Temperature governs many vital cell processes such as division and metabolism. A European research team, led by the Institute of Photonic Sciences (ICFO), with the distinctive Severo Ochoa, published in the journal Nano Letters a noninvasive method that provides fast and accurate data to measure the heat from the intracellular green fluorescent protein (GFP). “A unique feature of our method is that it does not alter any cellular process,” says Romain Quidant SINC, ICFO researcher and coordinator of the study. Unlike other techniques, this method does not stress or alter cell behavior as it requires the introduction of any other molecule or synthetic nanoobjeto temperature sensitive inside.

One of the most promising applications is to better understand cellular processes, such as those involved in metastasis. Furthermore, the possibility of intracellular temperature information could also be used to “differentiate normal cells from cancer in a fast, noninvasive,” says Sebastian Thompson SINC Parga, ICFO researcher and author of the paper.

The information inferred from the temperature

Through the intracellular temperature can be deduced how energy flows which invests the body in the uncontrolled reproduction of cancer cells. In this interdisciplinary work, biology uses physical measurements of energy transfer to study processes such as gene expression, metabolism and cell division.

The technique used is known by the name ‘anisotropy of the fluorescence polarization’ (FPA), because it allows measuring the difference in polarization between the light receiving fluorescent molecules and subsequently emitted. In Quidant words, “the difference of polarization (anisotropy) is directly connected with the rotation of GFP molecules and therefore the temperature.”

The green fluorescent protein has award

The study’s authors say that biologists can implement this technique in their experimental setups and get the cell temperature as a more observable data. When in 2008 Osamu Shimomura, Martin Chalfie and Roger Y. Tsien took the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discovering and developing GFP, raided many of the complications of biomedical research.

In the field of molecular biology have already been proposed various techniques for monitoring the temperature inside the cells, but investigators were constrained by measuring the intensity and spectrum of their fluorescence. Furthermore, the ability to measure intracellular temperature could form the basis for developing a field still little studied: thermal biology at the cellular level.

According to the authors of the study, the next step is to improve the sensitivity and resolution of the method. To achieve this, researchers are working to refine the properties of fluorescent proteins and to optimize the detection method of the ‘thermometer’.

Although astronomers know that this world is not living, this development represents a milestone in the exploration of possible traces of life on other planets. “Spitzer has returned to marvel once more,” said Bill Danchi, the chief scientist of the mission at NASA headquarters in Washington. “This ship is leading the study of distant planets atmosphere and pave the way for the future James Webb Space Telescope, which will apply a similar technique to investigate potentially habitable planets.”

The planet, named 55 Cancri e, is considered a super-Earth, i.e. a larger world than ours but smaller than the giants like Neptune. Astronomers have found to be approximately twice as large and eight times as massive as Earth and orbits a star 55 Cancri in just 18 hours. So far, Spizter and other telescopes have studied this planet by analyzing how the light of 55 Cancri is altered as it passed in front of its star. But the new study, Spitzer was able to measure the amount of infrared light from the planet itself.

The analysis results show that this is a dark world, and that the planet’s face always “look” to their sun has a scorching more than two thousand degrees Kelvin. These data support an earlier theory according to which 55 Cancri e is a water world: a rocky crust surrounded by a layer of water in a “supercritical” that is both liquid and gas, covered by a blanket of steam. “It could be very similar to Neptune, if this planet came closer to we saw how our sun and its atmosphere boiled until it disappears, “said Michael Gillon, University of Liege in Belgium, principal investigator of the study, published in the Astrophysical Journal. The 55 Cancri system is relatively close to Earth, 41 light years. It has five planets, and 55 Cancri e is the one closest to its star.

Envisat March 10 marked the last years of operation in space, twice as long, but ESA had to keep it operating for at least another year, until the missions planned launch Sentinel. The end of the mission does not mean that the experts have given up: continue trying to regain communication with the Envisat, ESA recognizes that although the likelihood of achieving “extremely low”.

Furthermore, it continues to monitor the device by the same images taken by other teams in orbit and radar systems. Information is essential to calculate when and where it will fall to Earth the satellite out of control.

ESA experts have explored various failure scenarios Envisat, problems that may have caused the communication breakdown. One possibility is pointing to the energy regulator, whose failure could have blocked the telemetry (satellite communications control center) and the reception of telecommands (orders that are sent from Earth).

Another possibility, says ESA is that a short circuit has activated the so-called satellite security mode, a state that if a problem occurs, stop functioning on-board equipment to prevent damage of the satellite, pending that the situation right. It is also possible that an abnormality in the transition to secure mode has left the satellite in an intermediate state. Engineers continue a couple of months trying to reestablish contact with the Envisat and exploring the possible causes of failure.

How Google decides what pages are most relevant and how they relate to the users of Facebook are two strategies that have been used to find key proteins in the development of pancreatic cancer. This is the result of a German research published in the journal PLoS Computational Biology.

