For all of man’s scientific prowess and evolutionary advancement, we are the helpless victims of this sneaky little villain. Cold viruses have very few genes, so they have one purpose and one alone - to make our lives miserable!

So we hack, snort, sneeze and feel awful until this prokaryote decides it has enough of us. There is no cure. We can treat the symptoms, sure, but we’re not fighting the virus. We’re simply "letting it run its course" and that really sucks, right? Here is man, the mighty Goliath, and this puny David of a virus swings at us and down we go, crying for our mommies.

The latest research found that it’s not the rhinovirus that causes the cold symptoms. Rather our immune response goes into "overdrive" because this viral infection. Great. The scientists believe the ideal treatment should "maintain body’s natural antiviral response while normalizing the inflammatory response."

Cool. Meantime, excuse me for the infrequent posting while my body goes into overdrive as the cold virus continues to taunt and bring havoc to my existence.

image: Wikimedia

(Photo courtesy www.leukemia101.com) 

Researchers at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center may have discovered a better way to distinguish acute leukemia patients who require aggressive treatment to prevent recurrence from those who need only standard therapy for cure.

About 13,300 new cases of AML and 8,200 deaths from the disease are expected this year in the United States.

In about half of cases, patients’ leukemia cells have chromosome changes that help doctors determine whether standard therapy will suffice to prevent recurrence, or whether the individual needs aggressive treatment such as a stem-cell transplant or an experimental therapy.

The remaining patients have leukemia cells with chromosomes that look normal. Determining the best therapy for these individuals is much more difficult.

Researchers say that changes in levels of microRNAs, tiny molecules used by cells to help control the kinds and amount of proteins they make, might predict the risk of relapse in many adults diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia (AML). All patients in the study had leukemia cells with normal-looking chromosomes.

The research also shows that the microRNAs involved in these AML patients regulate genes involved in inflammation and immune responses, providing new insights into possible causes of the disease and providing researchers witn an opportunity to personalize treatment.

For further information, click on the following link:

http://medicalcenter.osu.edu/mediaroom/press/article.cfm?ID=3928

Elaine Warburton  www.geneticsandhealth.com

‘Clover structure’ of Transfer RNA 

Transfer RNA (tRNA) is ancient. It is the most direct intermediary between genes and proteins. Like many other RNAs (ribonucleic acids), tRNA aids in translating genes into the chains of amino acids that make up proteins. The fact that tRNA is so central to the task of building proteins probably means that it has been around for a long time.

Professor Gustavo Caetano-Anollés and Feng-Jie Sung of Univeristy of Illinois-Urbana Champaigne had a hunch that understanding the structural properties of tRNA would shed light on how organisms and viruses evolved.

All tRNAs assemble themselves into a shape that, if flattened, resembles a cloverleaf. The team began by looking for patterns in this cloverleaf structure, using detailed data from hundreds of molecules representing virusesand each of the three superkingdoms of life: archaea (microbes that can survive in boiling acid, near sulfurous ocean vents or in other extreme environments), bacteria and eukarya.

“Perhaps in evolution there are things that are so fundamental that they are kept, held onto, for millions or even billions of years,”Caetano-Anollés said. “Those are the fossils, the molecular fossils, that tell us about the past. Therefore, studying these molecules can address fundamental questions in biology and evolution”.

They conducted the same analysis on the tRNAs of each of the superkingdoms, to see how far these groupings diverged from the overall tree. This comparison allowed them to determine the order in which viruses and each of the superkingdoms diverged.

The new analysis supports an earlier study that suggested that the archaea were the first to arise as an evolutionarily distinguishable group. The research also indicated that viruses emerged not long after the archaea, with the superkingdoms eukarya and bacteria following much later - and in that order.

This finding may influence the ongoing debate over whether viruses existed prior to, or after, the emergence of living cells, Caetano-Anollés said.

Elaine Warburton  www.geneticsandhealth.com