Issue 1, 2009

By the abstracts:

"Ascorbate Recycling by Erythrocytes During Aging in Humans" by Syed Ibrahim Rizvi, Kanti Bhooshan Pandey, Rashmi Jha, and Pawan Kumar Maurya. Red blood cells contain ascorbate free radical (AFR) reductase (I had no idea about this). They have higher activity with age and this activity is correlated with plasma membrane redox system activity (I don't understand what activity means here. I thought red blood cells didn't have a nucleus, so it can't be upregulated, can it?). They say it's to compensate and keep a good level of vitamin C in the plasma.

"Increased Plasma Neutrophil Gelatinase-Associated Lipocalin Levels Predict Mortality in Elderly Patients with Chronic Heart Failure" by Davide Bolignano, Giorgio Basile, Pina Parisi, Giuseppe Coppolino, Giacomo Nicocia, and Michele Buemi. Neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin is some cytokine. NGAL > 783 ng/mL had 4 times higher mortality in 2-year followup of 46 people with CHF. Levels in non-CHF people much lower (38).

"Lysophosphatidylcholine Enhances Oxidative Stress Via the 5-Lipoxygenase Pathway in Rat Aorta During Aging" by Yani Zou, Dae Hyun Kim, Kyung Jin Jung, Hyoung-Sam Heo, Chul Hong Kim, Hyung Suk Baik, Byung Pal Yu, Takako Yokozawa, and Hae Young Chung. What the title says.

"Plasma Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids and Age-Related Physical Performance Decline" by Angela M. Abbatecola, Antonio Cherubini, Jack M. Guralnik, Cristina Andres Lacueva, Carmelinda Ruggiero, Marcello Maggio, Stefania Bandinelli, Giuseppe Paolisso, and Luigi Ferrucci. 330 old people. Higher PUFA, n-3 PUFA and n-6 PUFA associated with higher leg functionality. Lots of other fishy-sounding correlations quoted, all pushing for higher PUFA and higher n-3/n-6 ratio.

"Survival in Frontotemporal Lobar Degeneration and Related Disorders: Latent Class Predictors and Brain Functional Correlates" by B. Borroni, M. Grassi, C. Agosti, E. Premi, A. Alberici, B. Paghera, S. Lucchini, M. Di Luca, D. Perani, and A. Padovani. Use of a mixture model to predict mortality of dementia patients.

"Unexpected Regeneration in Middle-Aged Mice" by Brandon Reines, Lily I. Cheng, and Polly Matzinger. Full text available for this one. They claim, with pictures, that the standard B6 and BALB/c mice regenerate their ears after getting them hole-punched too, not just the MRL mice that had become famous for it earlier. The difference is that they need to be middle-aged for it to work, it doesn't work when the hole-punching is done when young, like with the MRL strain. They think the regeneration happens in all strains once the mice reach a certain size. In the process, they develop a better hole-puncher and a quicker hole-size measuring system. Very strange that this was never noticed before.

The first page of de Grey's review of theses looks at one which studies the use of the phiC31 integrase as a gene transfer mechanism. It targets this site which has lots of instances on mammalian genomes, and they also demonstrate retargetting through directed evolution. Sounds promising (but CRISPR).