Scientists at the University of Dresden used a modification of the algorithm ‘PageRank’ Google ‘to test the possible relevance of 20,000 proteins in pancreatic cancer. The result is the finding of seven molecules that can help determine the aggressiveness of the tumor and how intense should be the patient receives chemotherapy.

“The search for biomarkers in isolation gave many false positives,” the researchers wrote. The proteins that was well able to predict cancer progression in a cohort of patients but not individuals. “Using the Google algorithm and taking into account the network of protein interactions our results are more reproducible and applicable to every patient,” says Winter.

At first, the team experimented with their own search strategies, but “soon realized that the algorithm we needed already existed,” says Winter. “We will be happy to provide the code that we used and the instructions to activate it to anyone who needs it,” say the researchers.

The importance of biomarkers

“In medicine we biomarkers in saliva samples, hair and blood of patients,” says Winter. These molecules reveal whether a person is sick (or diagnostic markers of early detection) and progression (prognostic markers). “Almost all markers, in its broadest sense, can be detected in standard blood tests, said the expert. But for a decade the most popular markers are those measured by techniques of genomics and transcriptomics”.

Although the biomarkers found seem to mean an advance in the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, yet can not be applied to clinical practice. “Much remains to be done if we transform these discoveries into drugs that stop cancer progression,” say the authors. Winter’s group is already working with Resprotect, a biotechnology company engaged in the development of new drugs related to pancreatic cancer.

Digging through the lunar rocks brought about by the Apollo 16 mission, a group of scientists have found remains of meteorites that bombarded the moon early in its existence. “We found that the objects hitting the Moon 3,800 million years ago were asteroids and comets do not”, explains to SINC Katherine H. Joy, a researcher at the Lunar and Planetary Institute of Houston (USA).

So far, investigating the impacts of the lunar surface indirectly. Scientists looking for traces of chemical elements that would have been released in the crust after the collision. “Now we physically these meteorite fragments,” says Joy, lead author of a study published in the journal Science.

The material found has a different nature of the lunar soil or that of meteorites falling on Earth today. Thus the authors believe that these remains “are fragments of primitive asteroids and represent the population of bodies that crossed the solar system early in its history.”

Asteroids from Comets

“Most asteroids are located forming a belt between Mars and Jupiter and are rocky or metallic bodies that did not grow enough to form planets, explains Joy. But there are some who travel to the Sun across terrestrial and lunar orbits.” However, comets are a mixture of ice, dust and rock.

During the early stages of solar system formation, both the Earth and the moon were bombarded by many objects. “It is important to understand what kind of bodies crashed into the moon at different times of the past,” says Joy. These data may be useful to understand how these events shaped the Moon and Earth early in its history.

On Tuesday June 5, a unique astronomical phenomenon will be visible from Earth: the transit of Venus across the Sun this planet crosses in front of the solar disk and will be unique opportunities for astronomers to calibrate and improve current techniques that allow detect extrasolar planets.

“Scientists have a moral obligation to maximize this opportunity, because we will not make another like it,” said astronomer Jay M. Psachoff, who works at the Williams College (USA). The transit of a planet is a rare alignment in which a star gets in line to form the Sun and Earth. The transit of Venus will not happen again until 2117.

The last time was observed from Earth was in 2004. “But this time is particularly special because the Sun is going through a phase of great activity,” says Psachoff. “What we will be very similar to what we see when expolanetas pass in front of its star,” says the scientist in a commentary published in the journal Nature.

The probe Venus Express orbiting Venus leads since 2006 and sending information to Earth. The data received are that the satellite atmospheric measurement taken at dawn and dusk of each day in different parts of the world, “making it impossible to know whether the differences we observe are due to changes in space or time” says Psachoff. During transit can observe the entire planet’s atmosphere. “We will use telescopes around the world to obtain as much information as possible,” explains the expert.

An international team of researchers with the participation of Spanish scientists has sequenced the genes of melanoma. “This type of cancer, very aggressive and lethal, is closely related to sun exposure early in life,” warn the authors of the study.

The results of this research, published in the journal Nature, could help develop new therapeutic strategies. The team led by Levi Garraway, Medical Institute of Harvard and the Broad Institute of Technology (MIT), sequenced the complete genome of 25 samples of melanoma metastases.

This work shows that “the number of mutations in melanoma depends directly on how much they had in the sun individuals,” the researchers say. Patients who had a chronically exposed to UV had many more mutations than those without.

Additionally, this study has identified new genes that alterations were not known at this type of cancer, as PREX2, which is mutated in 14% of cases. “We still do not know exactly what role, but we know that is related to the accelerated progression of the tumor,” the authors write.

The experts concluded that “understanding the genetics of melanoma in all its depth is the key to developing new treatments we so desperately need”.

Researchers at the University of Granada have developed a web application that allows to evaluate the ecological status of the Spanish rivers as aquatic macroinvertebrates that live in them. Initially, the designed system includes all the Mediterranean watershed, although its leaders seek to increase its area of application to the rest of the country in future releases.

