The cover illustration shows vacuolar-type adenosine triphosphatases (V-ATPases, large blue structures) on a synaptic vesicle from a nerve cell in the mammalian brain. V-ATPases pump protons across cellular membranes, and in neurons this process is essential for loading neurotransmitters into synaptic vesicles. In this week’s issue, Dimitrios Stamou and his colleagues shed light on V-ATPase dynamics in single native synaptic vesicles. By imaging proton-pumping at the single-molecule level, the researchers were able to see that V-ATPases do not pump continuously — Read more

Why can’t adult human hearts regenerate after injury like a heart attack? The Huang lab recently presented findings in Circulation to support that loss of cardiac regenerative capacity may be a tradeoff for us to be warm-blooded, and now identified the second major thermogenic pathway that is responsible. Mice with suppression of two neurohormonal pathways show stunningly low body temperature (~25 celsius) and remarkable cardiac regenerative potential. This work advances our understanding of the physiological factors that drive the loss of organ regenerative potential in mammals.

Read more

A team of researchers at UC San Francisco, the California Academy of Sciences and Stanford University have uncovered some intriguing clues in the mystery of how some poison birds and frogs evade their own toxins. The answer may lead to a much-sought-after antidote to paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP) experienced by people eating shellfish gathered after red tides, such as those that have recently plagued coasts of Florida and the Gulf of Mexico.  

Read more

Click here for more on this topic from Nature.

Click here for more on this topic from National Geographic.

Click here for more on this topic from The Times UK.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), and the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein is an envelope glycoprotein that binds angiotensin converting enzyme 2 as an entry receptor. 

Read more.

photo credit to:

https://innovativegenomics.org/
news/dengke-ma-extreme-hibernation

In major cardiovascular diseases, including stroke and heart attack, loss of blood flow causes loss of oxygen (ischemia), leading to tissue damage and cell deaths. A species of ground squirrels from the Arctic can tolerate such ischemic attack, but the underlying biological basis has been unknown. The study from this paper led by Neel Singhal from the Ma lab at CVRI identified an unusual protein variant ATP5G1 from cells of Arctic ground squirrels that contributes to the protection from ischemic stress. This basic science discovery may lay the groundwork to develop potential therapeutic strategies to treat human ischemic disorders.

Read more

In a clinical collaboration with Melvin Scheinman from the UCSF Comprehensive Genetic Arrythmia Program, CVRI investigators Rahul Deo and Natalia Jura, along with MD/PhD trainee Erron Titus, set out to explain how mutations in the calcium-storage protein, calsequestrin, cause lethal arrhthymias. The team solved a new X-ray crystal structure of human cardiac calsequestrin, revealing the biochemical basis of calsequestrin’s assembly into filaments. Using the new structure, the team was able to map disease-associated mutations to the filament surfaces and explain how the location of the mutation in the structure determines the severity of disease.

Read more

The global burden of diabetes is rapidly increasing, from 451 million people in 2019 to 693 million by 2045¹. The insidious onset of type 2 diabetes delays diagnosis and increases morbidity². Given the multifactorial vascular effects of diabetes, we hypothesized that smartphone-based photoplethysmography could provide a widely accessible digital biomarker for diabetes. y 2045¹.

Read more         pdf

Project Page

UCSF News Brief

Beta blockers are among the most widely used drugs for treating heart failure.  It has long been thought that these drugs act on proteins, known as adrenergic receptors, that solely reside on cell surfaces.  A recent study by scientists at CVRI and the University of Michigan has discovered a previously unknown role for adrenergic receptors within cells. When beta blockers were developed, there were no considerations for their abilities to access internal adrenergic receptors.  This new knowledge can potentially lead to the development of drugs that are more effective in the treatment of cardiovascular disease.

https://elifesciences.org/articles/48167

As climate change brings more red tides, a protein from the American bullfrog might provide protection from paralytic shellfish poisoning.

Article

As climate change raises ocean temperatures, fisheries and public health agencies closely monitor the waters for harmful algal blooms known as red tides. The algae in these blooms produce a neurotoxin that accumulates in shellfish, rendering them dangerous, or even lethal, for human consumption. Bullfrogs, however, have a natural defense in the form of a protein known as saxiphilin.

Article

Why can’t we regenerate the heart? A recent study by the Huang laboratory at UCSF explored the heart of echidnas, platypus, anteaters, armadillos, whales and bats, and identified a key hormone that made our ancestors warm-blooded but left us susceptible to heart damage.

Article

Paper

Huang Website

There is a weapon that is released by algae around the world and concentrated, invisible, in the flesh of shellfish. An amount the size of a poppy seed is enough to kill a grown person. It’s part of an onslaught from which we’ve defended ourselves for decades, which might be why you’ve never heard of it.

https://www.kqed.org/science/1944148/how-scientists-detect-the-most-lethal-shellfish-toxin-youve-never-heard-of