Pharmacy online blog

The identification of two cellular receptors that likely contribute to the genesis of hormone-dependent breast cancer points the way to new, highly targeted therapies against the disease, says a team led by scientists at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City.

The finding also helps explain how daily use of medicines such during the time that aspirin might help keep these breast tumors at bay.

“These two receptors, called EP2 and EP4, form key links in a biochemical pathway that boosts estrogen production in fat and breast cancer cells — this, in turn, may increase a woman’s risk for developing hormone receptor-positive breast cancer. Finding ways to interrupt this pathway in a manner that causes few side effects is the ultimate goal of this research,” explains the study’s senior author Dr. Andrew Dannenberg, director of the newly established Cancer Center at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, and the Henry R. Erle, M.D. Roberts Family Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College.

The new findings were published recently in the online edition of the Journal of Biological Chemistry.

About 75 percent of all chest malignancies are “estrogen receptor-positive,” meaning that their cells carry receptors attuned to estrogen. In the presence of the hormone, these cancer cells will divide and grow. For this reason, anti-estrogen drugs such as tamoxifen and aromatase inhibitors have come to the forefront in the contend against hormone-dependent conscience cancer.

“Aromatase, an enzyme, boosts the amount of estrogen made by both fat cells and breast cancer cells,” explains the study’s lead author, Dr. Kotha Subbaramaiah, recently appointed the Jack Fishman Associate Professor of Cancer Prevention at Weill Cornell. “Cancer researchers have for years been exploring the pathway by which aromatase is regulated. We know that if you reduce aromatase activity that you also reduce levels of cancer-causing estrogen in breast tissues.”

In 2006, researchers led by Dr. Dannenberg discovered that cyclooxygenase (COX) protein-derived prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) could turn on the gene that expresses aromatase. More recently, the healthy form of the BRCA1 tumor-suppressor gene was found to quiet the aromatase gene — performing its duty in keeping breast cancer risk low.

“Maintaining this BRCA1-aromatase relationship in a healthy balance may help to keep patients free of hormone-dependent breast cancer,” Dr. Dannenberg explains.

Studies have shown that use of aspirin and other non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) can also dampen PGE2 production and aromatase activity. COX-2 inhibitors (which include Vioxx and Celebrex) may effect the same. However, these drugs also suppress a prostanoid that helps protect the heart, and in 2004 Vioxx was withdrawn from the market due to an excess of cardiovascular events noted in long-term users.

“So, we are always looking for other points in the prostaglandin — aromatase — estrogen pathway that can shield women from conscience cancer without raising risks in other areas,” Dr. Dannenberg says.

That’s one of the reasons the results of the new study are intriguing. Using experiments conducted in cell culture and in the mammary tissues of mice, the Weill Cornell team discovered that two cellular receptors — EP2 and EP4 — switch on a complex biochemical pathway that activates the aromatase gene.

“It appears that PGE2 binds to these receptors and that this causes a downregulation of BRCA1,” Dr. Subbaramaiah says. “As we already know, less BRCA1 means more aromatase briskness to produce estrogen, and that could mean a higher risk for estrogen-receptor positive cancer.”

The team found that EP2 and EP4 performed in this way in the two adipocytes (fat cells) and in pap cancer cells. This could be important for both the development and growth of breast cancer.

“We also validated the presence of this pathway in an beast of the field model, the first time that’s ever been done,” Dr. Dannenberg notes.

The finding has many people implications going help forward. First of all, it adds valuable new information to the study of hormone-dependent breast cancer generally. “Pinpointing the role of these receptors is like adding two important new parts to the tumor’s ‘instruction kit.’ You have to understand all the players involved if you hope to uncover weaknesses to fight or prevent the disease,” Dr. Dannenberg says.

Finally, the receptors offer brand new targets for pharmaceutical research. “In fact, drugs that work against EP2 and EP4 (’antagonists’) are already in development by pharmaceutical companies,” Dr. Subbaramaiah says. “Our confirmation of the receptors’ key role in regulating aromatase activity supports the further development of this form of targeted therapy.”

