Sept. 30, 2022 — COVID-19 causes DNA harm to the center, affecting the physique in a very totally different method than the flu does, in response to a latest examine revealed in Immunology 

The examine regarded on the hearts of sufferers who died from COVID-19, the flu, and different causes. The findings may present clues about why coronavirus has led to problems reminiscent of ongoing coronary heart points.

“We found a lot of DNA damage that was unique to the COVID-19 patients, which wasn’t present in the flu patients,” Arutha Kulasinghe, one of many lead examine authors and a analysis fellow on the University of Queensland in Australia, instructed the Brisbane Times.

“So in this study, COVID-19 and flu look very different in the way they affect the heart,” he mentioned.

Kulasinghe and colleagues analyzed the hearts of seven COVID-19 sufferers, two flu sufferers, and 6 sufferers who died from different causes. They used transcriptomic profiling, which seems on the DNA panorama of an organ, to analyze coronary heart tissue from the sufferers.

Due to earlier research about coronary heart issues related to COVID-19, he and colleagues anticipated to search out excessive irritation within the coronary heart. Instead, they discovered that irritation alerts had been suppressed within the coronary heart, and markers for DNA harm and restore have been a lot increased. They’re nonetheless not sure of the underlying trigger.

“The indications here are that there’s DNA damage here, it’s not inflammation,” Kulasinghe mentioned. “There’s something else going on that we need to figure out.”

The harm was much like the way in which persistent ailments reminiscent of diabetes and most cancers seem within the coronary heart, he mentioned, with coronary heart tissue displaying DNA harm alerts. 

Kulasinghe mentioned he hopes different research can construct on the findings to develop danger fashions to know which sufferers could face a better danger of great COVID-19 problems. In flip, this might assist medical doctors present early remedy. For occasion, all seven COVID-19 sufferers had different persistent ailments, reminiscent of diabetes, hypertension, and coronary heart illness. 

“Ideally in the future, if you have cardiovascular disease, if you’re obese or have other complications, and you’ve got a signature in your blood that indicates you are at risk of severe disease, then we can risk-stratify patients when they are diagnosed,” he mentioned. 

The analysis is a preliminary step, Kulasinghe mentioned, because of the small pattern measurement. This kind of examine is usually troublesome to conduct as a result of researchers have to attend for the supply of organs, in addition to request permission from households for autopsy autopsies and biopsies, to have the ability to have a look at the results on useless tissues.

“Our challenge now is to draw a clinical finding from this, which we can’t at this stage,” he added. “But it’s a really fundamental biological difference we’re observing [between COVID-19 and flu], which we need to validate with larger studies.”

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Aug. 30 , 2022 – Most everybody has performed the “separated-at-birth” sport, joking that look-alike buddies and even celebrities who aren’t associated might need a secret shared parentage.

But new analysis reveals it’s no joke that, with some doppelgangers, there may be the truth is extra to the concept than meets the attention. A crew of Spanish scientists studied pairs of unrelated look-alikes and located that they not solely bear a putting resemblance to one another, but additionally share important components of their DNA.

The findings, printed within the journal Cell Reports, recommend these genetic similarities may prolong past simply facial look. DNA evaluation based mostly on the brand new work may in the future assist medical doctors establish an individual’s hidden dangers for sure ailments and even assist legislation enforcement officers goal criminals by biometric forensics, the researchers say.

But maybe essentially the most fascinating takeaway is the probability that most individuals on the planet have an unrelated “twin” on the market someplace, says Manel Esteller, PhD, a researcher on the Josep Carreras Leukemia Research Institute in Barcelona, who led the examine.

“It’s not unreasonable to assume that you, too, might have a look-alike out there,” he says.

Esteller’s new examine grew out of his analysis into the similarities and variations amongst an identical twins. He was impressed by a images venture by French-Canadian artist François Brunelle, who has been taking footage of unrelated look-alikes worldwide since 1999. His exceptional images prompted Esteller to ask: Could DNA clarify these look-alike “twins”?

