I feel excited to be here with us again. I want to thank everyone who read and upvoted my previous article A compilation of information on alternative medicine: how anticancer drugs can be produced in yeast, a new tea plant with low caffeine naturally, potential antidote for botulism.. I enjoyed discussing those interesting topics with us and I hope you did enjoy the topics as well. Today, we would be discussing also, on some three really fantastic topics on very recent developments in science, I'm talking 2019 here. So don't go no where, just sit back, relax and let's do this together!
The first topic I would be discussing with us is on the way Candida albicans causes diseases by exploiting absence of oxygen.
I should first tell us a bit about Candida albicans - Candida albicans is a disease causing yeast that belongs to the group of microorganisms found in the guts of humans naturally; we can call these microorganisms the gut flora or the gut microbiota or we may call this the gastrointestinal microbiota. These microorganisms are usually found in the digestive tracts of insects, other animals as well as us humans. They can be found in the mouth of healthy humans as well as in the gastrointestinal tracts. Hence, we can say that Candida albicans are commensal organisms - meaning that they benefit from humans but do not harm us. Unlike in the case of parasitism - where the organism benefits from another organism and causes harm to the organism as well.
But here's another thing, Candida albicans can become harmful in people that are having issues with their immune system, for several reasons. Candida albicans can actually cause a disease in humans called candidiasis - which is caused as a result of excessive growth of candida albicans. Now, people suffering from HIV infection, usually have an immunodeficiency; hence candidiasis is usually a disease they suffer from. Not only Candida albicans cause candidiasis, some other species of candida cause this infection as well. For example, there's the Candida tropicals, C. glabrata, as well as the C. parapsilosis. These four species of candida, i.e including Candida albicans, are the cause of most of the cases of Candidiasis infection in humans. Out of every 10 people that suffer from systemic candidiasis caused by Candida albicans, about 4 may not survive it. Candidiasis caused by C. albicans leads to the death of so many people yearly.
Candida albicans. Wikimedia Commons. CCO Licensed
As though, all these deaths caused by Candida albicans isn't enough; recent studies have found that this pathogenic organism has a way of adapting to different parts of the body with low levels of oxygen, thereby causing more harm and infection to humans. Hence, it has become very important for us to find ways to better understand hypoxic as well as anoxic parts of the human body, as this would be very useful in understanding how Candida albicans survive in such parts of the human body. Let me tell us what hypoxic and anoxic mean - hypoxic has to do with low oxygen levels. While anoxic means no oxygen at all. And as I mentioned above, it's very important that the hypoxic and anoxic areas of the human body are understood better, as this would help scientists in producing more effective therapy for combating C. albicans invasion. It's being unexpected for me, as it is really mind blowing to understand that C. albicans don't need oxygen to cause infections. And to make matters worse, they use the hypoxic or anoxic regions to avoid being combatted by the immune system, hence making them more pathogenic.
Recent studies aim to understand exactly how C. albicans adapt to hypoxic and anoxic regions, making them difficult for the immune system to identify, and how they are able to cause diseases in humans as well as in other organisms. And as I mentioned above, naturally, the C. albicans belong to the gut microbiota. It is as a result of immunosuppressive diseases or issues that causes the C. albicans to move from the natural region where they are found to other areas of the body. Hence, leading to systemic diseases, which usually lead to sepsis, which then leads to a rather quick death of patients. This has become a serious world health issue, as it takes the lives of millions of people worldwide yearly.
Neutrophils. Wikimedia Commons. CCO Licensed
A recent study has found that neutrophils, which is the major white blood cell and the main defence against fungal attacks, is unable to combat C. albicans under hypoxic conditions. Also, from the study, the mechanisms by which C. albicans evade the immune system in low oxygen levels, had been understood greatly. This is very good news. Now, the next step is producing better therapy to help save the lives of so many people suffering from this health challenge. Already, there are ongoing studies aimed at creating better therapy for these patients. Now, if you didn't know that the commensal Candida albicans, which is naturally part of the human gut microbiota could become very harmful and life threatening in people with immunodeficiency, now I'm sure you do. Let's move on to our next topic.
The second topic I would be discussing with us is on how studying mutation order may actually help us figure out exactly how tumors develop.
Tumors in most cancer cases occur as a result of a combination of mutations in two to five genes. Some of us may not understand what mutation is - this is the permanent change in the order of nucleotides in the DNA of an organism. In recent times, results from several research works have led us to understand that the beginning of cancer may be as a result of a series of mutations. The first mutation which can also be called the truncal mutation, is the most important to study. This is simply because understanding the beginning of things is always very important. In relation to a recent study on this topic, I can tell us that - there are two very important factors that should be considered in studying any cancer case; the first factor is the order of mutation that results to the development of the cancer. And second, is knowing the exact cells that are affected, as this would help scientists understand better, the extent of growth, the features of the cancer as well as the kind of tumors that may develop as a result.