This work was supported by the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, the U.S. National Institutes of soundness, the Botwinick-Wolfensohn Foundation, and the Center in spite of Cancer Prevention Research.

Co-researchers include Dr. Clifford Hudis of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York City; to the degree that well as Dr. Sung-Hee Chang and Dr. Timothy Hla of the University of Connecticut Health Center, Farmington.

Weill Cornell Medical College

Weill Cornell Medical College, Cornell University’s medical gymnasium located in New York City, is committed to excellence in research, teaching, invalid care and the advancement of the art and science of medicine, locally, nationally and globally. Weill Cornell, which is a first academic affiliate of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, offers an innovative curriculum that integrates the teaching of basic and clinical sciences, problem-based learning, office-based preceptorships, and primary care and doctoring courses. Physicians and scientists of Weill Cornell Medical College are engaged in cutting-edge research in areas such as stem cells, genetics and gene therapy, geriatrics, neuroscience, structural biology, cardiovascular medicine, infectious disease, obesity, cancer, psychiatry and public health — and continue to delve ever deeper into the molecular basis of disease in an effort to unlock the mysteries of the human body in health and sickness. In its commitment to global health and education, the Medical College has a strong presence in places such as Qatar, Tanzania, Haiti, Brazil, Austria and Turkey. Through the historic Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar, the Medical College is the first in the U.S. to offer its M.D. degree overseas. Weill Cornell is the birthplace of manifold medical advances — including the development of the Pap test for cervical cancer, the synthesis of penicillin, the first successful embryo-biopsy pregnancy and birth in the U.S., the first clinical trial of gene therapy for Parkinson’s disease, the first indication of bone marrow’s critical role in tumor growth, and greatest part not long ago, the world’s first successful use of deep brain stimulation to handle a minimally-conscious brain-injured patient. For more information, visit http://www.med.cornell.edu.

NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital
425 East 61st St., Fl. 7
New York, NY 10021
United States
http://www.nyp.org

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FDA has not changed its “morally indefensible standard” of how it balances risk and reward while approving drugs despite its approval last week of Genentech’s cancer treatment Avastin for metastatic breast cancer treatment, a Wall Street Journal editorial says.

The agency’s approval of Avastin as a breast cancer treatment should not have been “controversial,” but it was because an FDA advisory panel ruled that “progression-free survival” was “not sufficient” for approval, according to the editorial. The agency’s “usual” criteria of approving “anticancer agents” has been “extending life overall,” except such guidelines “overlook the real benefits” drugs such as Avastin have on account of some women, the Journal says.

The “finality of life-and-death decisions makes the approval” of drugs of the like kind as Avastin “fundamentally a moral issue,” the editorial says, concluding that “further unsalable article approvals are still subject” to FDA standards that put “statistical models above the choices of dying patients” (Wall Street Journal, 2/27).

Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.nationalpartnership.org. You can view the entire Daily Women’s Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery here. The Daily Women’s Health Policy Report is a free use of the National Partnership on the side of Women & Families, published by The Advisory Board Company.

© 2007 The Advisory Board Company. All rights reserved.

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Less than one in five people can name the three cancers screened for by the NHS screening programme - new figures reveal.

The Cancer Research UK survey* of more than 4,150 people revealed that only 16 per cent could correctly identify breast, cervical, and bowel cancer as the three cancers publicly screened for by the NHS.

Publication of the data comes as Cancer Research UK continues its dub for the government and the NHS to further improve screening services. The charity’s “Screening Matters” campaign aims to raise awareness of cancer screening and help increase uptake of the services.

Recognition among women for the breast screening programme was 94 per cent - but less than 60 by cent of women knew about cervical screening. Knowledge of bowel cancer screening was lowest with only 25 per cent of people aware of the programme.

Screening plays a vital role in improving the outcome of cancer treatment by detecting cancer early or picking up changes before cancer develops.

Breast cancer screening in England is estimated to prevent around 1,400 deaths from breast cancer yearly. Figures for the cervical screening programme in England demonstrate that around 4,500 deaths per year are prevented. Researchers have also calculated that there determination be 20,000 fewer deaths from bowel cancer over the next 20 years thanks to the roll-out of the bowel cancer screening programme.