“In 2005 we discovered that brother twins that have the same DNA [also called monozygotic twins] presented epigenetic differences [chemical changes in DNA that regulate how genes are expressed] that explained why there were not perfectly identical,” he explains.

“In the current study, we have explored the other side if the coin: people that have the same face, but they are not family related. These individuals helped answer the longstanding question of how our aspect is determined by nature and/or nurture.”

To reply that query, Esteller’s crew recruited 32 pairs of individuals from Brunelle’s photograph periods to take DNA exams and full way of life questionnaires. The researchers additionally used facial recognition software program to evaluate their facial similarities from headshots.

They discovered that 16 of the look-alike pairs had scores on par with these of true an identical twins, who had been additionally analyzed by the crew’s facial recognition software program. Of the look-alike pairs, 13 had been of European ancestry, one Hispanic, one East Asian, and one Central-South Asian.

The researchers then examined the DNA of these 16 pairs of look-alikes and located they shared considerably extra of their genetic materials than the opposite 16 pairs that the software program deemed much less related in look – a discovering the researchers mentioned was “striking.”

Esteller notes that it could appear to be “common sense” that individuals who look alike ought to share “important parts of the genome, or the DNA sequence,” however that had by no means been scientifically proven – till now, that’s.

“We found that the genetic sites shared by the look-alike corresponded to four categories,” he says. “Genes previously reported to be associated with the shape and form of the eyes, lips, mouth, nostril, and other face parts using general population studies; genes involved in bone formation that can relate to the skull shape; genes involved in distinct skin textures; [and] genes involved in liquid retention that can give different volumes to our face.”

While the doppelgangers’ DNA was intently matched, Esteller was stunned to search out that the life-style surveys – assessing 68 variables – revealed main variations within the 16 pairs of individuals. These variations had been virtually actually because of the surroundings and different components of their lives and upbringing (suppose: “nurture vs. nature”) that didn’t have something to do with their genetic make-up.

Those variations, he explains, are one other signal the similarities within the pairs’ appearances virtually actually have extra to do with their shared DNA than different issues.

Even so, he discovered some look-alikes had been alike in ways in which could possibly be linked to their DNA – reminiscent of peak and weight, persona traits (reminiscent of nicotine dependancy), and even instructional standing (suggesting intelligence may be linked to genes).

“It is said that our face reflects our soul,” Esteller says. “Being less poetic, our look-alike answered a large questionnaire to grasp their physical and behavioral profiles. We observed that those look-alikes with high concordance in the facial algorithms and genetic commonalties not only shared the face, but also other features. …”

So, what explains these genetic similarities? Esteller says it’s probably that it’s probability and coincidence, spurred by inhabitants progress, and never a results of some prior, unknown ancestral or familial hyperlink. There are, he explains, solely so many issues that make up human facial options, so it stands to purpose that some individuals – by luck of the draw – will resemble others.

“Because the human population is now 7.9 billion, these look-alike repetitions are increasingly likely to occur,” he says. “Analysing a larger cohort will provide more of the genetic variants shared by these special individual pairs, and could also be useful in elucidating the contribution of other layers of biological data in determining our faces.”

Beyond the weird-science attraction of the examine, Esteller believes his findings may assist diagnose ailments, utilizing DNA evaluation. They may even assist police search out criminals in the future sooner or later – giving forensic scientists, as an example, the flexibility to give you sketches of suspects’ faces based mostly solely on DNA samples discovered at a criminal offense scene.

“Two areas are now very exciting for further development,” he says. “First: Can we infer from the face features the presence of genetic mutations associated with a high risk of developing a disease such as diabetes or Alzheimer’s? Second: Can we now from the genome be able to reconstruct a face that would be extremely useful in forensic medicine? Both avenues of research can now be pursued.”

Hear It From the Doppelgangers

For Marissa Munzing and Christina Lee, who took half within the look-alike examine, the social implications of Esteller’s analysis are no less than as vital because the scientific findings.

