Thiago Carvalho @cyrilpedia@social.cleverlibre.org

Epi-fad

'We’ve had antioxidants. We’ve had paleo, keto and hormetic stressors. But those are small fry compared to epigenetics, the latest watchword of the wellness industry, which is currently being slapped onto supplements, face creams and most anything related to longevity. Epigenetic tests are also offered at top-end Swiss-clinic health programmes, or via a kit you spit into at home.'

https://www.ft.com/content/c7934be4-be5c-4bba-ba15-0af7cb42beab

'Herein, we demonstrate that tumor aneuploidy provides independent prognostic value among patients with lower TMB (<80th percentile) tumors treated with immunotherapy. A higher aneuploidy score is associated with poor prognosis following immunotherapy among tumors with low TMB, but not those with high TMB.'

#Immunology #Immunotherapy #NatureGenetics

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41588-022-01235-4

Florian Krammer & Aubree Gordon in the NYT

'Now these viruses are back. Heading into winter, pediatricians and hospitals are reporting an influx of young patients with RSV. Flu cases are spiking. But why did these viruses disappear in the first place? And what does this mean for the cold and flu season? Will there be a “tripledemic” this winter?'

#Virology #Pandemic #Covid #Flu #RSV

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/28/opinion/winter-rsv-covid-flu.html?smid=tw-share

"To understand the basis for Ca2+ transport and signaling in Mtb, we determined Mtb’s transcriptional response to Ca2+. Overall, only few genes changed expression, suggesting a limited role of Ca2+ as a transcriptional regulator. However, 2 of the most strongly down-regulated genes were the pe15 and ppe20 genes that code for members of a large family of proteins that localize to the outer membrane and comprise many intrinsically disordered proteins."

#Tuberculosis #CalciumSignaling #PLOSBiology #Metabolism

https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3001906

Wine & climate change (in Portuguese)

"A linha de vinha que percorremos é composta pela Touriga Franca. Esta foi uma das castas (ou variedades) de uvas mais adaptadas a cenários de alterações climáticas no terreno num estudo feito numa vinha-laboratório no Alentejo, o WineClimAdapt, que tem a coordenação do Instituto Nacional de Investigação Agrária e Veterinária (INIAV). Ao todo, foram analisadas 189 castas para produção de vinho quanto à eficácia do uso da água, da resistência ao escaldão ou ao vigor. As 50 que mostraram estar mais adaptadas ao terreno foram testadas quanto à qualidade do vinho."

https://www.publico.pt/2022/11/29/ciencia/reportagem/vinhalaboratorio-alentejo-desvenda-castas-adaptadas-alteracoes-climaticas-2028292

"The singular virtue of the fiasco over which Musk has presided is the possibility that the outcome will sever, at least temporarily, the American conflation of wealth with intellect."

Dream the impossible dream, @marcdionne

https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/why-i-quit-elon-musks-twitter

'Hoy necesitamos reivindicar ideológicamente la salud porque, desde el neoliberalismo, se convierte en un asunto de desigualdad, asimetría e interés económico. Y porque eso que llamamos sentido común siempre implica un posicionamiento ideológico ante la realidad. La “ideologización”, usada como insulto por una ultraderecha aséptica de ideología —¡ja!—, es una estrategia para desactivar luchas'

https://elpais.com/opinion/2022-11-28/salud-e-ideologia.html

'Herein, we report that ZIKV encodes a unique DNA-binding protein to regulate host gene transcription in the nucleus. We found that ZIKV NS5, the viral RNA polymerase, associates tightly with host chromatin DNA through its methyltransferase domain and this interaction could be specifically blocked by GTP. Further study showed that expression of ZIKV NS5 in human NPCs markedly suppressed the transcription of its target genes, especially the genes involved in neurogenesis.'

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2205013119

#Zika #Virology #neurogenesis #PNAS