Polyamines are natural molecules that promote healthy aging but are also linked to cancer progression, presenting a long-standing puzzle in biomedical research. In a recent study, researchers from Japan explored how polyamines affect cancer cells, uncovering a key interaction with protein eIF5A2. Their findings reveal that polyamines drive cancer growth by altering ribosomal gene expression, offering a potential target for selective cancer therapies and shedding light on the risks of polyamines.

Regulating the flow of protons across the chloroplast and modulating the activity of its CF_o-CF₁ adenosine triphosphate (ATP) synthase protein are key to protecting plants from excessive light energy absorbed during photosynthesis, report researchers from Institute of Science Tokyo, Japan. The research team generated a double mutant variety of Arabidopsis thaliana called dldg1hope2, lacking the DAY-LENGTH-DEPENDENT DELAYED-GREENING1 (DLDG1) protein, to assess the influence of DLDG1 on chloroplast CF_o-CF₁ ATP synthase activity.

Mitochondrial dysfunction has been implicated in bipolar disorder (BD). However, it remains unclear which brain region is affected. Now, researchers from Japan have investigated key brain regions involved in mood regulation (BD symptoms), such as the paraventricular thalamus and medial temporal regions; they found granulovacuolar degeneration in the paraventricular thalamus and verified the accumulation of tau proteins in medial temporal region. These findings pave the way for the development of new treatment strategies for BD.

A team of scientists at Kyoto University’s Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences (iCeMS) has created a protein-based therapeutic tool  that could change the way we treat diseases caused by harmful or unnecessary cells. The new tool, published in Nature Biomedical Engineering, involves a synthetic protein called Crunch, short for Connector for Removal of Unwanted Cell Habitat. Crunch uses the body’s natural waste removal system to clear out specific target cells, offering hope for improved treatments for cancer, autoimmune diseases, and other diseases where harmful cells cause damage.

Researchers at the Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) interdisciplinary research group of the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART), Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) research enterprise in Singapore, have developed a powerful tool capable of scanning thousands of biological samples to detect transfer ribonucleic acid (tRNA) modifications — tiny chemical changes to RNA molecules that help control how cells grow, adapt to stress and respond to diseases such as cancer and antibiotic‑resistant infections.