Submitted via IRC for Bytram
Researchers find new pathway to regulate immune response, control diseases
Researchers at The University of Texas at Arlington have found a potential new pathway to regulate immune response and potentially control inflammatory diseases of the central nervous system such as meningitis and sepsis. "We need to know what turns on inflammatory response to bacterial infection to be able to modulate the process," said Subhrangsu Mandal, the UTA associate professor of chemistry who led the research. "If we can do so, we can control inflammatory diseases of the central nervous system that have been hard to treat up to now, such as sepsis and meningitis, as well as cancer and muscular dystrophy, which can also be seen a kind of inflammation," he added.
[...] The researchers have found that the long non-coding RNA molecule HOTAIR present in white blood cells has the capacity to signal these cells to activate immune response in the presence of bacteria. RNA, or ribonucleic acid, is present in all living cells. Its primary role is to carry instructions from DNA. "Knowing that HOTAIR has a role in the signaling pathway also means that we can use it as a biomarker for bacterial infection," he added. "Simple blood tests could indicate infection much more quickly, enabling better treatment for patients of rapidly-moving diseases such as septic shock and meningitis, which have been hard to treat up to now."
The researchers used the resources of UTA's North Texas Genome Center to demonstrate that noncoding RNA expression -- including HOTAIR -- is induced in white blood cells treated with lipopolysaccharide, which are molecules found on the outer membrane of bacterial cells. The research showed that HOTAIR gene was expressed alongside cytokines, which are excreted by cells as part of immune response, and inflammatory response genes such as iNOS. As a result, it is possible to conclude that HOTAIR is a key regulator for pathogen-induced cytokine expression, immune response and inflammation.
LncRNA HOTAIR regulates lipopolysaccharide-induced cytokine expression and inflammatory response in macrophages (open, DOI: 10.1038/s41598-018-33722-2) (DX)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 13 2018, @04:35PM (8 children)
What appeal or interest is this supposed to have for general consumption? There are probably tens of thousands of publications exactly like this that were published in the last week. You can just substitute the molecule names and it would have the same effect.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 13 2018, @05:39PM (1 child)
If you have a better non-political story, then submit it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 13 2018, @06:25PM
I submitted the Librem 5 story, which was the best of the day.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 13 2018, @05:50PM (3 children)
I've heard that some people can grow out of being a douche. I suppose it's just a phase that some children go through.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 13 2018, @06:12PM (2 children)
No, I mean this is really (at best) the most generic tiny step forward in gathering information you can get. In reality it triggers more than the usual red flags.
- No mention of blinding
- No sample size reported (the best they do is sometimes report "we did this *at least* 3 times, but mostly it is missing)
- Use of dynamite charts
- "Gold stars" everywhere to indicate "statistical significance" (the only people who care about this don't know what it means)
- The headline claim is "HOTAIR regulates lipopolysaccharide-induced cytokine expression", yet there is no scatter plot of HOTAIR vs LPS levels
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 13 2018, @07:04PM (1 child)
White blood cells are already blind.
It says that HOTAIR regulates LPS-induced cytokine expression levels.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 13 2018, @07:20PM
Whichever, there is a claim of one thing causing another with no scatterplot at all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 13 2018, @05:51PM
The General doesn't read here, idiot. This submission was for peons like yourself.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday November 13 2018, @05:54PM
You're 100% correct.
I'm actually sitting at work, listening to my boss' boss' boss give a lengthy boring presentation about the correlation of 185 genes associated with inflammation and immune response and survival under different treatment regimes at this exact moment, and I feel like I'm about to pass out, because it's not the first such presentation. Since it's a private company, I can't talk about the specific ones with super small p values.
The only interesting thing is that this one is non-coding.