Amro Hussien

Systemic ciprofloxacin treatment results in altered ECM transcriptome in tail tendons and histological changes in patellar tendon ECM. (A) Normalized transcripts of ECM-related genes from RNA sequencing data. Sorted by anabolic (fibrillar and proteoglycan) and catabolic genes. (B) Representative images of H&E staining of control (left) and ciprofloxacin-treated (right) patellar tendon midsubstance region. (C) Quantification of cell morphology as calculated by percentage of elongated cells to total cells. (D) Analysis of collagen fiber crimp as calculated by total fiber length following the curves of the fiber divided by end-to-end length. (E) Representative images of Picrosirius red (PSR) staining under polarized light of control (left) and ciprofloxacin-treated (right) patellar tendon midsubstance region. (F) Quantification of collagen fiber thickness, calculated by separating the colors from PSR images, with red being thickest fiber and green being thinnest. Bars indicate average ± standard deviation. (G) Quantification of collagen area density. (H) Representative images of Alcian blue staining of control (left) and ciprofloxacin-treated (right) patellar tendon midsubstance region. (I) Quantification of proteoglycan density from Alcian blue images. (J) Sulphated GAG content quantified from DMMB assay. Scale bars are 200 μm. Violin plots show the distribution of the data with the median, first and third quartiles highlighted. Each dot represents an average from 5 to 10 histological sections, n = 2–4 mice. Statistical analysis done with unpaired t-test. p-values and Cohen's d estimated effect size are displayed.

Nicole A. Chittim & coauthors showed that ciprofloxacin treatment in mice causes structural & biological phenotypes commonly associated with fluoroquinolone-induced tendinopathy: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Thanks for the excellent tools. No complaints, just citations! Here is one more citation coming your way soon-ish:

Resident tissue macrophages maintain intraocular pressure homeostasis Intraocular pressure (IOP) is dysregulated in glaucoma, a leading cause of blindness. Immune contributions to IOP maintenance are poorly understood. Liu et al. reveal that long-lived resident tissue macrophages have a specialized role in IOP homeostasis by regulating extracellular matrix turnover. These findings identify an integral homeostatic role for tissue-resident macrophages in resistance-generating tissues that are dysfunctional in glaucoma.

Online now: Resident tissue macrophages maintain intraocular pressure homeostasis

Ruslan Medzhitov lab at Yale

Aspartate availability drives differential engagement of the malate-aspartate shuttle Brunner et al. report that malate-aspartate shuttle engagement is cell-state dependent and can be modulated by the availability of the amino acid aspartate. In differentiated cells, malate-aspartate s...

A big chunk of my postdoctoral work on cell-state dependent metabolism is now out at @cp-molcell.bsky.social: www.cell.com/molecular-ce... 1/

What happens when single-author science papers become rare? 🧪

An EMBO Reports Science & Society article explores whether solo publications are being edged out by collaborative #research, and what that means​ for #creativity in #science: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1038/s44319-025-00677-1

The molecular basis of force selectivity by PIEZO2 Nature - PIEZO2 is intrinsically more rigid than PIEZO1, and disparate mechanical stimuli paradoxically evoke opposite conformational and gating responses in each channel.

New paper from the lab led by @ericmulhall.bsky.social addresses how PIEZO1 and PIEZO2 are tuned to different types mechanical forces. From nanometer-scale super-resolution microscopy to in vivo experiments, links single-molecule observations to physiological function.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Flexible paths to multicellularity Close relatives of animals can become multicellular if distinct individuals join together or if dividing cells remain attached. A species has been found to use both mechanisms.

This species can become multicellular using two mechanisms previously thought to be mutually exclusive

go.nature.com/4aTKdfF

Peripheral immune-inducer dendritic cells drive early-life allergic inflammation - Nature Early-life exposure to allergens triggers a distinct local mode of dendritic cell activation in neonatal skin without requiring migration to lymph nodes, which shapes responses to allergens in later l...

The rules of immunity are different in early life! Lead author Dr. Yue Xing finds that early life DCs sense allergens and trigger inflammation directly in skin. This in-situ activation state emerges from a developing HPA and low glucocorticoids. #Naiklab @nature.com
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Lymphatic disruption drives lung transplant fibrosis through interleukin-1–mediated hyaluronan accumulation Interleukin-1–mediated hyaluronan synthesis in transplanted grafts promotes fibrotic remodeling because of lymphatic disruption.

New work deciphers how disruptions to #lymphatic drainage drive fibrosis in transplanted lungs and hearts through the accumulation of hyaluronan—and identifies potential therapeutic targets to prevent lung fibrosis in mice. #ScienceTranslationalMedicine https://scim.ag/3ONyh7H

We had covered the history of traction force microscopy (TFM) earlier:
bsky.app/profile/epim...

But what about applying TFM into more physiologically relevant systems, such as those in 3D?

I am @barrasa-fano.bsky.social and I'll be your guide through this thread on #3DTractionForceMicroscopy.

‘Super agers’ with great memory have more young brain cells Older people with exceptional memory have a surprisingly high number of young neurons, a study finds

Older people with exceptional memory have a surprisingly high number of young neurons, a study finds

Break It To Make It: How Fracturing Sculpts Tissues and Organs | Quanta Magazine Growing tissues can crack, break, and dissociate to form structures that can later withstand immense forces.

Sometimes, the only way to build back up is to let everything fall apart. This is certainly true at the cellular level. www.quantamagazine.org/break-it-to-...

