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Immunology: How ancestry shapes our immune cells

All blood cell types are generated in th e bone marrow. In a process called hematopoiesis, so-called multipotent hematopoietic stem cells and progenitor cells progressively give rise to the different types of cells found in the bloodstream. Among these are the neutrophils and the erythrocytes (aka red blood cells). Duffy-negative individuals lack a specific protein, the atypical chemokine receptor 1 (abbreviated ACKR1), normally found on the surface of the erythrocytes. ACKR1 is known to interact with signal molecules called chemokines that regulate immune responses. However, some pathogens responsible for malaria use this receptor to dock onto and subsequently invade red blood cells. This explains why people who lack this receptor are more resistant to some types of malaria. "But how the lack of ACKR1 on red blood cells alters the balance of white blood cell types was entirely unknown up to now," DuchĂȘne says. Using the mouse as an experimental model, DuchĂȘne and his c...

New insights into how the Zika virus causes microcephaly

Since 2016 thousands of children across South America have been born with microcephaly, which causes abnormally small heads, after their mothers became infected with the Zika virus during pregnancy. The overlap between Zika cases in pregnant women and an increase in babies born with microcephaly strongly suggested that the virus targets stem cells in the developing human brain, but why and how has remained a mystery. Today's study is the first to associate MSI1 with microcephaly and the Zika virus. Dr Fanni Gergely from the University o f Cambridge said: "The development of a healthy human brain is an incredibly complex process that relies on stem cells and the coordinated actions of many genes. We've shown for the first time this interaction between Zika and MSI1 -- with MSI1 getting exploited by the virus for its own destructive life cycle, turning MSI1 into the enemy within. We hope that in the future this discovery could lead to ways of generating potential Zika...

Protein that stem cells require could be a target in killing breast cancer cells

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Researchers have found chromatin-regulating protein referred to as BPTF should be current for stem cells within the breast to carry out their regular features -- sustaining a provide of stem cells and seeding the breast with specialised new cells when wanted, as an example, throughout being pregnant. On the mouse equal of mid-pregnancy, there may be usually (left aspect) a proliferation of milk ducts (the small purple buildings in each pictures). When BPTF is knocked out in mouse mammary stem cells early in being pregnant, nonetheless, there's a drastic decline within the quantity ductal buildings (proper aspect). Dos Santos and colleagues means that knocking out BPTF in breast most cancers cells may suppress or kill them. Credit score: Dos Santos Lab, CSHL For years, most cancers consultants have realized that cancerous cells behave in sure methods like stem cells, unspecialized cells that when uncovered to sure alerts, can "differ...