1,459 results match your criteria: "BIO21 Institute[Affiliation]"

Symbiotic cnidarians, such as sea anemones and corals, rely on their mutualistic microalgal partners (Symbiodiniaceae) for survival. Marine heatwaves can disrupt this partnership, and it has been proposed that introducing experimentally evolved, heat-tolerant algal symbionts could enhance host thermotolerance. To test this hypothesis, the sea anemone Exaiptasia diaphana (a coral model) was inoculated with either the heterologous wild type or heat-evolved algal symbiont, Cladocopium proliferum, and homologous wild-type Breviolum minutum.

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Agrochemicals: Insect declines in a warming world.

Curr Biol

January 2025

School of BioSciences, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC 3052, Australia; Bio21 Institute, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC 3052, Australia. Electronic address:

Worldwide declines in the abundance of non-pest insects threaten ecosystems, food production, and human wellbeing. A large-scale study has systematically examined field and environmental levels of 1,024 agrochemicals and the effect of small temperature increases. The results are disturbing.

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Background: The bird cherry-oat aphid, Rhopalosiphum padi, is a major pest of agriculture due to its ability to directly damage crops and transmit plant viruses. As industries move away from chemical pest control, there is interest in exploring new options to suppress the impact of this pest.

Results: We describe the production of a transinfected line of R.

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Therapeutic blockade of CCL17 in obesity-exacerbated osteoarthritic pain and disease.

PLoS One

January 2025

Faculty of Medicine Dentistry and Health Sciences, Department of Medicine, Royal Melbourne Hospital, Melbourne Medical School, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia.

Objectives: We previously reported that CCL17 gene-deficient mice are protected from developing pain-like behaviour and exhibit less disease in destabilization of medial meniscus (DMM)-induced OA, as well as in high-fat diet (HFD)-exacerbated DMM-induced OA. Here, we explored if therapeutic neutralization of CCL17, using increasing doses of a neutralizing monoclonal antibody (mAb), would lead to a dose-dependent benefit in these two models.

Design: DMM-induced OA was initiated in male mice either fed with a control diet (7% fat) or 8 weeks of a 60% HFD, followed by therapeutic intraperitoneal administration (i.

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DNA replication stress underpins the vulnerability to oxidative phosphorylation inhibition in colorectal cancer.

Cell Death Dis

January 2025

Tianjian Laboratory of Advanced Biomedical Sciences, Academy of Medical Sciences, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, Henan, China.

Mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) is a therapeutic vulnerability in glycolysis-deficient cancers. Here we show that inhibiting OXPHOS similarly suppresses the proliferation and tumorigenicity of glycolytically competent colorectal cancer (CRC) cells in vitro and in patient-derived CRC xenografts. While the increased glycolytic activity rapidly replenished the ATP pool, it did not restore the reduced production of aspartate upon OXPHOS inhibition.

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Article Synopsis
  • Aedes aegypti mosquitoes are key carriers of dengue, and factors like urbanization, climate change, and trade are affecting their populations.
  • Higher temperatures have been shown to impact insect mortality and fertility, with this study focusing on how heat influences the fertility of Ae. aegyti across different generations.
  • Results indicated that while mosquitoes can acclimate to heat, their fertility declines with increasing temperatures, affecting both male and female mosquitoes’ ability to reproduce and produce viable offspring, which could impact their populations in warmer climates.
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The biological effects of electromagnetic field (EMF) irradiation in the terahertz (THz) range remain ambiguous, despite numerous studies that have been conducted. In this paper, the metabolic response of K 12 to EMF irradiation was examined using a 1.0 W m incident synchrotron source (SS) in the range of 0.

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The oral pathogen, Porphyromonas gingivalis has a general O-glycosylation system which it utilises to modify hundreds of proteins localised outside of the cytoplasm. The O-glycan is a heptasaccharide that includes a putative L-fucose and N-acetylgalactosamine (GalNAc) as the 5th and 6th sugar residues respectively. The putative L-fucose is expected to be synthesized as GDP-L-fucose involving the enzymes Gmd (PGN_1078) and Fcl (PGN_1079), while GalNAc is putatively epimerised from GlcNAc by GalE (PGN_1614).

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Evolutionary consequences of long-distance dispersal in mosquitoes.

