Strong immune response may increase susceptibility to Covid-19 in some cases
February 17, 2021 Researchers in Berlin have observed how SARS-CoV-2 uses an immune system defense mechanism to multiply.
The study, published in the journal EMBO Molecular Medicine, carried out by the researchers revealed that SARS-CoV-2 increasingly hijack the body’s mucous membrane cells and multiply there.
“This may give us part of the explanation as to why the immune system has difficulty regulating or even defeating the infection in some people,” says Dr. Julian Heuberger, scientist at the Division of Hepatology and Gastroenterology in Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin’s Medical Department.
Study shows how SARS-CoV-2 uses an immune system defense for replication
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Das Coronavirus trickst unser Immunsystem aus
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The weak spot of colon cancer stem cells
Colon cancer stem cells have one weak spot: the enzyme Mll1. An MDC team led by Walter Birchmeier has now shown in Nature Communications that blocking this protein prevents the development of new tumors in the body.
Since colonoscopies were introduced in Germany for early cancer detection, the number of diagnoses of advanced cancer every year has decreased, as precancerous lesions can now be detected and immediately removed as part of the examination. As a result, the death rate from colon cancer has also gone down - by 26 percent in women and 21 percent in men. Nevertheless, it remains the fourth deadliest cancer in the Western world - just behind lung, prostate and breast cancer. This is because the slow-growing tumors only become noticeable in the advanced stages of the disease and are therefore often diagnosed too late. Survival rate for advanced colorectal cancer is just five percent.
Epigenetic Regulator Mll1 Linked to Most Severe Forms of Colon Cancer
Expanding cancer stem cells (green) in a colon tumor with an oncogenic activated Wnt/beta-catenin signaling pathway (red).[Birchmer Lab, MDC]
December 22, 2020
Expanding cancer stem cells (green) in a colon tumor with an oncogenic activated Wnt/beta-catenin signaling pathway (red). [Birchmer Lab, MDC]
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Together with bioinformaticians at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB) in Barcelona, a group at the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) in the Helmholtz Association in Germany used clinical data to show that colon cancer patients whose tumors have a large amount of this protein have a worse prognosis than patients with tumors that contain little Mll1. Their study (“The epigenetic regulator Mll1 is required for Wnt-driven intestinal tumorigenesis and cancer stemness”) appears in