UPI NewsTrack Health and Science News

Jun 14, 05:43 PM

Current Headlines: Bacterium genome may lead to cancer cures SAN DIEGO, June 14 (UPI) -- U.S. scientists have determined a bacterium discovered in Bahamian mud might be a producer of natural antibiotics and anticancer products.

That discovery came when Daniel Udwary, Bradley Moore and colleagues at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the Skaggs School of Pharmacy at the University of California-San Diego joined the U.S. Joint Genome Institute in successfully sequencing the genome of Salinispora tropica.

The researchers said the decoding might lead to isolating and adapting potent molecules the marine organism naturally employs for chemical defense, scavenging for nutrients and communication.

Salinispora was discovered in 1991 in shallow ocean sediment off the Bahamas. The bacterium produces compounds that have shown promising signs for treating cancers. Its product, salinosporamide A, is in human clinical trials for treating multiple myeloma, a cancer of plasma cells in bone marrow, as well as solid tumors.

By sequencing Salinispora tropica we are now able to look in greater detail at this organism and potentially pull out some of the other compounds from the gene clusters that may make highly potent anticancer agents, said Moore.

The study appears in the early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Study: Plants can recognize their siblings HAMILTON, Ontario, June 14 (UPI) -- Canadian biologists have discovered plants are not as passive as has been widely assumed, exhibiting the ability to recognize siblings.

McMaster University researchers discovered plants can become fiercely competitive when forced to share their pot with strangers, but extremely accommodating when potted with their siblings.

The ability to recognize and favor kin is common in animals, but this is the first time it has been shown in plants, said Associate Professor Susan Dudley. "When plants share their pots, they get competitive and start growing more roots, which allows them to grab water and mineral nutrients before their neighbors get them.

It appears, though, that they only do this when sharing a pot with unrelated plants; when they share a pot with family they don't increase their root growth, she said.

Dudley and student Amanda File said although plants lack cognition and memory, the study shows they are capable of complex social behaviors such as altruism towards relatives.

The study appears in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters.

Saturn's magnetosphere like Jupiter's SAN ANTONIO, June 14 (UPI) -- U.S. planetary scientists have determined Saturn's magnetosphere turns over in a way similar to that of Jupiter's.

It's known that cold, dense plasma from Jupiter's inner magnetosphere is flung outward and replaced by hotter plasma from the outer magnetosphere in a process that's described as being similar to convection in a pot of liquid.

But whether the same is true for Saturn's magnetosphere has been a matter of debate, especially since Saturn's magnetosphere is quite similar in many features with that of Earth.

Now William Lewis and colleagues at the Southwest Research Institute have studied the cold plasma next to hot, inward-moving plasma in Saturn's magnetosphere by using the Cassini spacecraft's plasma spectrometer and determined the cold plasma is outward bound.

That means Saturn's magnetosphere does, indeed, have similar overturning to Jupiter's.

The study appears in this week's issue of the journal Nature.

Bacteria can deliver 'smart nanoparticles' WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind., June 14 (UPI) -- U.S. scientists have discovered common bacteria can be used to deliver smart nanoparticles into a cell to aid in disease diagnosis and treatment.

Purdue University researchers said the nanoparticles could be used to precisely position sensors, drugs or DNA -- providing a way to overcome hurdles in delivering cargo to the interiors of cells as an alterative technology for gene therapy.

The scientists, led by Professor Rashid Bashir of Purdue's Birck Nanotechnology Center, attached nanoparticles to the outside of bacteria and linked DNA to the nanoparticles. Then the nanoparticle-laden bacteria transported the DNA to the nuclei of cells, causing the cells to produce a fluorescent protein that glowed green.

Bashir said the same method could be used to deliver drugs, genes or other cargo into cells. The approach might also make it possible to insert relatively large structures, such as sensors and hollow filaments called carbon nanotubes, into the interiors of cells.

The study is available in the online edition of the journal Nature Nanotechnology and will appear in the journal's July print issue.