invincibleworld

Latest Posts by invincibleworld

dailyart

Enjoying the little things and taking life one day at a time

mhawkins

Caenorhabditis elegans

Photo credit: Unknown. All earliest source links (circa 2008) are dead.

it would be so cool if you did e. coli in a jason mask (my friend brought this up. doesn’t have to be e. coli tho :P)

or if you did a microbe with the markiplier pink mustache :DDDDD

I've definitely done E. coli before, but I'll absolutely take the hat suggestions! I'm always in need of those.

Candidatus Desulforudis audaxviator

The species name of this bacterium contains the Latin phrase Candidatus (candidate) due to the fact that the species record has not been published in a taxonomically valid manner. It is not associated with any family, order, or class, but is included as a candidate under the phylum Firmicutes.

Candidatus D. audaxviator is a unique species, isolated from the Earth's surface for millions of years and a loner in its ecosystem. These bacteria do not need sunlight or chemical energy for their food or metabolic processes, instead subsisting on radioactive energy for their needs. They are able to fix their own nitrogen and cannot survive in the presence of oxygen.

The species name, audaxviator, is taken from Jules Verne’s “Journey to the Center of the Earth,” and means “descend, bold traveler, and attain the center of the Earth.” Photo credit: NASA (public domain)

It shifts

Grief

I don’t know how or when

But at some point

The happy memories

Become more of a comfort

Than a pain

Not every day

And not all the time

But some days

Grief shifts

Gastric cancer patient with bone marrow metastasis #oncology #cancer #laboratory #diagnostics #oncologia #microscopy

Some of you may be familiar with model organisms in biology but even so, you may think about mice, rabbits or flies rather than ctenophores. The whole purpose of having a model organism is to be able to understand particular biological functions/processes by using an organism that can be maintained easily, has a relatively short generation time and has its genome sequenced (this allows us to really understand their genetic makeup). Since this species of ctenophore (Mnemiopsis leidyi) has had its genome sequenced it allows us to identify key genes/proteins and try to determine their function.

The work I am currently doing for my project is focused on understanding the origin of the nervous system.

There's been a long standing debate amongst scientists over which species of animal first diverged from all other metazoans whether it be sponges or ctenophores. For a long time it has been thought that sponges are the sister group to all metazoans, although more recently studies have suggested that ctenophores are. Sponges are really simple animals that lack nervous systems, whereas ctenophores are more complex and have a nervous system. If ctenophores are then in fact found to be the sister group to all other metazoans, it poses the questions about whether the complex structures such as neurons and synapses evolved once or multiple times independently?

If you check you can see a diagram showing what I mean by the "sister group" to all metazoans. The first pic identifies sponges as the sister group, but with more analysis on a molecular basis, the 3rd pic could be possible.

Since most of the studies on neurons and nervous systems more generally are focused on metazoans, the work at this lab uses ctenophores to understand more about their complex biology with the aim of understanding the origins of neurons.

pssssst...

guess what.

you deserve to be happy.

pass it on.

#Trichomonas

January was challenging and hectic, but February has been pleasant so far.

You are extraordinary

One of a kind and yet

Millions of ones

Ever changing

You are the heartbreak

And the heartbeat

You are the master

And the student

You are evolution

And stability

You are the life

And the spark

And the answer

And the question

And in the times that you feel lost

Please remember all of these things

That make you

Extraordinary

I am the owner

Of this damage, the weapon

Fired to make the wound

Eyes full of apologies

Belie my gunpowder smile

The many faces of reactive plasma cells - all found within the same chronic skin infection in a dog!

Plasma cells are activated B lymphocytes and their purpose is to secrete immunoglobulin. When they become reactive, or stimulated, they can be binucleated, multinucleated, and have a variety of morphological changes occur including the formation of Russell bodies. Russell bodies are round to globular intracellular aggregates of immunoglobulin; their formation is due to an imbalance between the rates of synthesis, folding, secretion, and degradation of immunoglobulins.

While most Russell bodies are rounded, one (of many) phenotype of Russell bodies can present as crystalline bodies. Immunoglobulin crystals are very uncommon to see in plasma cell proliferations, and very few reports have been authored on them in veterinary medicine. I feel very lucky to have found three different types of crystalline bodies as you can hopefully appreciate in the above pictures!

Life has been busy and stressful and very very strange but at least pathology can always be depended on - please enjoy this weird and invasive mammary carcinoma from a dog.

Who doesn't love a good ole PAS stain?