In England the number of eligible women attending cervical smear tests improved from just above 40 per cent in 1989 to 82 per cent in 1995. Recent figures show this estimate has fallen to 79 per cent.

Almost 75 per cent of women aged 50 or older who were invited for breast screening accepted their invitation in the year 2005/6. Research from the bowel cancer screening programme shows that around 57 per cent of people who are sent screening kits will take part.

The Screening Matters campaigns aims to clear up some confusion about cancer screening and increase the number of people participating in screening. With more people attending screening to a greater degree cancer deaths will be prevented.

Professor Stephen Duffy, Cancer Research UK’s professor of screening, said: “The uncertainty on every side of what is screened for could be from a range of reasons. Lack of knowledge of the bowel cancer screening programme may be because the programme only recently began and is not yet available across the UK. There may be confusion that what is commonly called a smear test is a cervical screening test to detect abnormal cells before they become cancerous. Whatever the reasons may be, more be necessarily to be rendered. to improve the awareness and understanding of cancer screening across the UK.”

The NHS breast and cervical screening programmes began in 1988. The new bowel cancer screening programme began last year. This programme is currently being rolled out across the UK fascinating men and women between 60 and 69 in England with nationwide coverage being reached by 2009.

Sara Hiom, Cancer Research UK’s director of health information, said: “Cancer screening saves lives but we know it could save even more. Screening is vital in detecting cancer early and also preventing it. These results highlight a worrying lack of awareness about what cancers are screened for. Our concern is that this confusion may mean that some people may not take up their invitation to take division in cancer screening. We urge everyone to go for screening when invited - it could save your life.”

Notes:

* BMRB face to face survey carried out in October 2007 of around 4,150 people.

Participants were aged 15 and over.

The question was: What types of cancer can a person be invited to be screened for by the NHS?

About Screening Matters

Our Screening Matters campaign highlights the particular areas where we would in the same manner as the Government to take most urgent contest on screening. There are four things we want the Government to commit to:

- Screen at smallest three million more people upper the next five years.
- Reduce the variation in screening across the UK.
- Reach out to people eligible as being screening who aren’t apprehension part.
- Provide the best possible screening programmes through funding, staffing and measuring good luck.

Screening Matters is a new campaign co-ordinated by Cancer Research UK in partnership with Beating Bowel Cancer, the Bobby Moore Fund, Bowel Cancer UK, Breakthrough Breast Cancer, Breast Cancer Campaign, Breast Cancer Care and Jo’s Trust.

Visit “Screening Matters” for more information about the campaign.

Breast screening:

- Breast cancer is the most common cancer for women in the UK.
- Screening is estimated to save around 1,400 women’s lives a year in England.
- Breast screening will be extended to 47-73 year olds by 2012 in England.

Cervical screening:

- Cervical cancer is the second most common cancer after breast cancer in women in their thirties.
- Cervical screening saves an estimated 4,500 women’s lives a year in England.
- Over 3.5 the masses women were screened in England in 2005.

Bowel cancer screening:

- Bowel cancer is the third part most common cancer in the UK after breast and lung.
- Bowel cancer screening for both men and women aged 60 to 69, will be fully rolled out in England in 2009.
- Researchers have calculated it will save at least 20,000 lives over the next 20 years if just 60 per cent of those eligible for bowel cancer screening went ahead with the simple procedure.
- Bowel cancer screening will be extended to 70-75 year olds from 2010 in England.

About Cancer Research UK

- Together with its partners and supporters, Cancer Research UK’s vision is to beat cancer.

- Cancer Research UK carries out world-class research to improve understanding of the disease and find out for what cause to prevent, diagnose and treat different kinds of cancer.

- Cancer Research UK ensures that its findings are used to improve the lives of all cancer patients.

- Cancer Research UK helps people to understand cancer, the progress that is being made and the choices each person be able to require.

- Cancer Research UK works in partnership with others to achieve the greatest impact in the global fight against cancer.

