Equi-Different There’s something special about grey horses (six Lipizzaners pictured). They’re born with a distinct coat colour, but speckling and dappling begins soon after birth, progressing to near white as years go by. This all-over grey is caused by mutation in a gene called STX17. It’s been selected for because it brings beauty. But it’s accompanied by a beast – at 15-years most greys will have melanoma [a skin cancer]. And a proportion also develops vitiligo [skin depigmentation] – a condition that may be linked with melanoma in some people. STX17 is activated in the melanoma tumours of grey horses, suggesting its involvement in the cancer. With the possibility of the noble grey as a disease model, STX17 mutation was sought in human melanomas. It wasn’t apparent; but understanding the complex equine genetic linkage between hair colour, melanoma and vitiligo may yet yield clues to the human disease. Written by Lindsey Goff — Ino Curik, University of Zagreb, Croatia Johann Sölkner, University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences, Austria Originally published under a Creative Commons Attribution license Published in PLoS Genetics 9(2): e1003248
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Equi-Different

There’s something special about grey horses (six Lipizzaners pictured). They’re born with a distinct coat colour, but speckling and dappling begins soon after birth, progressing to near white as years go by. This all-over grey is caused by mutation in a gene called STX17. It’s been selected for because it brings beauty. But it’s accompanied by a beast – at 15-years most greys will have melanoma [a skin cancer]. And a proportion also develops vitiligo [skin depigmentation] – a condition that may be linked with melanoma in some people. STX17 is activated in the melanoma tumours of grey horses, suggesting its involvement in the cancer. With the possibility of the noble grey as a disease model, STX17 mutation was sought in human melanomas. It wasn’t apparent; but understanding the complex equine genetic linkage between hair colour, melanoma and vitiligo may yet yield clues to the human disease.

Written by Lindsey Goff

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Source: bpod.mrc.ac.uk

Penetrating Particles An important weapon in the fight against cancer is inside our own bodies, but we don’t know how to fully unleash it. For many years researchers have been trying to harness our immune system’s ability to kill cancer cells, but although there have been some promising results, progress has been slow. Researchers are now turning to nanoparticles to directly target tumours with molecules that attract the attention of the immune system. Just half an hour after being injected into a mouse, tiny nanoparticles (coloured green) can be seen coursing through the blood vessels in a melanomatumour. Once in place, the nanoparticles deliver their deadly payload – one drug that triggers immune cells to attack the cancer, and another that switches off signals that normally damps down the immune response. Together they make a potent combination that could translate into an important future treatment for patients. Written by Kat Arney — Tarek Fahmy Yale University School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, USA Reprinted by permission from Macmillan Publishers Ltd: Nature Materials Copyright 2012 Published in Nature Materials 11: 895-905
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Penetrating Particles

An important weapon in the fight against cancer is inside our own bodies, but we don’t know how to fully unleash it. For many years researchers have been trying to harness our immune system’s ability to kill cancer cells, but although there have been some promising results, progress has been slow. Researchers are now turning to nanoparticles to directly target tumours with molecules that attract the attention of the immune system. Just half an hour after being injected into a mouse, tiny nanoparticles (coloured green) can be seen coursing through the blood vessels in a melanomatumour. Once in place, the nanoparticles deliver their deadly payload – one drug that triggers immune cells to attack the cancer, and another that switches off signals that normally damps down the immune response. Together they make a potent combination that could translate into an important future treatment for patients.

Written by Kat Arney

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Source: bpod.mrc.ac.uk