WIKIMEDIA, MATTOSAURUSA brief, low-dose of penicillin can impact the gut microbiomes of young mice and lead to obesity later in life, New York University’s Martin Blaser and his colleagues showed in Cell this week (August 14). The researchers suggested that the microbial changes may influence the development of metabolic pathways down the line.
The results of this mouse study “bring a different level of proof” to the link between antibiotics and long-term health, said microbiologist Federico Rey of the University of Wisconsin-Madison who was not involved with the work.
“When babies develop, there are other critical developmental windows,” Blaser told The Scientist. “Even though the effects we saw on microbes were transient, the [weight gain] was permanent, suggesting that there is a developmental window—a time when microbes are influencing the development of metabolism.”
VIRGINIA TECH COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE AND LIFE SCIENCESA parasitic plant (Cuscuta pentagona) swaps messenger RNA (mRNA) with two of its hosts, tomato and Arabidopsis thaliana, Virginia Tech’s Jim Westwood and his colleagues reported in Science this week (August 14). It’s not yet known how, if at all, those shuttling mRNAs function in each species.
“The high volume of transcripts being exchanged is surprising,” Consuelo De Moraes, a plant biologist and ecologist at the Swiss ...
