THE INSECTS OVULATE AT THE SAME WAY AS THE MAMMALS

Friday, 20 of February of 2015

http://www.europapress.es/ciencia/laboratorio/noticia-insectos-ovulan-forma-parecida-mamiferos-20150220101850.html

Scientist field:  Biology

Summary:

Some researchers of the University of the Connecticut (Uccon) had advertised an article of the same gene could guide the ovulation in insects and mammals. They had done the study in rats and in flies. They had identified two parts; the first is cellular and has to do with the fate of the follicle cells after leaks egg. They found that, as in mammals, flies follicle cells that block the path of the egg gives off degrade and ovary during ovulation.

The second has to do with matrix metalloproteinase (MMP). Mice have genes encoding MMP 24 and fruit flies have only two, MMP1 and MMP2. This work provides the first genetic evidence that MMP is necessary for ovulation and its role is likely to be conserved in flies and mice. These similarities suggest that the fundamentals of ovulation are very similar in animals in general.

The results provide a basis for other researchers to find out exactly which genes are required for ovulation in flies, mice and humans.

Glossary

Matrix metalloproteinase (MMP ): an enzyme that researchers suspect that mammals need to break the cellular matrix of the egg follicle to escape.

Rats are various medium-sized, long-tailed rodents of the superfamily Muroidea.

Flies: are insects, The most obvious distinction from other orders of insects is that a typical fly possesses a pair of flight wings on the mesothorax and a pair of halteres, derived from the hind wings, on the metathorax.

Ovulation is the event of de Graaf's follicles rupturing and releasing secondary oocyte ovarian cells. It is the phase of a female's menstrual cycle when an egg (ovule) is released from the ovaries. After ovulation, during the luteal phase, the egg will be available to be fertilized by sperm.

Ovary: is an ovum-producing reproductive organ, often found in pairs as part of the vertebrate female reproductive system.

Gene: is the molecular unit of heredity of a living organism. It is used extensively by the scientific community as a name given to some stretches of deoxyribonucleic acids (DNA) and ribonucleic acids (RNA) that code for a polypeptide or for an RNA chain that has a function in the organism. Living beings depend on genes, as they specify all proteins and functional RNA chains.

Personal Valuation

This maybe can seem that it hasn’t any benefit to spend money, time… in this investigation but the research could be of immediate fertility problems in humans, such as polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) in women who do not ovulate application.

The results could also be useful for understanding how cancer spreads through the body, because when cancers metastasize, individual cells escape from the tumour mass and spread into the bloodstream.

 Also, it can provide knowledge about cancer metastasis, human fertility and ovarian disease.

So in conclusion we can see that it could gave us a lot of things. Finally I think researchers should do more investigations like this because there aren’t dangerous and the bigger majority are easy.

Marta Hontecillas

CELLS WITH MEMORY: THE FUTURE AGAINST THE CANCER

Thursday, 4 February 2015

http://elpais.com/elpais/2015/02/04/ciencia/1423071075_030347.html

Scientist field: Biology

Summary

The biggest hope is call stem cell memory “célula madre T de memoria”. It’s a new type of a white blood cell (leucocytes) and it has the two basic properties: They have the ability to renew themselves indefinitely and on the other hand they have immune memory. These cells are going to be use for the genetic modification of the tumour cells. Some Scientifics say that the stem cells would be secure for a long-term.

Glossary

Cancer: is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body.

Cell: is the basic structural, functional, and biological unit of all known living organisms.

White blood cell: also called leukocytes or leucocytes, are the cells of the immune system that are involved in protecting the body against both infectious disease and foreign invaders.

Chemotherapy: is a category of cancer treatment that uses chemical substances, especially one or more anti-cancer drugs (chemotherapeutic agents) that are given as part of a standardized chemotherapy regimen.

Personal Valuation

Nowadays the cancer I think that is one of the worst illnesses in the world because the most part of them don’t have any cure. In the past doctors had discovered the chemotherapy, this treatment had cured a lot of patients and had survived a lot of lives but unfortunately is a hard treatment because it has a lot of sides effects, and these are very cruel; the prostitute of the hair and the nails, vomits... finally it isn’t a comfortable cure. I think that scientists, doctors and investigators should have to study a lot this illness and they have to found the correct use of these cells. Nowadays the scientists are doing a lot of tests with different patients to see if this cell is effective and this can cure the cancer or not. They see that the cells can be introduced in the bone marrow directly. They start the clinic test in a pioneering study of gene therapy for congenital immunodeficiency. The cells of these patients had been extract and its deficiency was been corrected in the laboratory by infecting them with correct gene introduced into the DNA of a virus capable of integrating into the genome of human cells. These retroviruses are integrated into the human genome more or less randomly, and therefore each cell that has received the virus has a characteristic molecular signature, formed by the ends of the viral DNA bound to the context of human DNA.

In the future these cells can help a lot of people to survive and be able to prevent and cure the cancer.

 

            

Marta Hontecillas