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A common theme among parents and family members caring for a child with the rare Batten disease is “love, hope, cure.” While inspiring levels of love and hope are found among these amazing families, a cure has been more elusive. One reason is rooted in the need for more basic research. Although researchers have identified an altered gene underlying Batten disease, they’ve had difficulty pinpointing where and how the gene’s abnormal protein product malfunctions, especially in cells within the nervous system.

Now, this investment in more basic research has paid off. In a paper just published in the journal Nature Communications, an international research team pinpointed where and how a key cellular process breaks down in the nervous system to cause Batten disease, sometimes referred to as CLN3 disease [1]. While there’s still a long way to go in learning exactly how to overcome the cellular malfunction, the findings mark an important step forward toward developing targeted treatments for Batten disease and progress in the quest for a cure.

The research also offers yet another excellent example of how studying rare diseases helps to advance our fundamental understanding of human biology. It shows that helping those touched by Batten disease can shed a brighter light on basic cellular processes that drive other diseases, rare and common.

Some sharks get a new set of teeth every few weeks, while crocodiles can go through thousands of chompers in their long lifetimes. Yet the ability to endlessly replace our pearly whites is something that’s eluded us and nearly all other mammals. By the time our 32 ‘adult’ teeth grow in, that’s as good as it gets.

Now, a Japanese team of scientists is set to trial an experimental drug that would allow humans to grow completely new teeth.

A clinical trial scheduled for July 2024 will initially be for participants with tooth agenesis, a genetic condition that results in the absence of teeth, but the scientists have a view to making the treatment available for general use by as soon as 2030.

Large language models like GPT-4 have taken the world by storm thanks to their astonishing command of natural language. Yet the most significant long-term opportunity for LLMs will entail an entirely different type of language: the language of biology.

One striking theme has emerged from the long march of research progress across biochemistry, molecular biology and genetics over the past century: it turns out that biology is a decipherable, programmable, in some ways even digital system.

DNA encodes the complete genetic instructions for every living organism on earth using just four variables—A (adenine), C (cytosine), G (guanine) and T (thymine). Compare this to modern computing systems, which use two variables—0 and 1—to encode all the world’s digital electronic information. One system is binary and the other is quaternary, but the two have a surprising amount of conceptual overlap; both systems can properly be thought of as digital.

Scientists have used CRISPR gene editing to reduce the lignin content in poplar trees by as much as 50%, offering a potentially more sustainable and efficient method of fibre production.

CRISPR-modified poplar trees (left) and wild poplar trees (right), growing in a North Carolina State University greenhouse. Credit: Chenmin Yang, NCSU

Lignin is a complex organic polymer that is integral to the structure of cell walls in many types of plants, especially in wood and bark. It acts as a type of binder in these walls, giving wood its hardness and resistance to rot. Lignin is the second most abundant natural polymer in the world, next to cellulose, and makes up between 15% and 25% of the composition of wood.

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A team of scientists led by researchers from the University of Leicester have discovered that the genes required for learning, memory, aggression and other complex behaviors originated around 650 million years ago.

The findings led by Dr. Roberto Feuda, from the Neurogenetic group in the Department of Genetics and Genome Biology and other colleagues from the University of Leicester and the University of Fribourg (Switzerland), have now been published in Nature Communications.

Dr. Feuda said, “We’ve known for a long time that monoamines like serotonin, dopamine and adrenaline act as neuromodulators in the nervous system, playing a role in complex behavior and functions like learning and memory, as well as processes such as sleep and feeding.”

Research led by Sichuan University and Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China, has revealed genetic mechanisms that could prolong healthy aging. In the paper, titled “Partial inhibition of class III PI3K VPS-34 ameliorates motor aging and prolongs health span,” published in PLOS Biology, the team details the methods they used to narrow down the potential genomic pathways to a single gene that could be critical to extending healthy human longevity.

With a combination of genetic manipulation, behavioral assays, microscopy techniques, and electrophysiology, the researchers investigated the role of VPS-34 in motor aging. These methods allowed the researchers to gain insights into the molecular mechanisms underlying motor aging and the effects of VPS-34 inhibition on motor function, synaptic transmission, and muscle integrity.

According to the authors, increased life expectancy in recent decades has not been accompanied by a corresponding increase in health span. Aging is characterized by the decline of multiple organs and tissues and motor aging, in particular, leads to frailty, loss of motor independence, and other age-related issues. Identifying mechanisms for therapeutics to delay motor aging is crucial for promoting healthy aging.

Summary: Researchers have uncovered genes essential for learning, memory, aggression, and other complex behaviors originated around 650 million years ago.

The study utilized computational methods to trace the evolutionary history of these genes involved in the production, modulation, and reception of monoamines like serotonin, dopamine, and adrenaline. This discovery suggests that this new method of modulating neuronal circuits could have played a role in the Cambrian Explosion, contributing to the diversification of life.

The finding offers new research avenues to understand the origins of complex behaviors and their relation to diverse processes like reward, addiction, aggression, feeding, and sleep.

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