Previously unknown pain-sensing organ discovered in human body

Swedish researchers have discovered a new sensory organ in the skin that is sensitive to painful mechanical damage such as pricks and pressure.

The new pain-sensitive organ is organised together with pain-sensitive nerves in the skin, says researchers.

"Our study shows that sensitivity to pain does not occur only in the skin's nerve fibres, but also in this recently-discovered pain-sensitive organ," said a professor.

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"The discovery changes our understanding of the cellular mechanisms of physical sensation and it may be of significance in the understanding of chronic pain," the Prof. said. 

In experiments, the researchers also blocked the organ and saw a resultant decreased ability to feel mechanical pain.

Almost one person in every five experiences constant pain and there is a considerable need to find new painkilling drugs, according to research published. The discovery of the previously unknown pain-sensing organ could lead to the development of new painkilling drugs.

The team found that these Schwann cells—main "supporting cells" of the peripheral nervous system which wrap around axons of motor and sensory neurons—are octopus-shaped. The body of the cells lies beneath the outer layer of the skin, and there are longer extensions around the edge of the nerve cells that are pain sensitive, extending  up into the epidermis, the outer layer of the skin. Thus it collectively go to make up a mesh-like organ within the skin and remains sensitive to painful mechanical damage such as pricks and pressure.

Sensitivity to pain is required for survival and it has a protective function. It prompts reflex reactions that prevent damage to tissue, such as pulling your hand away when you feel a jab from a sharp object or when you burn yourself.

Activation of the organ results in electrical impulses in the nervous system that result in reflex reactions and an experience of pain, the researchers said.

Eyes reveal early Alzheimer's disease

Reduced blood capillaries in the back of the eye may be a new, noninvasive way to diagnose early cognitive impairment, the precursor to Alzheimer's disease, showed a study .

Researchers recruited 32 participants who had cognitive testing consistent with the forgetful type of cognitive impairment, and age-, gender- and race-matched them to subjects who tested as cognitively normal for their age. All individuals underwent eye imaging with OCT angiography.

They then detected the vascular changes in the human eye non-invasively, with an infrared camera and without the need for dyes or expensive MRI scanners.

It's known that patients with Alzheimer's have decreased retinal blood flow and vessel density.

"Once our results are validated, this approach could potentially provide an additional type of biomarker to identify individuals at high risk of progressing to Alzheimer's," said  a professor of ophthalmology.

Therapies for Alzheimer's are more effective if they are started before extensive brain damage and cognitive decline have occurred, added the Prof.

The researchers now hope to correlate these findings with other more standard but also more invasive types of Alzheimer's biomarkers as well as explore the longitudinal changes in the eye parameters in these subjects. 

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New blood test may accurately detect TB

Tuberculosis (TB), that often dodges physicians, can now be precisely detected with a new blood test that can eliminate more than 50 percent of the procedure that goes into detecting the disease.

The new test using interferon-gamma release assays (IGRA) will detect pre-existing TB infection (or latent TB), that might not present itself for many years, or until the body becomes weakened by another source.

"It is fairly uncommon that latent TB will reactivate - only about a 10 percent chance. Having said that, given the crowding in corrections facilities, the mass exposure of inmates to TB could be disastrous," said Wendy Wobeser, an infectious diseases expert at Queen's University, Ontario.

The IGRA test is more effective in detecting whether a patient is TB positive or not.

On the contrary, the current tuberculosis skin test (TST) requires two visits to determine the results: one to perform the test and then another visit a couple of days later to read the results.

Moreover, depending on how much the patient is exposed to other mycobacteria, the current TB test can give many false positives.

Under the study, 96 inmates were tested positive for TB via the TST test. However, when the IGRA test was used, only 31 of them were confirmed as true latent TB infection.

"What I found surprising was just how much discordance there was between the TST and IGRA tests," added Ilan Schwartz, who was a medical resident at Queen's University when the research was started.

However, the IGRA tests cannot prove that latent TB infections will progress into active TB until the patient begins to show symptoms.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), in 2012, 8.6 million people suffered from TB and 1.3 million died from the disease worldwide. 

 

 

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New hope for treating osteoporosis

Researchers have discovered a new target that may be critical for the treatment of osteoporosis.