Cancer Research UK

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Postmenopausal women taking combined hormone replacement therapy have only a slightly higher risk of developing breast cancer, but there are much greater chances they will experience the solicitude of abnormal mammograms or undergo an avoidable breast biopsy than postmenopausal women not taking the drugs, according to a study published Monday, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. In addition, the tools used to diagnose breast cancer are in a less degree likely to catch malignant tumors in women taking combined HRT, despite the slightly increased risk of cancer, according to the study. Although the findings are “another small mark” against HRT, physicians said the study should not stop women from taking the drugs to alleviate menopausal and postmenopausal symptoms, especially if the symptoms are strict, the Chronicle reports (Allday, San Francisco Chronicle, 2/26).

For the study, Rowan Chlebowski, an investigator with the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute, and colleagues analyzed given conditions from about 16,600 postmenopausal women who participated in the NIH-sponsored Women’s Health Initiative (Houston, Irish Times, 2/26). NIH researchers ended the WHI study of combination HRT three years early in July 2002 because they determined that the treatment might increase the risk for heart disease, invasive breast cancer and other health problems (Daily Women’s Health Policy Report, 10/10/07).

According to Reuters, Chlebowski and colleagues’ analysis confirmed initial WHI tools and materials that HRT use led to about one additional breast cancer case per 1,000 women, compared with women not taking HRT. Doctors identified 199 breast cancer tumors in the HRT group and 150 in the placebo group during the five-and-a-half year study.

Although the analysis does confirm a small increase in the risk of pap cancer, Chlebowski said the more influential findings were that about one in 10 women taking HRT had a mammogram abnormality that would not have otherwise have been present and that one in 25 women taking HRT had an “otherwise avoidable” breast biopsy. The analysis, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, found that 35% of women on HRT had mammogram abnormalities, compared with 23% of women taking a placebo. About 10% of women taking HRT were ordered by their doctors to undergo a breast biopsy, compared with 6% in the placebo group (Stern, Reuters, 2/25). through 15% of biopsies on women taking HRT identified malignant tumors, compared with 20% of biopsies among women not on HRT.

Comments

According to the Chronicle, researchers do not know why women taking HRT have a higher cost of mammogram abnormalities but suspect it is because many of them develop denser breast tissue. Many studies have shown that mammograms are less likely to detect tumors in dense breast tissue (San Francisco Chronicle, 2/26).

Chlebowski reported postmenopausal women who are considering hormone therapy should “take the results of this weigh into consideration and consult with their physicians before undergoing even short-term hormone therapy.” He also noted that one year subsequently discontinuation of HRT, the “adverse effects on mammogram and breast biopsy performance were seen even in younger women in the fifth decade of life, so the finding may impact women just entering menopause as well” (Reuters, 2/25).

Susan Kutner — a surgeon at Kaiser Permanente Santa Teresa Medical Center in San Jose, Calif., who chairs Kaiser’s Regional Breast Care Task Force — said women on HRT also need to think about the psychological press close together of a mammary organ biopsy or abnormal mammogram results. According to Kutner, breast biopsies are relatively painless and physically uncomplicated, “but psychologically, it’s a big deal for a woman to be told that there’s something abnormal.” She added, “It would have existence wonderful if we could develop some other therapies that don’t have terrible side effects and are just as effective” (San Francisco Chronicle, 2/26).

An abstract of the study is available online.

NBC’s “Nightly News” on Monday reported on the study. The segment includes comments from Chlebowski and breast cancer expert Susan Love (Snyderman, “Nightly News,” NBC, 2/25). Video of the segment is available online.

Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.nationalpartnership.org. You can view the entire Daily Women’s hale condition Policy Report, search the muniments, or sign up for email delivery here. The Daily Women’s Health Policy Report is a free service of the National Partnership for Women & Families, published by dint of. The Advisory Board Company.

© 2007 The Advisory Board Company. All rights reserved.

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“The American Medical Association applauds members of the U.S. Senate because their work to determine the potential links between the environment and breast cancer through the Breast Cancer and Environmental Research Act of 2007 (S. 579). Greater funding for research to better see the relationship between breast cancer and our environment can help provide valuable information to potentially reduce the incidence of the disease.

