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Primitive yeast yields secrets of human cholesterol and drug metabolism

02-19-2007 · EurekAlert!

By first probing the way primitive yeast make cholesterol, a team of scientists has discovered a long-sought protein whose human counterpart controls cholesterol production and potentially drug metabolism.

Keywords: primitive, yeast, yields, secrets, human, cholesterol, drug, metabolism, yield, secret

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St. Jude study yields secrets of chromosome movement
06-14-2007 · EurekAlert!
Investigators at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital have used the lowly yeast to gain insights into how a dividing human cell ensures that an identical set of chromosomes gets passed on to each new daughter cell.
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OHSU turns mouse into factory for human liver cells
08-09-2007 · EurekAlert!
Oregon Health & Science University researchers have figured out how to turn a mouse into a factory for human liver cells that can be used to test how pharmaceuticals are metabolized. The technique could soon become the standard not only for examining drug metabolism in the liver, which helps scientists determine a drug's toxicity. It also can be used as a platform for testing new therapies against liver-attacking infectious diseases, including hepatitis C and malaria.
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Scientists ID secret to infectious protein
05-10-2007 · Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Scientists at MIT and the Whitehead Institute have discovered small but critical regions within prions, infectious proteins that cause mad cow disease or its human equivalent, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, through the study of nontoxic yeast prions.
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Simulating human metabolism to find new diets to new drugs
01-29-2007 · EurekAlert!
Bioengineers have painstakingly assembled a first-of-its-kind virtual human metabolic network that offers a new way to hunt for better treatments for hundreds of human metabolic disorders, from diabetes to high levels of cholesterol in the blood.
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Study found no drug interference with pomegranate juice
08-20-2007 · EurekAlert!
A study published in the Journal of Clinical Pharmacology finds that pomegranate juice does not interact with medication. Earlier studies suggested that, like grapefruit juice, pomegranate juice may interfere with metabolism of drugs by inhibiting CYP3A, an enzyme that allows the body to transform and eliminate a drug. This is the first study using human subjects to test the drug interactions of pomegranate juice, unlike prior studies which were conducted in vitro and in animals.
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Natural antibiotics yield secrets to atom-level imaging technique
03-03-2007 · EurekAlert!
Frog skin and human lungs hold secrets to developing new antibiotics, and a technique called solid-state NMR spectroscopy is a key to unlocking those secrets.
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Advance in understanding of blood pressure gene could lead to new treatments
02-04-2007 · EurekAlert!
Research by scientists at UCL (University College London) has clearly demonstrated for the first time the structure and function of a gene crucial to the regulation of blood pressure. The discovery could be important in the search for new treatments for illnesses such as heart disease, the UK's biggest killer. In a paper published online today in Nature Medicine, the team, led by Professor Patrick Vallance and Dr James Leiper, UCL Department of Medicine, reveal the role of the human gene dimethylarginine dimethylaminohydrolase (DDAH), showing that loss of DDAH activity disrupts nitric oxide (NO) production. NO is critical in the regulation of blood pressure, nervous system functions and the immune system. The role of DDAH is to break down modified amino acids (Asymmetric dimethylarginine (ADMA) and monomethyl arginine (L-NMMA)) that are produced by the body and have been shown to inhibit NO synthase. These molecules accumulate in various disease states including diabetes, renal failure and pulmonary and systemic hypertension, and their concentration in plasma (the fluid component of blood) is strongly predicative of cardiovascular disease and death. In a healthy human body, the majority of ADMA is eliminated through active metabolism by DDAH. Scientists have hypothesised that if DDAH function is impaired, NO production is reduced, and that this could be an important feature of increased cardiovascular risk. To examine this pathway in more detail, the researchers deleted the DDAH gene in mice. These mice went on to develop hypertension, or high blood pressure. They also designed specific inhibitors (small molecules) which bind to the active site of human DDAH. These small molecule inhibitors also induced hypertension in mice, confirming the importance of DDAH in the regulation of blood pressure. Dr Leiper, UCL