This application, called MEDPACS (Mediterranean Prediction And Classification System), follows on previous experience in other countries like the United Kingdom (through the project RIVPACS) or Australia (AUSRIVAS). It was born into a project called GUADALMED, involving 7 Universities with the aim of testing methodologies for studying the ecological status of the Mediterranean rivers that allow to implement the requirements of the Water Framework Directive.

Currently, the system allows, by simple mouse click at a particular point of the hydrographic network, predict the list of macroinvertebrate families that would live there if there was no alteration. Thus, by comparing the macroinvertebrate community that actually live and potentially could live down the degree of alteration.

For this, the system performs many calculations and evaluations (taking into account parameters such as how far it is from that point to the origin of the river, slope, or what geological materials are those in the upstream basin) that will allow, through predictive models provide a probabilistic output than it would expect to find there.

With all this, and automatically generate maps with the current status of ecological status and reports. The authors state that this service MEDPACS is a useful tool for those agencies under the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Environment (such as river basin districts, water agencies, etc …) and cooperating agencies or companies involved in the work of assessment of ecological status of surface water bodies.

Gathering information with the mobile

Besides this project, who have worked in recent years, researchers at the University of Granada have developed ACADARI application (Application Data Capture in rivers), a system for mobile phones and PDAs that enables data collection “in situ” in the rivers and subsequently knocked over spreadsheets and enter them in the application MEDPCS, avoiding the usual transcription errors.

The system allows the device to collect data through both the position (location via GPS), and physical-chemical (flow, temperature, pH, conductivity and oxygen from water) and the families of macroinvertebrates and macrophytes that inhabit the water.

MEDPACS The project has been conducted by the Research Group of Animal Biology and Ecology Aquatic lotic Media at the University of Granada through funding of various projects at national level, of an agreement with the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and environment, and finally through a project of excellence of the Andalusian.

The study, published in the international journal PLoS Biology, has a significance “very significant” level of basic research, to describe for the first time the key role of the ganglioside-membrane molecules in HIV-virus penetration AIDS in the cells responsible for activating an immune response against the virus, dendritic cells, and disseminate in the body.

As explained by labor leader, Javier Martinez-Picado, “dendritic cells circulate throughout the body to capture microbes, fragment and the control center are immune to exterminate white blood cells to these invaders,” but in the AIDS case these cells are unable to divide the microbe and HIV remains inside without degradation.

Once this is carried to the lymph, as the center of the immune system leaves the AIDS virus is capable of full and exterminate the body’s defense cells, and now researchers have discovered the molecule that allows the AIDS virus to act as a ‘Trojan horse’ to invade dendritic cells to stay inside without being divided.

Stopping the spread of virus

In collaboration with the Institute of Advanced Chemistry of Catalonia CSIC and the University of Heidelberg Germany, the research showed that “the disappearance of gangliosides completely inhibited the spread of the virus”, Martinez-Picado meaning, accompanied by the renowned researcher Bonaventura Clotet.

The Labour leader has found that “current antiretroviral therapies improve the quality of life but not cure, given that patients should continue taking medication for life. The cure is not because the virus continues to replicate in a body part”.

Therefore, the mechanism found has become a new front to tackle the infection, and perhaps aware that this is not the only reservoir for cure HIV, Martinez-Picado has predicted that a new family of drugs could be administered in combination with current antiretroviral cocktail.

The attempt to identify the gene or genes involved in the deletions of the long arm of human chromosome (6q), which are quite common in human T lymphoblastic lymphomas. For researchers surprisingly found that all human lymphomas that could be analyzed also showed epigenetic inactivation EPHA7, an EPHA member of ephrin receptors that channel activation of several oncogenic pathways, including the powerful via Ras/MAPK/ERK.

Researchers have described the results of “blunt”, as “indicate that this gene may be an important diagnostic marker,” and, therefore, advisable to use a new therapeutic strategy based on the administration of a truncated isoform of the protein EPHA7, already on the market.

Scientists study left the orthologous deletions of chromosome 4 that appear in this type of lymphoma induced in mice. Preliminary analyzes showed several candidate genes, but the gene EPHA7 among them being the presenting higher levels of inactivation, especially hypermethylation of their promoter regions, that is, by epigenetic changes that do not involve the modification of the sequence gene nucleotide bases.

On the other hand, have observed that inactivation of this gene has also been described in some hematological malignancies and several solid tumors, reinforcing its importance as a tumor suppressor gene. At work, led by Dr. Jose Fernandez Piqueras, has Contrado in collaboration with the group of Dr. Manel Esteller, of the Institute of IDIBELL Bellvitge Biomedical Research, and Dr. Pablo Fernandez Navarro, National Epidemiology Center, Institute of Health Carlos III and a member of CIBER in Epidemiology and Public Health CIBERESP.