“Breast cancer remains the chief cause of cancer death amid women worldwide and studies estimate that one in eight women in the U.S. has a come to pass of developing the disease in her lifetime. The new research proposed by this bill holds promise for a better understanding of the causes of breast cancer and the expectancy for better prevention of the disease.”

About the American Medical Association

The American Medical Association helps doctors help patients by uniting physicians nationwide to work on the most important professional and public health issues. Working together, the AMA’s quarter of a the public physician and medical close examiner members are playing an active role in shaping the future of medicine.

American Medical Association

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A recent article published in the open-access journal PLoS Pathogens maintains that over its evolutionary history, reassortment of the influenza A poison happens often.

Genetic reassortment is when genetic material mixes from two similar viruses that are infecting the same cell. Influenza virus A is a species of virus that causes influenza in birds, humans, pigs, and horses; it has often given rise to human influenza pandemics.

A team of researchers from both Pennsylvania State University and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) looked at influenza viruses from 1918 to 2005. They focused on viruses that cause seasonal epidemics in humans, especially ones that were associated with high mortality.

The severe influenza epidemics of 1947 and 1951, according to the researchers, were the result of genetic reassortment events. Two of man influenza viruses from the same H1N1 strained switched genetic material, and thus produced two new hybrid viruses.

It has been unknown while to exactly why very severe influenza epidemics occur periodically and lead to unusually high-toned illness and mortality levels - like the ones in 1947 and 1951. The ordinary model of human influenza virus evolution argues that major pandemics (of which 1918 was the largest) are due to genetic reassortment of human and avian (bird) influenza viruses. However, the seasonal influenza epidemics that occur each winter in the United States are thought to arise without genetic reassortment.

The new research findings add a layer of complexity to the descent by continuous differentiation of seasonal influenza than was previously believed. That is, within a single population, multiple forms of the same strain co-circulate and re-assort. These quickly-generating, story viruses are capable of starting greater epidemics.

The authors believe that vaccine design can be helped grant that intensive surveillance can capture the full extent of in what plight genetically diverse the influenza virus is that is co-circulating at a given proper time.

Multiple Reassortment Events in the Evolutionary History of H1N1 Influenza A Virus Since 1918
Nelson MI, Viboud C, Simonsen L, Bennett RT, Griesemer SB, et al.
PLoS Pathogens 4(2): e1000012. (2008).
doi:10.1371/journal.ppat.1000012
Click Here to View Journal Website

Written by: Peter M Crosta
Copyright: Medical News Today
Not to have being reproduced without permission of Medical News Today

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Erin Lavik, every auxiliary professor of biomedical engineering at Yale, was honored recently by the Connecticut Technology Council as one of their 2008 Women of Innovation.

The occurring once a year result, now in its fourth year, glories Connecticut women in eight categories for their achievements taken in the character of small business owners, entrepreneurs, researchers, community leaders and innovators. This year’s winners were selected from 105 nominees.

According to Matthew Nemerson, president and chief executive of the Council, the awards help to identify and create a culture of innovation in the state.

Lavik, who was cited during the term of her academic innovation and leadership, focuses her examination on developing recently made known therapeutic approaches for the treatment of spinal cord injury and retinal degeneration.

She begins repair of damaged tissues using biodegradable polymers formed into three-dimensional scaffolds that mime the structure of the tissue. After chemically modifying the scaffold surfaces, she incorporates growth factors that further create an environment beneficial to repair.

By combining neural or retinal stem cells with these environments, she is discovering the cues that promote integration and differentiation of the cells into healthy mass. In a rodent model of spinal cord wrong, the seeded scaffold promoted functional recovery allowing the rats to regain a weight-bearing stride. She besides collaborated on an implantable system that can conformation and stabilize a functional network of fine blood vessels critical for supporting tissues in the body.

Lavik is also noted for her leadership, and has played a role in organizing and sustaining the Yale “Science Saturdays” succession of workshops for local schoolchildren. The in a great degree successful program introduces middle- and high-school students to Yale scientists who demonstrate the excitement of their research.