Munzing, who has recognized Lee since they met freshman 12 months on the University of California, Los Angeles 14 years in the past, didn’t look forward to finding that their DNA was such a detailed match.

“I was definitely surprised that [we] might have similar DNA, as close to being twins, with my friend,” she mentioned in an e-mail. “How crazy!! And cool! I do call her my ‘twin’ from time to time so I guess it’s really fitting now!”

But figuring out all of us might need a secret twin on the market may assist deliver individuals collectively at a time when Americans and others all through the world are so deeply divided alongside class, social, and political traces, she says.

Lee agrees, noting that having a good friend with a intently matched genetic profile “and even a similar face” provides to a way of reference to others we would take into account strangers.

“It can be nice to feel like you aren’t alone, even if is just in your looks,” she says.

“We really are more similar and connected to each other than we think,” Munzing says.

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THURSDAY, July 28, 2022 (HealthDay News) — While the herpes virus that causes lip sores is widespread as we speak, it has been tough for scientists to search out traces of it amongst historic stays.

Now, researchers report they’ve uncovered and sequenced 4 historic herpes virus genomes for the primary time.

What did they discover?

It seems that the majority herpes instances in historic instances might have been handed “vertically,” from contaminated mom to new child, quite than by kissing, a customized first seen in South Asia that will have later migrated to Europe.

“The world has watched COVID-19 mutate at a rapid rate over weeks and months. A virus like herpes evolves on a far grander timescale,” defined co-senior examine writer Dr. Charlotte Houldcroft, from the division of genetics on the University of Cambridge, in England.

“Facial herpes hides in its host for life and only transmits through oral contact, so mutations occur slowly over centuries and millennia. We need to do deep time investigations to understand how DNA viruses like this evolve,” Houldcroft stated in a Cambridge information launch. “Previously, genetic data for herpes only went back to 1925.”

The herpes simplex virus-1 (HSV-1) virus pressure, the modern-day facial herpes that infects 3.7 billion individuals globally, first surfaced about 5,000 years in the past, after Bronze Age migrations into Europe from the Steppe grasslands of Eurasia, the researchers stated. But herpes has a historical past going again hundreds of thousands of years and it infects a number of species.

“We screened ancient DNA samples from around 3,000 archaeological finds and got just four herpes hits,” stated co-lead examine writer Dr. Meriam Guellil, from University of Tartu’s Institute of Genomics in Estonia.

The researchers extracted viral DNA from the roots of the tooth of the contaminated people. Herpes usually flares throughout mouth infections and these historic cadavers included two individuals with gum illness and one who smoked tobacco.

The people lived at numerous instances over a thousand-year interval. They included an grownup male excavated in Russia’s Ural Mountain area. He lived in the course of the Iron Age, about 1,500 years in the past.

Another two samples had been discovered close to Cambridge. They had been a feminine from an early Anglo-Saxon cemetery just a few miles south of the town, relationship from the sixth to the seventh centuries. The different was a younger grownup male from the late 14th century. He was buried within the grounds of medieval Cambridge’s charitable hospital and had suffered what researchers known as “appalling” dental abscesses.

The fourth pattern was from a younger grownup male excavated in Holland. They had been capable of surmise he had been a fervent clay pipe smoker, most probably massacred by a French assault on his village by the banks of the Rhine in 1672.

“By comparing ancient DNA with herpes samples from the 20th century, we were able to analyze the differences and estimate a mutation rate and, consequently, a timeline for virus evolution,” stated co-lead examine writer Dr. Lucy van Dorp, from University College London’s Genetics Institute.

According to co-senior examine writer Dr. Christiana Scheib, “Every primate species has a form of herpes, so we assume it has been with us since our own species left Africa.” Scheib is a research fellow at St. John’s College, University of Cambridge, and head of the Ancient DNA lab at University of Tartu.

“However, something happened around 5,000 years ago that allowed one strain of herpes to overtake all others, possibly an increase in transmissions, which could have been linked to kissing,” Scheib famous.