Curr Opin Insect Sci

December 2024

Bio21 Institute, School of BioSciences, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Australia. Electronic address:

Long-distance dispersal (LDD) provides a means for mosquitoes to invade new regions and spread adaptive alleles, including those conferring insecticide resistance. Most LDD takes place on human transport vessels and will typically be rarer and more directionally constrained than active flight but can connect populations and regions that are otherwise mutually inaccessible. These features make LDD worthy of specific consideration in mosquito research.

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Spatial Organization of the Sperm Cell Glycoproteome.

Mol Cell Proteomics

December 2024

Biomolecular Mass Spectrometry and Proteomics, Bijvoet Center for Biomolecular Research and Utrecht Institute for Pharmaceutical Sciences, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands; Netherlands Proteomic Center, Utrecht, The Netherlands. Electronic address:

Sperm cells are terminally differentiated cells that are essential for reproduction in sexually reproducing species. Consistent with their highly specialized function, sperm cells harbor a unique proteome containing many proteins not expressed in somatic cells. In contrast, the post-translational landscape of the sperm proteome remains largely unexplored, limiting our understanding of how modifications such as glycosylation impact sperm function and sperm-egg interactions.

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CSL040 is a soluble, recombinant fragment of the complement receptor 1 (CR1) extracellular domain that acts as an inhibitor of all three pathways of the complement system. Systemic toxicity, toxicokinetics (TK), and pharmacodynamics (PD) of CSL040 were assessed in two-week intravenous (IV) bolus studies in Han Wistar rats and cynomolgus monkeys. Recovery from any effects was evaluated during a four-week recovery period.

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Article Synopsis
  • * ε-PL-Se NPs show exceptional antimicrobial activity, with the ability to significantly reduce methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and maintain low minimum bactericidal and fungicidal concentrations against other tested strains.
  • * Unlike traditional antibiotics, ε-PL-Se NPs delay the development of resistance in bacteria, suggesting a promising approach for more sustainable treatments against AMR.
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Single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) is a powerful technology that enables the measurement of gene expression in individual cells. Such precision provides insights into cellular heterogeneity that bulk methods might overlook. Fragile cells, in particular neutrophils, have posed significant challenges for scRNA-Seq due to their fragility, high RNase content and consequent loss during cryopreservation.

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Article Synopsis
  • Dengue is a significant global health issue, and introducing Wolbachia bacteria into Aedes aegypti populations has been effective in reducing its transmission, though the impact on untreated areas is unclear.
  • A synthetic control method was utilized to estimate the effectiveness of Wolbachia in reducing dengue incidence in Malaysia, comparing treated areas to non-treated control areas.
  • The study found a substantial direct reduction of 64.35% in dengue cases in treated areas and a notable 37.69% reduction in adjacent untreated regions due to spillover effects.
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Insecticide contamination and climate change are key factors driving the global decline in insect populations. However, how these factors interact to impact insect survival remains uncertain. In this study, we examined the effects of sex and genotype on the response to long-term low insecticide exposure at two temperatures, 18 °C and 28 °C, using the Drosophila melanogaster model.

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Rationale: Polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) like perfluorooctanoic acid have persistent environmental and physiological effects. This study investigates the degradation of CFCO (n = 1-7) with neutral radical fragmentation under oxygen attachment dissociation (OAD). Unique fragments absent from collision-induced dissociation (CID) are observed.

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MR1 presents vitamin B6-related compounds for recognition by MR1-reactive T cells.

Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A

December 2024

Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and Immunity Program, Biomedicine Discovery Institute, Monash University, Clayton, VIC 3800, Australia.

The major histocompatibility complex class I related protein (MR1) presents microbially derived vitamin B2 precursors to mucosal-associated invariant T (MAIT) cells. MR1 can also present other metabolites to activate MR1-restricted T cells expressing more diverse T cell receptors (TCRs), some with anti-tumor reactivity. However, knowledge of the range of the antigen(s) that can activate diverse MR1-reactive T cells remains incomplete.

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Global analysis of endogenous protein disorder in cells.

Nat Methods

January 2025

Department of Biochemistry and Chemistry, La Trobe Institute for Molecular Science, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

Disorder and flexibility in protein structures are essential for biological function but can also contribute to diseases, such as neurodegenerative disorders. However, characterizing protein folding on a proteome-wide scale within biological matrices remains challenging. Here we present a method using a bifunctional chemical probe, named TME, to capture in situ, enrich and quantify endogenous protein disorder in cells.