Of course, the health issue called cancer isn't a new one. All that I'm going to be sharing with us are simply new methods of understanding already existing concepts; hence, this would help us better figure out facts that have been too confusing to us, as well as laying down the variations in growing cancer cases in young people and older people as well. Also, there's a huge role that genetics play in cancer, as offsprings from a family with history of cancer are more predisposed to be affected by cancer as well. Hence, what I'm going to discussing with us would really help in researching new methods of understanding how cancer originates across perhaps a long period of time. Scientists studying how an order of mutations would eventually lead to the development of cancer, first gathered several research works on tumors growth and development and how the tumors respond to treatments. The scientists also suggested looking into family trees with several varied series of mutations, as this may provide us with valuable information on the cancer development, the cancerous cells as well as the tendency of invasion of tissues even at the period of studying an individual from such a cancer prone family tree; hence, making plans for therapy.
The pharmaceutical industries and biotechnological companies now have better insight about how cancer originates; knowing that cancers may develop as a result of a series of mutations. Hence, these companies can now produce new and better therapy to help break the links or chains in these orders of mutations. By so doing they would be able to stop the continuous growth of cancer. Hence, the production of therapies that would target the first and second mutations is very important. This is simply because if one can stop the first two mutations, then the subsequent mutations leading to the cancer would be totally avoided as well. So you can see, what I'm discussing with us isn't treatment of cancer, but rather the complete prevention of it. As we all may know, life can be said to be completely all about cause and effect.
Colorectal cancer. Wikimedia Commons. CCO Licensed
And as we all may understand as well - if one could avoid the cause, then invariably, one may as well avoid the effect. The series of mutation are different for different types of cancer. Let me give us an instance - colorectal cancer, which is caused as a result of four different mutations affecting four different genes - Gene A (APC), gene B (RAS), gene C (TGF-beta), gene D (p53). As a result of different errors in these different genes, colorectal cancer occurs in the colon of an individual. It has been observed that colorectal cancer occurs in it's most harmful form when the mutations follow the sequence I mentioned above i.e. a mutation in gene A followed by another mutation in gene B, then gene C and finally a mutation in gene D.
Now, once mutations occur in gene A, B, C - a rather harmless tumor occurs. As soon as the fourth mutation follows, then the tumor becomes harmful. A recent study also has found that a cancer called T-cell lymphomas is caused as a result of five different mutations. This has made scientists all over the world to start thinking about the origin of cancer in a different way. Now, if you didn't know of this new way of studying cancer origin, then now you do. Hence, we can move on to our last but not the least topic of the day.
The third topic we would be discussing is about how the human brain takes note of time.
A research work was carried out on students that were in college. The scientists that carried out this work made use of high-powered functional MRI. The students were made to watch a very interesting well known television show. As they did, the scientists examined the way their brains stored information; especially those information that involved the time an event happened.
In the course of the study, the scientists were able to observe new regions in the brains of these students, as they processed the show they were watching. This study then relates to the research work carried out on mouse. Where it was also found that the very same regions observed in mouse, were the exact same regions observed in humans to relate to the way information is stored in the brain. This study may actually help increase our understanding of dementia. It has also been observed that in old people with memory loss, these exact regions of the brain were the very first regions to be affected. In the research work, the students had to sit down, and had their heads put inside a high-powered fMRI, as they were watching the show.
After they had completed the watching of the show, they were asked questions about different events that happened in the show. And from the answers to the questions asked, the scientists found that whenever the students were very correct in their answers about the time a particular event happened, the students showed activation in a region of the brain - the lateral entorhinal cortex as well as the perirhinal cortex. Hence, it has now been understood that those two regions of the brain are related to people's memories of things as well as the way people store information in the brain in relation to time.
Cerebral cortex. Wikimedia Commons. CCO Licensed
For so many years now, scientists have been trying so hard to figure out how the human brain stores information regarding time and space. But all along it's been time that have been most difficult to understand. Hence, this research work is the very first to have provided proof that the lateral entorhinal cortex is involved in the storing as well as the retrieving of information in relation to time in humans. The truth is that space and time are very closely related, and whatever affects one, invariably may affect the other. Now, a large number of research works that study time tend to make use of static items displayed on the television screen. And, the truth about the use of static items is that, these items would provide the researchers with very little information about the way the human brain really stores and retrieves information in real life; since the real world isn't static as we all know.
All these add up to making this research work a very different and unique study, as it shows us how the human brain stores and retrieves information making use of moving people, dialogues, as well as nice scenes and jokes. Unlike previous studies that used static items. The researchers actually used a particularly well known television show, simply because it contains interesting events, that are easy to relate to. And that has brought us to the end of this article. I hope that you enjoyed the topics I discussed with us. Thanks for reading. And bye for now.
References
- Evasion of Immune Surveillance in Low Oxygen Environments Enhances Candida albicans Virulence by José Pedro Lopes, Marios Stylianou, Emelie Backman, Sandra Holmberg, Jana Jass, Rolf Claesson, Constantin F. Urban
- The Roles of Initiating Truncal Mutations in Human Cancers: The Order of Mutations and Tumor Cell Type Matters by Arnold J. Levine, Nancy A. Jenkins, Neal G. Copeland
- Time is just a memory by Matthew L. Shapiro
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