The ’Gist: Pathology News
The hottest recent news in pathology – summarized!
Credit: Image sourced from Unsplash.com
Magnificent Yet Minute
The largest known bacterium – 50 times larger than previous record-holders – has been discovered in a marine sulfidic environment. The organism, Candidatus Thiomargarita magnifica, is a full centimeter in length. Its size is attributed to features of its cellular division and elongation mechanisms that allow it to surpass limits on growth (1).
A Tale of Africa
Genetic risk scores derived from data of African American individuals and multi-ancestry data perform better in sub-Saharan Africa than European-derived genetic risk scores (2). These African American-derived data enhance polygenic prediction of lipid traits, but accuracy varies between cohorts – specifically Ugandan and South African Zulu populations.
It’s Alive!
A novel, nontoxic method for comprehensive longitudinal profiling can be applied to both dispersed cells and living tissue. Scission-accelerated fluorophore exchange (SAFE) removes immunofluorescent signals from the surfaces of labeled cells, enabling multiple rounds of staining of the same samples (3).
The House of Mouse
Researchers have assembled a high-quality map of the mouse proteome. The map is built from 17,883 proteins and 41 tissues using quantitative mass spectrometry-based methodology. The work substantially builds on systematic studies of genes and proteins in mouse tissues in years since 2002 (4).
Don’t Stop the Beat
Can’t stay on the beat? It might not be your fault. Examining the genetics behind musical beat synchronicity in 606,825 individuals has shown that moving to a beat has a highly polygenic architecture, with 69 loci reaching genome-wide significance (5).
- PA Levin et al., Science, 376, 1379 (2022). PMID: 35737788.
- AB Kamiza et al., Nat Med, 28, 1163 (2022). PMID: 35654908.
- J Ko et al., Nat Biotechnol, [Online ahead of print] (2022). PMID: 35654978.
- P Giansanti et al., Nat Methods, 19, 803 (2022). PMID: 35710609.
- M Niarchou et al., Nat Hum Behav, [Online ahead of print] (2022). PMID: 35710621.
Interested in how disease interacts with our world. Writing stories covering subjects like politics, society, and climate change.
