Jul 22, 2025 04:55 PM
Pitt study uncovers how the immune system fends off gut parasites
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1091620
INTRO: New research from the University of Pittsburgh reveals how the immune system defends against intestinal parasitic worms, or helminths, one of the most common infections worldwide in communities with limited access to clean water and sanitation.
The findings, published today in the journal Immunity, suggest that currently available non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS), similar to ibuprofen, could act on the newly discovered pathway to boost immunity to parasitic infections.
“While parasitic worms are less of an issue in most of the U.S. and other wealthy nations, these infections affect almost a quarter of the world’s population,” said co-senior author Reinhard Hinterleitner, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Pitt Department of Immunology. “But there hasn’t been a new medication developed to treat parasites for decades, so there is a huge need for novel treatments. While more research is needed, our study suggests that existing medications could be repurposed to treat parasitic infections.”
There are several different types of immune responses, according to co-senior author Yi-Nan Gong, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Pitt Department of Immunology and member of the Tumor Microenvironment Center at UPMC Hillman Cancer Center. The more familiar type 1 immunity combats viruses and bacteria by directly annihilating these pathogens, while type 2 is a broader defense against external threats such as parasites. Erroneous activation of type 2 responses is also associated with food and environmental allergies.
“Type 2 immunity is like an eviction campaign,” said Gong. “By driving inflammation and accelerating cell turnover and differentiation, it makes the gut environment inhospitable for parasites, naturally expelling them.” (MORE - details, no ads)
Tiny fossil suggests spiders and their relatives originated in the sea
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1091633
INTRO: A new analysis of an exquisitely preserved fossil that lived half a billion years ago suggests that arachnids – spiders and their close kin – evolved in the ocean, challenging the widely held belief that their diversification happened only after their common ancestor had conquered the land.
Spiders and scorpions have existed for some 400 million years, with little change. Along with closely related arthropods grouped together as arachnids, they have dominated the Earth as the most successful group of arthropodan predators. Based on their fossil record, arachnids appeared to have lived and diversified exclusively on land.
In a study led by Nicholas Strausfeld at the University of Arizona and published in Current Biology, researchers from the U.S. and United Kingdom undertook a detailed analysis of the fossilized features of the brain and central nervous system of an extinct animal called Mollisonia symmetrica. Until now, it was thought to represent an ancestral member of a specific group of arthropods known as chelicerates, which lived during the Cambrian (between 540 and 485 million years ago) and included ancestors of today’s horseshoe crabs. To their surprise, the researchers found that the neural arrangements in Mollisonia's fossilized brain are not organized like those in horseshoe crabs, as could be expected, but instead are organized the same way as they are in modern spiders and their relatives.
"It is still vigorously debated where and when arachnids first appeared, and what kind of chelicerates were their ancestors," said Strausfeld, a Regents Professor in the U of A Department of Neuroscience, "and whether these were marine or semi-aquatic like horseshoe crabs.”
Mollisonia outwardly resembles some other early chelicerates from the lower and mid-Cambrian in that its body was composed of two parts: a broad rounded "carapace" in the front and a sturdy segmented trunk ending in a broad, tail-like structure. Some scientists have referred to the organization of a carapace in front, followed by a segmented trunk as similar to the body plan of a scorpion. But nobody had claimed that Mollisonia was anything more exotic than a basal chelicerate, even more primitive than the ancestor of the horseshoe crab, for example.
What Strausfeld and his colleagues found indicating Mollisonia's status as an arachnid is its fossilized brain and nervous system. As in spiders and other present-day arachnids, the anterior part of Mollisonia’s body (called the prosoma) contains a radiating pattern of segmental ganglia that control the movements of five pairs of segmental appendages. In addition to those arachnid-like features, Mollisonia also revealed an unsegmented brain extending short nerves to a pair of pincer-like "claws," reminiscent of the fangs of spiders and other arachnids.
But the decisive feature demonstrating arachnid identity is the unique organization of the mollisoniid brain, which is the reverse of the front-to-back arrangement found in present-day crustaceans, insects and centipedes, and even horseshoe crabs, such as the genus Limulus.