Ft some lovely Cryptococcus organisms

Literally on the day of Halloween I have managed to chance upon a cell in a splenic impression smear that looks vaguely like fatso from Casper and I couldn't be happier

Highway system or fungal contaminants in an in-clinic diffquik stain?

A great example of branching, septate fungal hyphae and why in-clinic cytology dyes should be changed regularly! Fungi love to grow in them and can easily be misinterpreted as pathological!

Pleural fluid - cytospin slide stained with wrights stain - lung cancer

Check out these crystals I found in an acidic urine - uric acid crystals?

#Microbes

A prominent Human Gut Bacterium in the intestine.  Bacteria form symbiotic relationships with many organisms, including humans. One example is the bacteria that live inside the human digestive system. These microbes break down food and produce vitamins that humans need. In return, the bacteria benefit from the stable environment inside the intestines. Bacteria also colonize human skin. The bacteria obtain nutrients from the surface of the skin, while providing people with protection against more dangerous microbes.

Suspicions confirmed: Common cause for brain tumors in children

An overactive signaling pathway is a common cause in cases of pilocytic astrocytoma, the most frequent type of brain cancer in children. This was discovered by a network of scientists coordinated by the German Cancer Research Center (as part of the International Cancer Genome Consortium, ICGC). In all 96 cases studied, the researchers found defects in genes involved in a particular pathway. Hence, drugs can be used to help affected children by blocking components of the signaling cascade. The project is funded by the German Cancer Aid (Deutsche Krebshilfe) and the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). The findings are published in the latest issue of the journal “Nature Genetics”.

Brain cancer is the primary cause of cancer mortality in children. Even in cases when the cancer is cured, young patients suffer from the stress of a treatment that can be harmful to the developing brain. In a search for new target structures that would create more gentle treatments, cancer researchers are systematically analyzing all alterations in the genetic material of these tumors. This is the mission of the PedBrain consortium, which was launched in 2010. Led by Professor Stefan Pfister from the German Cancer Research Center (Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, DKFZ), the PedBrain researchers have now published the results of the first 96 genome analyses of pilocytic astrocytomas.

Pilocytic astrocytomas are the most common childhood brain tumors. These tumors usually grow very slowly. However, they are often difficult to access by surgery and cannot be completely removed, which means that they can recur. The disease may thus become chronic and have debilitating effects for affected children.

In previous work, teams of researchers led by Professor Dr. Stefan Pfister and Dr. David Jones had already discovered characteristic mutations in a major proportion of pilocytic astrocytomas. All of the changes involved a key cellular signaling pathway known as the MAPK signaling cascade. MAPK is an abbreviation for “mitogen-activated protein kinase.” This signaling pathway comprises a cascade of phosphate group additions (phosphorylation) from one protein to the next – a universal method used by cells to transfer messages to the nucleus. MAPK signaling regulates numerous basic biological processes such as embryonic development and differentiation and the growth and death of cells.

“A couple of years ago, we had already hypothesized that pilocytic astrocytomas generally arise from a defective activation of MAPK signaling,” says David Jones, first author of the publication. “However, in about one fifth of the cases we had not initially discovered these mutations. In a whole-genome analysis of 96 tumors we have now discovered activating defects in three other genes involved in the MAPK signaling pathway that have not previously been described in astrocytoma.“

“Aside from MAPK mutations, we do not find any other frequent mutations that could promote cancer growth in the tumors. This is a very clear indication that overactive MAPK signals are necessary for a pilocytic astrocytoma to develop,” says study director Stefan Pfister. The disease thus is a prototype for rare cancers that are based on defects in a single biological signaling process.

In total, the genomes of pilocytic astrocytomas contain far fewer mutations than are found, for example, in medulloblastomas, a much more malignant pediatric brain tumor. This finding is in accordance with the more benign growth behavior of astrocytomas. The number of mutations increases with the age of the affected individuals.

About one half of pilocytic astrocytomas develop in the cerebellum, the other 50 percent in various other brain regions. Cerebellar astrocytomas are genetically even more homogenous than other cases of the disease: In 48 out of 49 cases that were studied, the researchers found fusions between the BRAF gene, a central component of the MAPK signaling pathway, and various other fusion partners.

“The most important conclusion from our results,” says study director Stefan Pfister, “is that targeted agents for all pilocytic astrocytomas are potentially available to block an overactive MAPK signaling cascade at various points. We might thus in the future be able to also help children whose tumors are difficult to access by surgery.”