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Fertile hybrids can enhance the adaptive capacity and resilience of species under stress by increasing genetic diversity within populations, masking the effects of deleterious recessive alleles, and facilitating the introgression of beneficial genetic variants into parental species. However, many hybrids are infertile. We compared the fertility of aquarium-reared F1 hybrid and purebred corals of the species and and examined the viability of early life stages of second-generation (F2) hybrid and back-crossed planula larvae and recruits.

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Article Synopsis
  • Drug-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis, especially mutants resistant to isoniazid, creates significant global health challenges due to mutations in the katG gene, affecting a crucial enzyme.
  • Researchers employed CRISPRi, transcriptomics, and metabolomics to identify metabolic and transcriptional changes in an isoniazid-resistant katG mutant, revealing new weaknesses in processes like respiration and ribosome biogenesis.
  • The study indicates that these identified vulnerabilities could be targeted for therapeutic strategies, offering potential improvements in treatment effectiveness against drug-resistant tuberculosis strains.
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Cell death frequently occurs in the pathogenesis of obesity and metabolic dysfunction-associated fatty liver disease (MAFLD). However, the exact contribution of core cell death machinery to disease manifestations remains ill-defined. Here, we show via the direct comparison of mice genetically deficient in the essential necroptotic regulators, receptor-interacting protein kinase-3 (RIPK3) and mixed lineage kinase domain-like (MLKL), as well as mice lacking apoptotic caspase-8 in myeloid cells combined with RIPK3 loss, that RIPK3/caspase-8 signaling regulates macrophage inflammatory responses and drives adipose tissue inflammation and MAFLD upon high-fat diet feeding.

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Genomics-Informed Range Predictions Under Global Warming Reveal Reduced Adaptive Diversity Whilst Buffering Range Shifts for a Marine Snail.

Glob Chang Biol

November 2024

The Key Laboratory of Mariculture, Ministry of Education, Fisheries College, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, People's Republic of China.

Understanding the genetic basis of local adaptation in thermal performance is useful for predicting species distribution shifts under anthropogenic climate change. Many species are distributed across multiple biogeographic regions, and the uniquely adapted populations in each region may respond to future ocean warming with distinct distribution changes. In the present study, we investigated phylogeographic patterns, thermal sensitivity, and genetic differentiation in the intertidal snail Littorina brevicula along China's coast.

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Background: The kallikrein-kinin system (KKS) is a complex biochemical pathway that plays a crucial role in regulating several physiological processes, including inflammation, coagulation, and blood pressure. Dysregulation of the KKS has been associated with several pathological conditions such as hereditary angioedema (HAE), hypertension, and stroke. Developing an accurate quantitative model of the KKS may provide a better understanding of its role in health and disease and facilitate the rapid and targeted development of effective therapies for KKS-related disorders.

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Plasma Lipidomics Reveals Lipid Signatures of Early Pregnancy in Mares.

Int J Mol Sci

October 2024

Priority Research Centre for Reproductive Science, School of Environmental and Life Sciences, College of Engineering, Science and Environment, The University of Newcastle, Callaghan 2308, Australia.

Understanding the systemic biochemistry of early pregnancy in the mare is essential for developing new diagnostics and identifying causes for pregnancy loss. This study aimed to elucidate the dynamic lipidomic changes occurring during the initial stages of equine pregnancy, with a specific focus on days 7 and 14 post-ovulation. By analysing and comparing the plasma lipid profiles of pregnant and non-pregnant mares, the objective of this study was to identify potential biomarkers for pregnancy and gain insights into the biochemical adaptations essential for supporting maternal recognition of pregnancy and early embryonic development.

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Dimerization and lysine substitution of melittin have differing effects on bacteria.

Front Pharmacol

October 2024

ACTV Research Group, Melbourne Dental School, Division of Basic and Clinical Oral Sciences, Royal Dental Hospital and The Bio21 Institute of Molecular Science and Biotechnology, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia.

Introduction: Melittin is a potent antimicrobial peptide from bee venom that is effective against both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria. However, it is extremely toxic to mammalian cells and, as yet, has no clinical use. Modifications to its amino acid sequence, cyclization, truncation, and dimerization have been attempted in order to reduce its toxicity whilst maintaining its antimicrobial activity.

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