Three new members have been isolated and added to the Pandoravirus family by researchers at the Structural and Genomic Information Laboratory (CNRS/Aix‐Marseille Université), working with partners at the Large Scale Biology Laboratory (CEA/Inserm/Université Grenoble‐Alpes) and at CEA-Genoscope. This strange family of viruses, with their giant genomes and many genes with no known equivalents, surprised the scientists when they were discovered a few years ago. In the 11 June 2018...
What if immune system efficacy against cancerous cells could be reinforced by a diet in which calories are not reduced but nutrients are precisely determined? This what Inserm researchers from Université Côte d’Azur, through a study of the effects of restrictive diets on tumor growth in mice, have been exploring. They have observed that a low-protein diet restricts tumor development by increasing immune response. The findings, to be published...
Can genes normally expressed only in the eye be activated in brain tumours?
Teams from Hôpital Paul-Brousse AP-HP, Inserm and Paris-Sud University have recently evidenced a mechanism which modulates the intestinal microbiota, involving a molecule with antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, known as REG3A. The latter is thought to protect the intestinal barrier and the bacteria most sensitive to oxygen forming the microbiota, thus improving "good" bacterial survival and growth. Transplantation of fecal microbiota in mice models of severe colitis or administration of...
Juan Iovanna (Inserm Research Director) and his colleagues at the Marseille Cancer Research Center (Inserm/CNRS/Aix Marseille Université/Institut Paoli-Calmettes), in close collaboration with the "Tumor identity cards (CIT)" program run by the Ligue nationale contre le cancer and the University of Wisconsin (United States), have generated a "bank" of approximately 200 viable human pancreatic tumors, and cells derived from these tumors. The "multiomic" analysis of these tumors, i.e. the general...
The “Nuclear Domains and Pathologies” team led by Jean-Jacques Diaz, Inserm Research Director at the Cancer Research Center of Lyon (Inserm/CNRS/Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1/Centre Léon Bérard), has recently demonstrated that one of the essential components of the "cellular machinery" that produces proteins – the ribosome – is altered in tumors. The researchers have observed that these modified ribosomes function differently in cancer cells, preferentially producing proteins that favor...
After 40 years of research, researchers at the CEA, the CNRS, the University of Grenoble-Alps, the University of Montpellier and the Inserm have finally identified the enzyme responsible for the tubulin cycle. Surprisingly, it is not one enzyme but two which control the cycle of this essential component of the cytoskeletal structure. This work opens up new prospects for the improved understanding of the role of tubulin, changes in...
Une étude publiée dans la revue Science démontre que la prise d’antibiotiques affecte l’efficacité d’un traitement par immunothérapie chez des patients atteints d’un cancer.
A team of researchers from CEA, Inserm, and the Paris-Sud and Paris Diderot universities has shown that exposure to low doses of irradiation (0.02 Gy) leads of a loss of hematopoietic stem cell[1] (HSC) function. The team has also shown that irradiation at this low dose facilitates efficient bone marrow transplantation without myeloablation[2]. These results, published in Cell Reports on September 26, 2017, show both the positive and negative...
ALK gene rearrangement is observed in 4% of non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients. Researchers from Gustave Roussy, Inserm and Université Paris-Sud, have shown that two blood samples can now predict the efficacy of treatment (crizotinib). These blood samples (taken before treatment initiation and 2 months afterwards) are able to measure the changes in the number of circulating tumor cells[1] (CTC) with a specific genetic abnormality (abnormal number of ALK...