The group of researchers in The Netherlands and in Germany have found in their studies in zebrafish and mice that injection of human plastin 3 (PLS3) or related proteins in zebrafish where PLS3 action has been suppressed can replace its loss and repair the bone development anomalies associated with this deficiency.
 
According to the study, over-expression of human (PLS3) in normal mice had a significant impact on bone development and maintenance, making them more resistant to fractures.

Professor Brunhilde Wirth, Head of the Institute of Human Genetics, University of Cologne, Germany, said that in most of their recent research, they have started out by using zebrafish embryos in which PLS3 was knocked-out and studying their development at the three and five day-old stage.

He said that they have found that they had massive impairment of craniofacial skeletal development, however, this was fully restored when they added human PLS3 and the same thing happened when we added two other proteins, actinin 1 and actinin 4, F-actin proteins2 which are involved in 'bundling' or building the 'scaffolding' for cells, and it seems that these proteins can compensate for the loss of PLS3.

The scientists now intend to use PLS3 knock-out mice, where the PLS3 gene has been removed, in the search for the disease-causing mechanism involved.

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New technology may improve light-based cancer treatment

Researchers have developed a new technology that could bring photodynamic therapy (PDT), which uses lasers to activate special drugs to treat easily accessible tumours such as oral and skin cancer, into areas of the body which were previously inaccessible.

The procedure, till now, has not been adept at fighting cancer deep inside the body.

The approach involves using near-infrared beams of light that, upon penetrating deep into the body, are converted into visible light that activates the drug and destroys the tumour.


"We expect this will vastly expand the application for an effective cancer phototherapy that is already in use," said Tymish Ohulchanskyy, associate professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo.

The researchers used the tumour's natural environment to tune the light into necessary wavelengths.
For example, the near-infrared laser beam can interact with the natural protein collagen, which is found in connective tissues. The interaction changes the near-infrared light to visible light, a process known as second harmonic generation.

Likewise, natural proteins and lipids within the cells can interact with near-infrared laser light and change it to visible light through another process called four-wave mixing.

Thus, visible light can be generated in tumours deep inside the body, and it can be absorbed by the drug. This activates the drug, which then destroys the tumour, researchers said.

The study appeared in the journal Nature Photonics.

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Now a new method to help treat malaria

Scientists have discovered a new molecules that can kill the malaria parasite, paving way for effective treatment for the disease. Using ultra sophisticated computerised modelling tools, researchers were successful in identifying a type of candidate molecules toxic for the pathogen, but not for the infected human red blood cells. The most severe form of malaria is caused by infection with Plasmodium falciparum. The eradication of this parasite is even more difficult as it becomes resistant to treatments.
 
The group led by Didier Picard from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland, showed interest in the protein Heat Shock Protein 90 (HSP90), which plays a central role for several factors involved in the life cycle, survival and resistance of the pathogen. Expressed in organisms as diverse as bacteria and mammal cells, HSP90 acts as a ‘chaperone’, by helping other proteins during both normal and stressful periods.

In the Plasmodium, HSP90 protects parasitic proteins during high fevers triggered by its presence. The chaperone also participates in the maturation of the pathogen in human red blood cells. ‘Our goal was to determine if there was a difference between the human form and the parasitic form of HSP90 that we could exploit for therapeutic purposes,’ said Tai Wang, a PhD student at the Department of Cell Biology of UNIGE.

Wang used ultra-sophisticated computerised modelling tools to characterise the various tridimensional conformations of the parasite’s HSP90.
 
By studying the HSP90 of the pathogen from every possible
 angle, Wang found another pocket capable of binding inhibitory substances, completely absent in its human alter ego. Using a supercomputer, he performed the screening of a virtual library containing more than a million chemical compounds while retaining those that could fit in this pocket. (Read: Indian origin scientist finds a new way to treat deadly malaria)

This screening in silico led him to select five candidates. ‘The simulations were conducted to analyse the dynamics of interaction between the HSP90 and the candidates, leading to the discovery of inhibitors which interact specifically with the Plasmodium falciparum chaperone,’ researchers said. The molecules were then tested in vitro in different systems. The biologists demonstrated in particular the toxicity of those inhibitors on Plasmodium falciparum cultures, in doses sufficient to kill the parasites without affecting the infected red blood cells, researchers said.

The study was published in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry.

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