What Happens After a Python Gorges May Help Human Hearts ( 2 ) - Several pieces of evidence pointed to fatty acids, which are important in the body’s energy production and metabolism. In additional experiments, Dr. Riquelme and other members of the Colorado team found that only the specific combination of three fatty acids from a sated python produced the same hypertrophy when injected into a fasting one. The three fatty acids that enlarge the python’s cells (myristic, palmitic and palmitoleic) occur in proportionately higher amounts in pythons than in humans. Injections of one fatty acid, or a combination of two, did not produce hypertrophy.
Another mystery was what protected the python heart from the toxic effects of huge amounts of the lipids. Further research determined that the protective substance was an enzyme, SOD (for superoxide dismutase), an antioxidant that defends cells exposed to oxygen.
By March 2010, Dr. Riquelme’s husband, Hugo Olguin, had joined the faculty of Catholic University in Santiago, Chile. They had two young children and wanted to return to Chile. So Dr. Riquelme left Boulder, expecting to write a scientific paper about the python research and to get an academic position in Chile. But a giant earthquake struck there just before their departure, delaying her plans for months.
A giant python swallows an alligator in Everglades National Park, Fla.
Dr. Riquelme had done the pioneering experiments in Boulder and had to leave it to her colleagues in Colorado to carry out additional ones. In one, blood plasma from bloated pythons was injected into live mice. Again, surprisingly, mouse heart cells enlarged as they would in a well-conditioned athlete.
Along the way, the Colorado team asked Dr. Secor, who had moved from the University of California, Los Angeles, to the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, to join in the research. He is an author of the new paper in Science.
The findings leave a number of mysteries still open to research. What causes the organs to shrink to their fasting size? How would such findings apply to the death of human cells in processes called atrophy or apoptosis? And will repeated injections of the fatty acid combination safely lead to sustained increase in organ size?
Dr. Leinwand said she carried out the python research with support from federal and Colorado taxpayers and the American Heart Association. But the federal National Institutes of Health rejected her requests for direct financing, calling the relationship between reptiles and human heart disease too remote. In 2007, Dr. Leinwand became a founder of the Hiberna Corporation of Boulder to develop drugs derived from the study of exaggerated variations in animal metabolism. The company helped pay for some of the research. ( nytimes.com )
Another mystery was what protected the python heart from the toxic effects of huge amounts of the lipids. Further research determined that the protective substance was an enzyme, SOD (for superoxide dismutase), an antioxidant that defends cells exposed to oxygen.
By March 2010, Dr. Riquelme’s husband, Hugo Olguin, had joined the faculty of Catholic University in Santiago, Chile. They had two young children and wanted to return to Chile. So Dr. Riquelme left Boulder, expecting to write a scientific paper about the python research and to get an academic position in Chile. But a giant earthquake struck there just before their departure, delaying her plans for months.
A giant python swallows an alligator in Everglades National Park, Fla.
Dr. Riquelme had done the pioneering experiments in Boulder and had to leave it to her colleagues in Colorado to carry out additional ones. In one, blood plasma from bloated pythons was injected into live mice. Again, surprisingly, mouse heart cells enlarged as they would in a well-conditioned athlete.
Along the way, the Colorado team asked Dr. Secor, who had moved from the University of California, Los Angeles, to the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, to join in the research. He is an author of the new paper in Science.
The findings leave a number of mysteries still open to research. What causes the organs to shrink to their fasting size? How would such findings apply to the death of human cells in processes called atrophy or apoptosis? And will repeated injections of the fatty acid combination safely lead to sustained increase in organ size?
Dr. Leinwand said she carried out the python research with support from federal and Colorado taxpayers and the American Heart Association. But the federal National Institutes of Health rejected her requests for direct financing, calling the relationship between reptiles and human heart disease too remote. In 2007, Dr. Leinwand became a founder of the Hiberna Corporation of Boulder to develop drugs derived from the study of exaggerated variations in animal metabolism. The company helped pay for some of the research. ( nytimes.com )
No comments:
Post a Comment