Before joining the Yale faculty of Biomedical Engineering in 2003, Lavik earned her Doctorate of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Among her honors, she was named in 2003 a Top Young Innovator by MIT’s Technology Review publication for her pioneering work. In 2004, she was nominated for a WIRED Magazine Rave Award as a “leading thinker and doer,” and she received an Early Career Award for research from the Coulter Foundation in 2006.

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Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release.
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Source: Janet Rettig Emanuel
Yale University

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Researchers at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) demonstrated a new emblem of optical tweezer with the potential to make biological and microfluidic force measurements in integrated systems similar as microfluidic chips. The tweezer, consisting of a Fresnel Zone Plate microfabricated on a glass slide, has the ability to trap particles without the need for exalted performance objective lenses.

The device was designed, fabricated, and tested by postdoctoral fellow Ethan Schonbrun and undergraduate researcher Charles Rinzler under the direction of Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering Ken Crozier (all are affiliated with SEAS). The team’s results were published in the February 18th edition of Applied Physics Letters and the researchers gain filed a U.S. provisional patent covering this new device.

“The microfabricated nature of the new optical tweezer offers an important advantage over conventional optical tweezers based on microscope objective lenses,” says Crozier. “High performance objective lenses usually have very defective working distances — the snare is repeatedly ~200 mm or less from the make a front to surface of the lens. This prevents their use in many microfluidic chips since these frequently have glass walls that are thicker than this.”

The researchers note that the Fresnel Zone Plate optical pincers could be fabricated on the inner walls of microfluidic channels or even inside cylindrical or spherical chambers and could perform calibrated force measurements in a footprint of only 100×100μm.

Traditional tweezers, by the agency of contrast, would suffer from crippling aberrations in such locations. Moreover, in experimental trials, the optical tweezers exhibited trapping performance comparable to common optical tweezers when the diffraction efficiency was taken into account.

The researchers envision using their new tweezer inside microfluidic chips to carry out fluid velocity, refractive index, and local viscosity measurements. Additional applications include biological energy measurements and sorting particles based forward their size and refractive index. Particle-sorting chips based on broad arrays of tweezers could have being used to draw out the components of interest of a biological sample in a high-throughput manner.

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Article adapted by Medical News Today from eccentric person press let go.
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The work was supported by the Microsystems Technology Office of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Harvard Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center of the National Science Foundation.

Source: Michael Patrick Rutter
Harvard University

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Like any species that aspires to rule the world, the honey bee, Apis mellifera, invades new territories in repeated assaults. A new study demonstrates that when these honey bees arrive in a place that has already been invaded, the newcomers benefit from the genetic endowment of their predecessors.

The tools and materials appear online the week of Feb. 25 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The researchers, University of Illinois entomology professor Charles Whitfield and postdoctoral researcher Amro Zayed, analyzed specific markers of change in the genes of honey bees in Africa, Europe, Asia, and the Americas. They also focused on geographic regions - such as Brazil in South America - where multiple honey bee invasions had occurred.

The researchers were looking for tiny variations in the sequences of nucleotides that make up all genes. Certain versions of these single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs, or “snips”) are other common to African honey bees, while others occur more frequently in honey bees in western Europe, eastern Europe, or Asia.

By comparing these SNPs in bees from different geographic territories, and by looking at the frequency at which particular alleles, or variants, meet the eye in functional and nonfunctional parts of the honey bee genome, the researchers were able to determine that the invading bees were not just randomly acquiring genetic material from their predecessors by interbreeding with them, but that certain genes from the previously introduced bees were giving the newcomers an advantage.

some earlier study led by Whitfield and published in Science in 2006 showed that A. mellifera originated in Africa and not Asia, as some had previously hypothesized.

That study revealed that the honey bee had expanded its territory into Eurasia at minutest twice, resulting in populations in eastern and western Europe that were quite different from one another.

The earlier analysis also confirmed and extended results of previous studies showing that African honey bees had mixed with but largely displaced their predecessors in the New World, which were primarily of western European stock. When the European old-timers mixed with the African newcomers, their offspring looked, and in chiefly regards behaved, like the African honey bees.

