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Biology Image of the Day

  • Probing Prostate CancerThis link opens in a new window Thanks in part to the ease of manipulating their genes fruit flies are a nifty organism to study human disease – even prostate cancer. While fruit flies don’t have a prostate, they have something similar called accessory glands. Most prostate cancer studies in these flies have been done in the developing larvae. However, as it’s an adult human disease, researchers looked to model prostate cancer in adult flies. The team genetically triggered cancer in adult accessory glands (pictured). They found tissue changes similar to those seen in human prostate cancer cells after chemotherapy — changes linked to cancer cell chemo-resistance. Adult fruit fly accessory glands, therefore, provide a useful model for investigating how prostate cancer progresses. Image created using Leica Microsystems microscopy Image from work by S. Jaimian Church and colleagues Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Published in Disease Models & Mechanisms, April 2025 Jun 4, 2025
  • Better or WorseThis link opens in a new window Mammary gland macrophages (a type of large immune cell) with a receptor CXCR4 on their surface for docking with the chemical factor CXCL12 (found in many tissues and cell types) support the growth of both normal stem cells (for tissue renewal) and cancer-initiating stem cells Read the published research article here Still from video from work by Eunmi Lee and colleagues Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, UK Video originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution – NonCommercial – NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) Published in Nature Communications, May 2025 Jun 3, 2025
  • Face OffThis link opens in a new window On the face of it, an MRI brain scan might not look much like a recognisable person, but removing facial features (pictured, bottom, with full scans above) is an essential step in ensuring that privacy is maintained when people’s scans are used in research. Altering images inevitably risks influencing their reliability, so researchers investigated how ‘defacing’ impacted human and automated quality assessments of a set of scans in an openly-available database. Trained human raters ranked the images as being of different quality when defaced – on average slightly higher – especially on lower quality scans. The bias was most pronounced in the most experienced ranker’s judgements, suggesting preconceptions that have accumulated over time. But automated computer quality assessment was unaffected by defacing. The researchers suggest ensuring quality checks happen before images are defaced to avoid bias creeping in at the early stage of processing that might affect analysis and research outcomes later. Image from work by Céline Provins and colleagues Department of Radiology, Lausanne University Hospital and University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Published in PLOS Biology, April 2025 Jun 2, 2025
  • Mechanism of MalformationThis link opens in a new window Cerebral cavernous malformation (CCM) – a lesion of misshaped blood vessel growth in the brain present from birth – results from mutations in the KRIT1 gene (amongst others). Using induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) derived from patient tissue, this study traces how mutated KRIT1 leads to the malformation Read the published research article here Still from video from work by Maximiliano Arce and colleagues Department of Immunology, Genetics and Pathology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden Video originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Published in Cell Reports, May 2025 Jun 1, 2025
  • Vaccine BoosterThis link opens in a new window This video shows a mouse lymph node full of stem cell-like memory T cells (TSCM), coloured yellow. These cells are important for long-term immune memory and their generation and maintenance are considered crucial for the lasting protection induced by certain vaccines. It has been reasoned, therefore, that boosting these cells alongside an immunisation could enhance a vaccine’s protective power. And now researchers have figured out how to do just that – by transiently inhibiting interferon-1 signalling upon delivery of a vaccine. Interferons are inflammatory cytokines produced early in infection or immediately following a vaccination and they promote the development of effector T cells [those executing the immune response]. Because these effector cells develop from TSCM cells, it’s thought that transiently blocking their development would enable the precursor TSCM cell numbers to expand. Sure enough, this trick improved vaccine-induced protection against a rodent virus in mice, suggesting it may work in humans too. Video from work by Benjamin J. Broomfield and colleagues Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, Parkville, Victoria, Australia Video originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Published in Journal of Experimental Medicine, March 2025 May 31, 2025
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Biology News

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  • Last Updated: May 7, 2025 8:00 AM
  • URL: https://iu.libguides.com/col/biology
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