Transporting cells over several days without dry-ice

This paper describes a simple, hazard-free and inexpensive procedure that allows researchers to send cultured cells across the globe at ambient temperatures. The method enables transit of up to 2 weeks without compromising cell recovery. Its use will assist collaborators in distant laboratories to exchange cells without using dry-ice

"Rediscovery" of a forgotten organelle, the primary cilium: the root cause of a plethora of disorders

The primary cilium was recognised in the late 19th century. Conclusive evidence of its existence required the advent of the electron microscope (1950s-1960s), after which its comparison with motile cilia of the (9 + 2) variety was made by Sorokin. Although a small group of devotees researched the primary cilium from this period until the late 1990s, its function as a sensor (previously advocated by Tony Poole) was established because it produced Ca2+ transients in intracellular signalling. The pathobiological consequences of ciliary agenesis or dysfunction was emphasised in the mid 1990s. But it was only after the recognition that agenesis could be due to mutations in intraflagellar transport proteins several years later that the pathological sequelae were appreciated. Since the early 2000s, the primary cilium has now been implicated as having many functions in cellular behaviour and development, such that disorder in this almost ubiquitous organelle in many tissues of the body leads to an astonishingly wide range of symptoms, from polycystic kidney disease to Alzheimer's. This organelle, dismissed as vestigial or rudimentary by most cell biologists for well over a century, can no longer be ignored in almost any medical and development condition. There is also very much more to learn about the biology of this fascinating organelle.Biomedical Reviews 2013; 24: 1-7

Possible attenuation of the G2 DNA damage cell cycle checkpoint in HeLa cells by extremely low frequency (ELF) electromagnetic fields

BACKGROUND: The issue remains unresolved as to whether low frequency magnetic fields can affect cell behaviour, with the possibility that they may be in part responsible for the increased incidence of leukaemia in parts of the population exposed to them. METHODS: Combined treatment of HeLa cells with gamma-irradiation (1, 3 and 5 Grays) and extra low frequency magnetic fields of ~50 Hz was carried out under rigorously controlled conditions. RESULTS: Synchronised cells progressing from S-phase arrived at mitosis on average marginally ahead of irradiation controls not exposed to ELF. In no instance out of a total of twenty separate experiments did this "double-insult" further delay entry of cells into mitosis, as had been anticipated. CONCLUSION: This apparently "non-genotoxic" agent (ELF) appears to be capable of affecting cells that would normally arrest for longer in G2, suggesting a weakening of the stringency of the late cycle (G2) checkpoint

A new journal – "Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling"

Biology has a conceptual basis that allows one to build models and theorize across many life sciences, including medicine and medically-related disciplines. A dearth of good venues for publication has been perceived during a period when bioinformatics, systems analysis and biomathematics are burgeoning. Steps have been taken to provide the sort of journal with a quick turnaround time for manuscripts which is online and freely accessible to all readers, whatever their persuasion or discipline. We have now been running for some time a journal which has had many good papers presented pre-launch, and a steady stream of papers thereafter. The value of this journal as a new venue has already been vindicated. Within a short space of time, we have founded a state-of-the-art electronic journal freely accessible to all in a much sort-after interdisciplinary field that will be of benefit to the thinking life scientist, which must include medically qualified doctors as well as scientists who prefer to build their new hypotheses on basic principles and sound concepts underpinning biology. At the same time, these principles are not sacrosanct and require critical analysis. The journal promises to deliver many exciting ideas in the future

Action of Lovastatin (Mevinolin) on an in vitro model of angiogenesis and its co-culture with malignant melanoma cell lines

BACKGROUND: Lovastatin and other statins may reduce the development of melanomas. The effects on melanoma cells and their ability to enhance angiogenesis in a co-culture system presented an opportunity to assess whether Lovastatin act on melanoma cells, HUVEC or both types of cells. RESULTS: Direct effects of co-culturing two different malignant melanoma cells (A375 and G361) on the process of angiogenesis in vitro was studied with our angiogenesis model[1], based on human dermal fibroblasts and human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC). Co-cultures were set up using "sland" and "dispersed seeding" techniques. A statistically significant increase in tubule formation in both cases was observed compared to controls. The effects of doses equivalent to therapeutic concentrations of Lovastatin were analysed. The drug inhibited the growth of all cell types, induced apoptosis, and markedly reduced the formation of tubules in the angiogenesis model at low concentrations. Its action was successfully reversed by the introduction of geranylgeranyl pyrophosphate. CONCLUSION: Lovastatin can reduce both tumour (melanoma) cell growth, and the angiogenic activity of these cells in co-cultures using an established 2-dimensional model angiogenesis system beyond that which would be seen by reduced proliferation alone

Purification and characterisation of cell survival factor 1 (TCSF1) from Tetrahymena thermophila

Of a number of peptides isolated from the extracellular medium of Tetrahymena cultures, two with masses 9.9 and 22.4 kDa allowed low-density cultures of this ciliate to survive and enter a proliferate phase. The smaller peptide (TCSF1) also greatly helped cultured mammalian fibroblasts to survive in medium containing very low concentrations of serum for considerably longer than controls, and to grow when full strength medium was restored. The primary sequence of the TCSF1 was determined, and synthetic TCSF1 was observed to exhibit rescuing activity comparable to that of the native peptide