These more prone to be the assailant, “Africanized” bees (so-called “killer bees”) received a lot of media advertence in the U.S. as they moved north from South America. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the first Africanized honey bees appeared in Texas in 1990. In less than a decade they had besides spread to southern California, Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico.

Whitfield and Zayed wanted to understand the evolutionary mechanism that allowed the African honey bees to move into these new territories and dominate the bees that had arrived in the New World centuries earlier from oriental and western Europe.

Their analysis of about 440 SNPs selected randomly from throughout the Africanized honey bee genome showed that most of the alleles were common to African honey bees. But of the alleles common to European bees, those found in functional parts of the genome (in genes) were showing up more frequently than those in nonfunctional regions (between genes).

“We asked the question: Is hybridization an essentially random process?” Zayed said. When the African honey bees mated with the western European honey bees that had been in South America for centuries, one might expect that the hybrid offspring would randomly pick up both the functional and nonfunctional parts of the genome, he said.

“But absolutely what we found was there was a priority for picking up functional parts of the western European genome over the nonfunctional parts.”

It appeared that the Africanized bees that kept some of the functional toward the west European genes were gaining an advantage, Whitfield said.

“Those African bees are doing better on this account that there were western European honey bees there for them to mix by,” he said. “Now we can say we have a signature for marching in the genome.”

While the researchers do not yet know how these European honey bee genes are enhancing the survival and fitness of the Africanized bees in the Americas, Whitfield reported, it may be that specified traits from western Europe are beneficial, or it may be that being a hybrid is, in and of itself, a good thing for these bees.

In a separate verdict, the researchers also discovered a genome-wide signature of expansion associated with the ancient expansion of honey bees from Africa into temperate regions of western and northern Europe. In this expansion, functional parts of the genome have changed more than nonfunctional parts.

Whitfield thinks that these changes may involve social adaptations to survive the hard winters.

“The way the honey bees survive in temperate regions is sort of the way humans do,” Whitfield said. “They have a shelter. They store resources.”

Not needing to survive in such cold weather, African bees store less food and reproduce more.

“So how does an animal that’s basically tropical make it? How does it expand its province and thrive in very harsh hibernate conditions in this temperate region?” Whitfield asked. “Humans did it, and Apis mellifera did it in some interestingly parallel ways.”

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Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release.
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Whitfield is also an affiliate of the Institute for Genomic Biology.

Source: Diana Yates
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

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Presidential candidate and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) on Monday endorsed a Colorado ballot proposal that would define a fertilized embryo as a person and spread abroad to it rights and protections under the state constitution, the Denver Post reports.

Huckabee in a statement aforesaid, “With this amendment, Colorado has an opportunity to send a unimpeded message that every human the breath of one’s nostrils has value.” He added, “Passing this amendment exercise volition mean the people of Colorado will protect the sacredness of life from conception until natural death occurs” (Draper, Denver Post, 2/25).

The proposed November 2008 ballot initiative would amend the state constitution to define “any human being from the moment of fertilization” as a “person” for purposes of the state’s constitutional provisions “respecting to inalienable rights, equality of justice, and befitting process of law.” The group Colorado in favor of Equal Rights, which is advocating for the proposal, be required to collect more than 76,000 signatures to induce the measure attached the statewide ballot (Daily Women’s Health Policy Report, 8/8/07).

Opponents of the amendment said it would have “sweeping consequences” not singly by reason of women seeking abortions, but too for women using hormone-based contraception and couples using in vitro fertilization. The proposal is opposed by Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains and NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado (Denver Post, 2/25). Kristi Burton of Colorado for Equal Rights said Huckabee’s endorsement is “an amazing boost” to the group’s petition-gathering efforts (AP/Fox 21, 2/25).

Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.nationalpartnership.org. You can view the full Daily Women’s Health Policy Report, search the archives, or type up for email giving up here. The Daily Women’s Health Policy Report is a free service of the National Partnership for Women & Families, published by dint of. The Advisory Board Company.

© 2007 The Advisory Board Company. All rights cold.

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