"It's as if the Limulus-type brain seen in Cambrian fossils, or the brains of ancestral and present days crustaceans and insects, have been flipped backwards, which is what we see in modern spiders," he said... (MORE - details, no ads)
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1091620
INTRO: New research from the University of Pittsburgh reveals how the immune system defends against intestinal parasitic worms, or helminths, one of the most common infections worldwide in communities with limited access to clean water and sanitation.
The findings, published today in the journal Immunity, suggest that currently available non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS), similar to ibuprofen, could act on the newly discovered pathway to boost immunity to parasitic infections.
“While parasitic worms are less of an issue in most of the U.S. and other wealthy nations, these infections affect almost a quarter of the world’s population,” said co-senior author Reinhard Hinterleitner, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Pitt Department of Immunology. “But there hasn’t been a new medication developed to treat parasites for decades, so there is a huge need for novel treatments. While more research is needed, our study suggests that existing medications could be repurposed to treat parasitic infections.”
There are several different types of immune responses, according to co-senior author Yi-Nan Gong, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Pitt Department of Immunology and member of the Tumor Microenvironment Center at UPMC Hillman Cancer Center. The more familiar type 1 immunity combats viruses and bacteria by directly annihilating these pathogens, while type 2 is a broader defense against external threats such as parasites. Erroneous activation of type 2 responses is also associated with food and environmental allergies.
“Type 2 immunity is like an eviction campaign,” said Gong. “By driving inflammation and accelerating cell turnover and differentiation, it makes the gut environment inhospitable for parasites, naturally expelling them.” (MORE - details, no ads)
Tiny fossil suggests spiders and their relatives originated in the sea
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1091633
INTRO: A new analysis of an exquisitely preserved fossil that lived half a billion years ago suggests that arachnids – spiders and their close kin – evolved in the ocean, challenging the widely held belief that their diversification happened only after their common ancestor had conquered the land.
Spiders and scorpions have existed for some 400 million years, with little change. Along with closely related arthropods grouped together as arachnids, they have dominated the Earth as the most successful group of arthropodan predators. Based on their fossil record, arachnids appeared to have lived and diversified exclusively on land.
In a study led by Nicholas Strausfeld at the University of Arizona and published in Current Biology, researchers from the U.S. and United Kingdom undertook a detailed analysis of the fossilized features of the brain and central nervous system of an extinct animal called Mollisonia symmetrica. Until now, it was thought to represent an ancestral member of a specific group of arthropods known as chelicerates, which lived during the Cambrian (between 540 and 485 million years ago) and included ancestors of today’s horseshoe crabs. To their surprise, the researchers found that the neural arrangements in Mollisonia's fossilized brain are not organized like those in horseshoe crabs, as could be expected, but instead are organized the same way as they are in modern spiders and their relatives.
"It is still vigorously debated where and when arachnids first appeared, and what kind of chelicerates were their ancestors," said Strausfeld, a Regents Professor in the U of A Department of Neuroscience, "and whether these were marine or semi-aquatic like horseshoe crabs.”
Mollisonia outwardly resembles some other early chelicerates from the lower and mid-Cambrian in that its body was composed of two parts: a broad rounded "carapace" in the front and a sturdy segmented trunk ending in a broad, tail-like structure. Some scientists have referred to the organization of a carapace in front, followed by a segmented trunk as similar to the body plan of a scorpion. But nobody had claimed that Mollisonia was anything more exotic than a basal chelicerate, even more primitive than the ancestor of the horseshoe crab, for example.
What Strausfeld and his colleagues found indicating Mollisonia's status as an arachnid is its fossilized brain and nervous system. As in spiders and other present-day arachnids, the anterior part of Mollisonia’s body (called the prosoma) contains a radiating pattern of segmental ganglia that control the movements of five pairs of segmental appendages. In addition to those arachnid-like features, Mollisonia also revealed an unsegmented brain extending short nerves to a pair of pincer-like "claws," reminiscent of the fangs of spiders and other arachnids.
But the decisive feature demonstrating arachnid identity is the unique organization of the mollisoniid brain, which is the reverse of the front-to-back arrangement found in present-day crustaceans, insects and centipedes, and even horseshoe crabs, such as the genus Limulus.
"It's as if the Limulus-type brain seen in Cambrian fossils, or the brains of ancestral and present days crustaceans and insects, have been flipped backwards, which is what we see in modern spiders," he said... (MORE - details, no ads)
