Human cells reprogrammed to create insulin

    When blood sugar levels rise after eating, cells in the pancreas called β-cells normally respond by releasing insulin, which in turn stimulates cells to start absorbing sugars. In people with diabetes, this system breaks down, leading to high blood sugar levels that can damage the body and causes illness.
    In type 1 diabetes, the immune system attacks and destroys β-cells; in type 2, the β-cells do not produce enough insulin, or the body becomes resistant to insulin.
    Scientists have previously shown in mouse studies that if β-cells are destroyed, another type of pancreatic cell, called α-cells become more β-like and start making insulin. These α-cells normally produce the hormone glucagon, and are found alongside β-cells in clumps of hormone-secreting cells called pancreatic islets or islets of Langerhans. Previous studies showed that two proteins that control gene expression seemed to have an important role in coaxing α-cells to produce insulin in mice: Pdx1 and MafA.
    Researchers at the University of Geneva first took islet cells from human pancreases, and separated out the individual cell types. They then introduced DNA that encoded Pdx1 and MafA proteins into the α-cells, before clumping them back together.
    After one week in culture, almost 40% of the human α-cells were producing insulin, whereas control cells that hadn’t been reprogrammed were not. The reprogrammed cells also showed an increase in the expression of other genes related to β-cells. “They have a hybrid personality” said the researcher.
    The team then implanted the mass of cells into diabetic mice, which had their β-cells destroyed, and found that blood-sugar levels went down to normal levels. When the cell grafts were removed, the mice’s blood sugar shot back up.
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Scientists discovered the "anti-fat" gene

Scientists at the University of Cambridge have discovered MC4R variants that prevent 4 million people from getting fat in the UK. The team analyzed the genetic maps of more than 500,000 volunteers in the UK biomedical library.On April 18,2019, the study“Human Gain-of-Function MC4R Variants Show Signaling Bias and Protect against Obesity” was published in cell.

They found that about 6% of British people of European descent had a genetic variant that caused the receptor to remain "on". People with these specific genetic variants weigh an average of 2.5 kilograms less than those without these genetic variants, and their risk of developing type 2 diabetes and heart disease is 50% lower. This means that no matter what lifestyle they have,they are more likely to not gain weight. This MC4R controls the melanocortin receptor 4 in the brain and thus regulates appetite.

The study found the genetic factors that prevent people from overeating, so it is now possible to develop drugs that keep the body slim.

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Observing Cells under Optical Microscope

1.1 Objectives.
1. Familiarize with the structure and function of each part of the microscope.
2. Familiarize with basic method for the usage of microscope.
3. Find out cells under the microscope.
4. Observe various cell morphologies.
5. Present the observations with correct biological diagram techniques.
1.2 Introductions
Observation of the cell morphology and cell type is basic knowledge. Cell morphology generally is one of principles for cell classification. Basically there are two kinds of cells, prokaryotic cell such as bacteria and eukaryotic cell including plant and animal cells.
Knowing cell morphology and cell type is helpful to understand the disease development. The changes of cellular morphology such as granularity around the nucleus, detachment of the cells from the substrate, and cytoplasmic vacuolation are following with pathological process.
Fibroblast cells can be bipolar or multi -polar and have elongated shapes.
Epithelial cells are polygonal in shape with more regular dimensions. They tend to grow in discrete patches within a substrate.
Lymphoblast cells are spherical in shape and usually grown in suspension without attaching to the surfaces.
Neuronal cells are further divided into two general morphologies, namely type 1 which have long axons and types which have no axons.
In addition, observation of pathogens such as bacteria and viruses is also important. The bacteria cells are prokaryotic with no nucleus enveloped by nuclear membrane compared to eukaryote. Definition of cell types is a vital diagnostic tool as well as evaluation of treatment plan for diseases.
1.3 Principles
A simple microscope of a lens or set of lenses including objective and ocular lens to amplify a specimen. Lens with different magnification factors are used to obtain different amplification times. Commonly, microscope viewing range is from 10-9 to 10-3 m.
Here we mainly introduce a compound......

How to determine the best treatment for breast cancer?

New Zealand has one of the highest rates of breast cancer in the world, with one in 10 women suffering from the disease, accounting for nearly half of all cancer cases in women, according to the latest global cancer epidemiology statistics. About 2.1 million women worldwide develop breast cancer each year, and 600,000 die of the disease despite good treatments.
In all breast cancer patients, there are more than 75% of patients are oestrogen-dependent patients, endocrine therapy is currently the most effective treatment for this type of breast cancer, but a large proportion of patients will have disease recurrence, and in endocrine therapy, the body of the tumor will often develop drug resistance.
In a new study, researchers have developed a new breast cancer test that can help patients and clinicians make better treatment decisions by helping them predict their response to endocrine therapy and their risk of disease recurrence.
Breast cancer is not a single disease, which is a kind of complex diseases, each tumor response to therapy is not the same, estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer is a kind of breast cancer subtypes, and as such the body often present in patients with estrogen receptors, it is showed that the cancer cells can like normal breast cells, receiving signals from estrogen and promote the growth of cancer cells; Currently, clinicians rely on the number of estrogen receptors in tumors as biomarkers to predict patients' response to endocrine therapy, but unfortunately, the accuracy of this test is not satisfactory, because estrogen-dependent tumors produce drug resistance.

The response of patients to endocrine therapy is only 30%-40%, up to 40%-50% of patients will not benefit from endocrine therapy, and the disease will recur. There is no known way to predict......

Helicobacter pylori gene mutation was induced to effectively inhibit the occurrence of gastric cancer

In a study published in an international journal, scientists at duke university medical center found that treating multiple types of drugs as a chemical may have great potential for treating stomach cancer. In addition to being known to block the growth of cancer cells, the researchers found that a drug called DFMO directly reduces the virulence of helicobacter pylori, an infection that is a major cause of stomach cancer.
Gastric cancer is the third leading cause of cancer death. Researchers further studied how DFMO can prevent gastric cancer. Helicobacter pylori infects the stomach tissue of half the population, but only about 1 percent of those infected develop stomach cancer, and while it is possible to prevent stomach cancer by treating the infection, researchers don't know who to treat.
Researcher Dr Keith says, helicobacter pylori with common human evolution at least 60000 years, and possibly longer, widespread use of antibiotics is used to eliminate the bacteria infections to prevent gastric cancer seems to be difficult to achieve, researchers say, may by reducing bacterial virulence to effectively prevent the occurrence of cancer of the stomach, after when the researchers of helicobacter pylori infection animal model for research found that promote cell growth more compound amine or there is a certain correlation with the incidence of gastric cancer, and the use of DFMO to treat animals or can effectively prevent the occurrence of cancer of the stomach, DFMO inhibits the function of enzymes that are critical to the production of polyamines.
In order to clarify the mechanism of action of DFMO, researchers from DFMO treated or untreated infection animal collection of helicobacter pylori in the body, using in vitro testing means, the researchers assessed the main virulence factors of helicobacter pylori CagA protein activity, the CagA protein can "injection" promote the generation of carcinogenic signaling pathway in gastric epithelial cells. ......