in physiological homeostasis, disease and ageing

1 week 6 days ago
Chaperone-mediated autophagy (CMA), the first-described selective lysosomal degradation pathway, is distinguished from other degradative pathways by the unique mechanism by which substrates reach the lysosomal lumen: CMA relies on a cytosolic targeting chaperone and a lysosomal membrane receptor that doubles as a translocation complex. In this Review, we highlight recent discoveries of additional molecular components involved in CMA and describe how genetic and pharmacological modulation of CMA...
Susmita Kaushik

Towards a systematic understanding of the diverse subtypes, biogenesis and functions of large extracellular vesicles

1 week 6 days ago
Large extracellular vesicles (lEVs) are heterogeneous structures with sizes that exceed 200 nm. Unlike small extracellular vesicles, which originate from either the endosomal system or the plasma membrane, most lEVs stem directly from the plasma membrane, although the various lEV subtypes have distinct biogenesis pathways. Emerging findings have helped to update lEV classification and have provided insights into lEV biogenesis, cargo, physiological functions and relevance in disease. Classical...
Yuwei Huang

Decline of chaperone-mediated autophagy in aging impairs macrophage clearance of senescent cells

1 week 6 days ago
Autophagy dysfunction and senescence are established drivers of aging, but their potential interaction remains poorly understood. Here we show that age-related decline of chaperone-mediated autophagy (CMA), a pathway for selective lysosomal protein degradation, changes senescent cell properties and impairs their immune clearance. CMA-deficient cells undergo senescence but acquire proteomic, metabolic and secretory features resembling those in aged senescent cells. Their senescence-associated...
Rebecca Sereda