Partially shared multi-modal embedding learns holistic representation of cell state - Nature Computational Science APOLLO is an autoencoder-based framework to integrate diverse data modalities while preserving both shared and modality-specific information. It enables predicting missing data modalities and identify...

📢Caroline Uhler and colleagues from Eric and Wendy Schmidt Center at @broadinstitute.org present APOLLO, a framework to integrate diverse data modalities, enabling predicting missing data modalities and identifying the influence of each modality on a phenotype. www.nature.com/articles/s43... 🖥️ 🧬

Did you hear about the lab-made ear? An artificial ear that feels just like the real thing: in laboratory experiments, researchers have produced ear cartilage that remains form-stable in animal models. Only one element is missing to make...

An #Artificial #Ear that feels just like the #RealThing: in laboratory experiments, researchers have produced ear cartilage that remains form-stable in animal models. Only one element is missing to make the tissue as elastic as a natural ear.

cPLA2α targeting to exosomes connects nuclear deformation to LTB4-signaling during neutrophil chemotaxis Nuclear squeezing triggers lipid signals that help neutrophils stay on course through tight spaces.

Another interesting example of how cPLA2 senses nuclear deformation and controls immune cell behaviour. Since the enzyme adsorbs to hydrophobic lipid packing defects, membrane tension and high positive curvature can have similar effects as membrane tension.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Cages for mouse husbandry with individually ventilated caging (IVC) in a laboratory room for research animal husbandry at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf. Copyright: Christian Charisius/picture alliance/Getty Images.

Both the UK and US Governments have pledged to end research using animals, but is such a goal
realistic? And how might it change medical research?

✍️ Talha Burki reports: spkl.io/63320AQdTw

Trimodal single-cell profiling of transcriptome, epigenome and 3D genome in complex tissues with scHiCAR - Nature Biotechnology Trimodal single-cell analysis reveals gene-regulatory architecture in complex tissues.

Trimodal single-cell profiling of transcriptome, epigenome and 3D genome in complex tissues with scHiCAR - @yaruidiao.bsky.social @dukehealth.bsky.social go.nature.com/4rZqimf

Recent studies in living animals reveal that the cytoplasm is a thick, jam-like fluid. And yet, miraculously, hoards of molecules find their way to each other in every crowded cell. www.quantamagazine.org/the-biophysi...

Can we accurately map cell family trees using mtDNA? Excited to share MitoDrift, a high-precision single-cell lineage inference tool, enabling reliable mapping of lineage history to cell phenotypes. doi.org/10.64898/202...
Joint with @gaoteng.bsky.social. @bloodgenes.bsky.social @jswlab.bsky.social🧵

A lymph node from a mouse with allergies. Cells (yellow) react to allergens and become antibody-producing cells (red). These antibodies, known as IgE, are the cause of most allergies in humans.

Kids who grow up in biodiverse environments tend to have fewer allergies—& now we know why. #HHMIInvestigator Ruslan Medzhitov & co have found early exposure to diverse microbes creates broad immune memory, & an antibody that helps block allergic reactions later in life: bit.ly/4rGC59h.

🚨 New Preprint from the Paluch & Chalut Labs 🚨
Ana Raffaelli et al show that the stiffness of substrate (in vitro) / basal membrane (in vivo) determine how cells interpret biochemical signals (BMP4) and which fates they acquire
#mechanobiology #hESCs #substratemechanics
doi.org/10.64898/202...

Antifibrotic drug finerenone restores fertility in premature ovarian insufficiency Currently, no effective treatment exists for infertility associated with premature ovarian insufficiency (POI) because affected patients lack hormone-responsive antral follicles. By screening a Food a...

In a new Science study, researchers report that the limited number of remaining follicles of aged mice and women with premature ovarian insufficiency can be stimulated to grow and develop by modulating the stroma, the amorphous substance that surrounds them. https://scim.ag/4km7cEh

Why Human Intuition Is Still Science’s Greatest Tool In The Age Of AI | NOEMA Our sense for aesthetics, meaning and embodiment give us a vital advantage over our technological creations.

“Without the cultivated, meaning-laden, embodied intuition of the human scientist who is instinctively driven to ask questions about the nature of the world, AI systems remain rudderless when they enter the realms of uncertainty.”

— @conorfeehly.bsky.social

#ai #science #scientificdiscoveries

Multimodal analyses of early, untreated systemic sclerosis skin identify a proinflammatory vascular niche of macrophage-fibroblast signaling

Today, UCL turns 200. 🎉 For two centuries, our community has opened doors, challenged convention and pushed the boundaries of knowledge across every discipline. Thank you to everyone who’s been part of the UCL story, here’s to the next century. ✨

#UCL200 #LoveUCL

John Gurdon 1933–2025 - Nature Biotechnology Nature Biotechnology - John Gurdon 1933–2025

John Gurdon taught us that the beginning of life is never truly lost — only waiting to be reawakened. Long before his ideas were accepted, he showed that a cell remembers more than it appears to know: that within a differentiated nucleus lies the latent capacity to begin anew go.nature.com/3Mf8SD0

On the balance of knowledge Nature Reviews Immunology - Ruslan Medzhitov shares his thoughts on the balance between generating data and developing theories in immunology, with a focus on exploring the rules that govern...

In this World View article, Ruslan Medzhitov discusses the perils of too much data and not enough theory in modern immunology
rdcu.be/e2DCZ