0 The Friday Four

In today's Friday Four, we'll look at how tuberculosis bacteria survive inside macrophages, chemotherapy drugs that kill malaria, a potential source for a new anti-inflammatory treatment, and a vascular disorder that is misdiagnosed as multiple sclerosis.

Full text of the articles and links to the sites or publications on which they are based are available at the cited locations.

1) How Tuberculosis Bacteria Manage to Survive Inside Body’s Macrophage Cells

Tuberculosis kills two million people each year. Researchers at Linköping University in Sweden are now presenting new findings that show how the bacterium that causes the disease manages to survive inside the body's macrophage cells in order eventually to blow them up and spread their infection.

ScienceDaily. Retrieved March 11, 2011,
from http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2011/03/110309073940.htm

Original source publication: http://www.expertsvar.se/english/

2) Malaria’s Weakest Link: Class of Chemotherapy Drugs Also Kills the Parasite That Causes Malaria

A group of researchers from EPFL's Global Health Institute (GHI) and Inserm (Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale, the French government agency for biomedical research) has discovered that a class of chemotherapy drugs originally designed to inhibit key signaling pathways in cancer cells also kills the parasite that causes malaria. The discovery could quickly open up a whole new strategy for combating this deadly disease.

Science Daily. Retrieved March 10, 2011,
from http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2011/03/110308084743.htm

Original source publication:
Audrey Sicard, Jean-Philippe Semblat, Caroline Doerig, Romain Hamelin, Marc Moniatte, Dominique Dorin-Semblat, Julie A. Spicer, Anubhav Srivastava, Silke Retzlaff, Volker Heussler, Andrew P. Waters, Christian Doerig. Activation of a PAK-MEK signalling pathway in malaria parasite-infected erythrocytes. Cellular Microbiology, 2011; DOI: 10.1111/j.1462-5822.2011.01582.x

3) Engineered Protein Has Potential for New Anti-Inflammatory Treatment

Researchers from across multiple disciplines at NYU Langone Medical Center created a new protein molecule derived from the growth factor progranulin may provide the basis for new therapies in inflammatory diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis, according to a study published in the March 10, 2011 issue of Science.

ScienceDaily. Retrieved March 10, 2011,
from http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2011/03/110310141431.htm

Original source publication:
Wei Tang, Yi Lu, Qing-Yun Tian, Yan Zhang, Feng-Jin Guo, Guang-Yi Liu, Nabeel Muzaffar Syed, Yongjie Lai, Edward Alan Lin, Li Kong, Jeffrey Su, Fangfang Yin, Ai-Hao Ding, Alexandra Zanin-Zhorov, Michael L. Dustin, Jian Tao, Joseph Craft, Zhinan Yin, Jian Q. Feng, Steven B. Abramson, Xiu-Ping Yu and Chuan-Ju Liu. The Growth Factor Progranulin Binds to TNF Receptors and Is Therapeutic Against Inflammatory Arthritis in Mice. Science, 10 March 2011 DOI: 10.1126/science.1199214

4) Vascular Brain Disorder Often Misdiagnosed as Multiple Sclerosis, Study Finds

A devastating vascular disorder of the brain called CADASIL, which strikes young adults and leads to early dementia, often is misdiagnosed as multiple sclerosis, Loyola University Health System researchers report.

ScienceDaily. Retrieved March 10, 2011,
from http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2011/03/110310141431.htm

Original source publication:
R. Vázquez do Campo, S. Morales-Vidal, C. Randolph, L. Chadwick, J. Biller. CADASIL: a case series of 11 patients. Revista de Neurologia, 2011; 52: 202-210


:: PLACEHOLDER:: Comments on these articles coming soon... in the meantime, take a look - interesting stuff.