Daily non-political popular news in brief.

Cell wall of pneumonia bacteria can cause brain and heart damage

10-23-2006 · EurekAlert!

Investigators at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital have discovered in mouse models how cell walls from certain pneumonia-causing bacteria can cause fatal heart damage; researchers have also shown how antibiotic therapy can contribute to this damage by increasing the number of cell wall pieces shed by dying bacteria.

Keywords: cell, wall, pneumonia, bacteria, cause, brain, heart, damage

« Previous | Next »

Similar news on "Cell wall of pneumonia bacteria can cause brain and heart damage":

Faulty cell membrane repair causes heart disease
07-03-2007 · EurekAlert!
During vigorous exercise, heart muscle cells take a beating. In fact, some of those cells rupture and without an efficient repair process those cells would die and cause heart damage (cardiomyopathy). University of Iowa researchers have discovered a specific repair mechanism in heart muscle and identified a protein called dysferlin that is critical for resealing heart muscle cell membranes.
Similar news · Read more »
Severe heart attack damage limited by hydrogen sulfide
09-18-2007 · EurekAlert!
Heart attacks and even surgery can cause severe heart-tissue and cell damage due to oxygen deprivation. A new study finds that hydrogen sulfide can prevent such damage after blood flow is restored.
Similar news · Read more »
Specific type of cell death may accelerate decompensated heart failure
07-05-2007 · UT Southwestern Medical Center
Autophagy, a normal process by which cells eat their own proteins to provide needed resources to the body in times of stress, may paradoxically cause harm to hearts already weakened by disease, researchers from UT Southwestern Medical Center have found.
Similar news · Read more »
Fast way of spotting multidrug resistant bacteria could help stop outbreaks in hospitals
11-27-2007 · EurekAlert!
A type of bacterium widely found on our skin and in the environment has now become a major threat in hospitals where it can cause serious infections, such as pneumonia in severely ill patients. Like the well known bacterium MRSA (methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus) the new types of Acinetobacter baumannii are resistant to nearly all antibiotics, so doctors have very few treatments available, and three resistant strains are currently circulating in the UK.
Similar news · Read more »
Alcoholics with cirrhosis of the liver have more brain damage than noncirrhotic alcoholics
08-27-2007 · EurekAlert!
Cirrhosis of the liver is one of the most common and serious medical complications linked to alcoholism.Heavy alcohol use can also cause brain damage.Cirrhotic alcoholics appear to have even more impaired brain function than noncirrhotic alcoholics.
Similar news · Read more »
Epilepsy-induced brain cell damage prevented in the laboratory
10-29-2007 · EurekAlert!
For some epilepsy patients, the condition's side effects can be as troubling as the seizures. One pressing concern is potential cognitive impairment from seizures, which can include memory loss, slowed reactions and reduced attention spans. Now researchers have linked such cognitive impairments to structural changes in brain cells caused by seizures. They report that the insights they gained allowed them to use a drug to block those changes in the brains of laboratory animals.
Similar news · Read more »
Even minute levels of lead cause brain damage in children
11-20-2007 · EurekAlert!
Even amounts of lead in the blood well below current federal standard are linked to reduced IQ scores in children, finds a new six-year Cornell study published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.
Similar news · Read more »
Carbon monoxide may cause long-lasting heart damage
01-29-2008 · EurekAlert!
Findings of a study by researchers at Rhode Island Hospital suggests that heart damage caused by carbon monoxide may have long-lasting effects even after the toxic gas has been eliminated from the blood.
Similar news · Read more »
VEGF neutralization can damage brain vessels, say Schepens Eye Research Institute scientists
02-12-2008 · EurekAlert!
New research by scientists at Schepens Eye Research Institute may help explain why the anticancer drug Avastin, which targets a growth factor responsible for creation of new blood vessels, causes potentially fatal brain inflammation in certain patients. Institute scientists mimicked the drug's activity in mice and found that it damaged the cell lining that prevents fluid from leaking from the ventricle into the brain.
Similar news · Read more »
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.
Similar news · Read more »