Medicine, said: “These genetic and chemical approaches to disrupt DDAH showed remarkably consistent results, and provide compelling evidence that loss of DDAH function increases the concentration of ADMA and thereby disrupts vascular NO signalling. “There has been considerable scientific interest in this pathway and the role of ADMA as a novel risk factor, but so far there's been little evidence to support the idea that it's a cause of disease, rather than just a marker. Genes and their pathways are crucial to our understanding of cardiovascular disease and a better understanding of DDAH-1 could lead to important new treatments. “It could help us to establish if genetic variation predisposes certain people to these diseases, or whether environmental factors exert some of their effects through modulation of DDAH activity. “Our research also shows that this pathway could be harnessed therapeutically to limit production of NO in certain situations where too much nitric oxide is a bad thing; for example, hypotension and septic shock. These are some of the biggest problems in intensive care medicine and there is a huge unmet need for drug treatments.” The study, which was carried out at UCL's Rayne Institute, was funded by grants from the British Heart Foundation, the Wellcome Trust and the Medical Research Council. Professor Jeremy Pearson, Associate Medical Director of the British Heart Foundation, said: "The unexpected finding in the 1980s that a simple gas, nitric oxide (NO), is made by cells in the blood vessel wall and is a powerful control of blood vessel relaxation led to the award of the Nobel Prize in 1998 to its discoverers. "More recently, there has been increasing evidence that impairment of NO production is likely to be an important factor in the development of heart and circulatory disease, but the mechanisms responsible are not fully understood. "This study suggests for the first time that the loss of the activity of the enzyme DDAH-1 leads to reduced NO production and may cause heart and circulatory disease. These findings are likely to be important in the search for new ways to optimise the health of our blood vessels." ### Notes for Editors 1. For more information, please contact Ruth Metcalfe in the UCL Media Relations Office on tel: +44 (0)20 7679 9739, mobile: +44 (0)7990 675 947, out of hours: +44 (0)7917 271 364, e-mail: r.metcalfe@ucl.ac.uk2. 'Disruption of methylarginine metabolism impairs vascular homeostasis' is published in the February issue of the journal Nature Medicine. Advance online publication is embargoed to 18.00 GMT (13.00 US Eastern) Sunday 4 February 2007. Journalists can obtain copies of the paper by contacting the UCL Media Relations Office.3. The study was funded by the British Heart Foundation, the Wellcome Trust and the Medical Research Council. About UCL Founded in 1826, UCL was the first English university established after Oxford and Cambridge, the first to admit students regardless of race, class, religion or gender, and the first to provide systematic teaching of law, architecture and medicine. In the government's most recent Research Assessment Exercise, 59 UCL departments achieved top ratings of 5* and 5, indicating research quality of international excellence. UCL is the fourth-ranked UK university in the 2006 league table of the top 500 world universities produced by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University. UCL alumni include Mahatma Gandhi (Laws 1889, Indian political and spiritual leader); Jonathan Dimbleby (Philosophy 1969, writer and television presenter); Junichiro Koizumi (Economics 1969, Prime Minister of Japan); Lord Woolf (Laws 1954, Lord Chief Justice of England & Wales); Alexander Graham Bell (Phonetics 1860s, inventor of the telephone), and members of the band Coldplay.
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Tiny tweezers and yeast help St. Jude show how cancer drug works
07-09-2007 · EurekAlert!
The annoying bulges of an over-wound telephone cord that shorten its reach and limit a caller's motion help to explain why drugs called camptothecins are so effective in killing cancer cells, according to investigators at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and Delft University of Technology.
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Low dose of serotonin-acting chemical improves blood sugar tolerance
11-06-2007 · EurekAlert!
An appetite-suppressing chemical also improves glucose tolerance and lowers insulin levels in obese and diabetic mice, researchers report in the November issue of Cell Metabolism, a publication of Cell Press. Importantly, the researchers found, those effects of the drug occurred at a low dose that had no influence on feeding behavior, body weight, activity level, or energy expenditure.
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Drug-eluting stents yield better outcomes than bare-metal ones
11-19-2007 · EurekAlert!
Rhode Island Hospital researchers report that drug-eluting stents are just as safe and effective as traditonal bare-metal stents when used in routine clinical practice.
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