The World Health Organization estimates that two-thirds of the worldwide inhabitants underneath the age of fifty now carries HSV-1. Though it’s primarily uncomfortable, it may be harmful together with sepsis or COVID-19.

“Only genetic samples that are hundreds or even thousands of years old will allow us to understand how DNA viruses such as herpes and monkeypox, as well as our own immune systems, are adapting in response to each other,” Houldcroft stated.

The analysis staff hopes to research even earlier infections. “Neanderthal herpes is my next mountain to climb,” Scheib stated.

The findings had been printed July 27 within the journal Science Advances .

More info

The World Health Organization has extra on herpes.

SOURCE: University of Cambridge, information launch, July 27, 2022

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July 12, 2022 – Most individuals in all probability know facial recognition because the factor that unlocks your smartphone. But this expertise is also used as a software within the struggle towards most cancers, based on a brand new research.

A group of researchers from University College London and the University of California, San Diego have developed an algorithm that works sort of like facial recognition – besides as a substitute of figuring out faces, it picks out most cancers mutations in DNA.

These mutations – what geneticists name “copy number changes” – are linked to completely different outcomes, some higher and a few worse, even amongst sufferers with the identical most cancers sort.

“What’s been missing predominately in the field is a way to interpret those copy number changes,” says Nischalan Pillay, PhD, the University College London researcher who led the Nature research.

That’s what this algorithm does, Pillay says – it interprets these modifications into info that medical doctors may sooner or later use to foretell how a most cancers is prone to behave. This might result in extra correct outlooks, more practical therapies, and doubtlessly extra lives saved.

How Tech Can Find Cancer in DNA

Cancer is brought on by DNA mutations, or, extra merely put, “mistakes.” Some are tiny – like when only one letter of genomic code is off. These are “relatively easy to interpret,” Pillay says. But copy quantity modifications are larger. If your DNA s a ebook, copy quantity modifications imply complete phrases, sentences, or whole pages could be fallacious.

“It then becomes much harder to interpret,” Pillay says. “So, what we did was develop a way to summarize those, using patterns.”

To do this, he and his group analyzed practically 10,000 most cancers samples and found 21 cancer-related patterns. The algorithm can determine these patterns the best way facial recognition software program can discover a suspect in a crowd.

For instance: When facial recognition software program finds a face, it breaks down all of the elements – eyes, lips, nostril, eyebrows – and makes use of them to construct a digital model, evaluating that to a database of recognized faces.

“It says, ‘OK, the closest similarity that this reconstructed face looks like is to X, Y, or Z person,’” says Pillay.

This algorithm finds not a face however a duplicate quantity change, breaking it down into every shattered, duplicated, or lacking chromosome and making a profile that it will possibly examine to these 21 recognized patterns, on the lookout for a match.

“We’ve taken something that’s really complex and summarized that into a catalog, or a blueprint,” Pillay says.

That blueprint may very well be used to foretell how a most cancers is prone to progress, permitting medical doctors to carefully monitor sufferers and take a look at “a different form of therapy, or escalate the type of therapy,” relying on the affected person’s probabilities of dying in a given time-frame, says Pillay.

This Is Just the Beginning

Scientists are ever extra within the function copy quantity modifications might play in most cancers therapy. For occasion, these modifications can even assist present how a affected person is probably going to answer a therapy, says Christopher Steele, PhD, a postdoctoral researcher at University College London and first creator of the analysis.

Lab techs can already analyze copy quantity modifications in blood samples, utilizing liquid biopsies. As we be taught extra about how one can interpret these outcomes, medical doctors may use them to regulate therapy in actual time, relying on how the most cancers is evolving, Pillay says.

And sometime, we might even come to know how these copy quantity modifications are brought about within the first place, he says, presumably serving to to stop most cancers.

It’s all a part of an rising subfield of most cancers analysis that might revolutionize how we deal with most cancers.

“This is the very beginning,” Steele says.

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