New breakthrough for infertility!

Welcome to my blog about Biology. In this post I will be explaining a recent discovery in the field of biology and how it is important. The link to the discovery is here. By the end of this post you should understand how infertile women can turn fertile and why this is important for women, increasing our population and cell growth .

Discovery[1]

Researchers in Stanford University School of Medicine have found a way to "waken" the ovaries of infertile women, so that the women can start producing healthy and fertile eggs. The technique which they have used is called in vitro activation.

Their research was experimented on 27 women with primary ovarian insufficiency in Japan. 5 of which have produced fertile eggs and 1 woman has given birth to a healthy baby.

Although this technique has not been tested on different types of infertility and on many women, the researchers are planning to investigate the technique further. They will try to cure women with early menopause due to chemotherapy or radiation and infertile women between 40-50 years.

Infertility

Infertility is the disability to make or conceive a baby. In other words, if you are infertile, you cannot impregnate anyone and you cannot become pregnant yourself. It affects about 10% of all couples: 1/3 of the time it is due to women, 1/3 is due to men and the last third infertility is due to both men and women or because of an unknown cause.[2]

There are 2 types of infertility: primary and secondary.

Primary is when a couple has been trying for a baby for a year without any birth control methods and there is no result.
Secondary is when a couple has already had a baby and they can not become pregnant a second time.

Infertility in women 

Infertility in women can be caused by many factors such as smoking, eating disorders, old age, chemotherapy, cancer, hormone imbalances. Infertility can also occur when the egg in the ovary of the female does not mature, the fertilized egg does not attach itself to the lining of the uterus, or when the egg can not move itself from the ovary to the womb.[3]

The women which were tested on had primary ovarian insufficiency which is a type of infertility. Primary ovarian insufficiency is the terminology used when a woman's ovaries stop working properly before the age of 40. This means that they do not have their monthly menstrual period or they have them irregularly. The irregularity of their menstrual period is the result of problems with ovulation which leads to failure in fertilization.[4] 

In vitro Activation[5]

Women in total have about 400,000 follicles, 400 of which are used for production of eggs. When these 400 follicles are used up and do not produce anymore eggs, problems start to arise. 

In in vitro activation, doctors take one ovary from their patient by laproscopic surgery and using only a small part of ovarian tissue, presence of follicles is determined. When follicles are detected, the doctor "wakes" the inactive follicles by treating the ovarian tissues with IVA drugs. After 2 days, the ovarian pieces are put back into the patient near the oviduct. When the follicles become mature, the mature eggs in them are removed and fertilized with the sperm of the husband in the laboratory to make early embryo's. These embryo's are frozen in an early stage and the patient from which the ovary was taken from is treated with hormones to get her ready for implantation and pregnancy. The embryo is then thawed and transferred to the patient.

Source: http://www.ivafertility.com/IVA/images/diagram.png

Importance

Most women who stop producing fertile eggs may feel like they have stopped being a woman all-together. In addition, finding out that you are infertile at a young age is devastating. However, this discovery has given a chance for women with ovarian insufficiency to have a baby and maybe to reach happiness in their own sense. 

Also, for countries that have low birth rates and that are looking for a solution to this problem, IVA can help. 

IVA also shows that our cells are very prone to adaptation and that other diseases or maybe even age-related disorders are curable.

In conclusion, this technique will be tested on different women with different types of infertility and women in menopause.

References:

1. "Stanford-developed Technique Induces Egg Growth in Infertile Women, and One Gives Birth." News Center. September 30, 2013. Accessed October 30, 2014. http://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2013/09/technique-induces-egg-growth-in-infertile-women-and-one-gives-birth.html.
2."Infertility in Women In-Depth Report." The New York Times. Accessed October 30, 2014. http://www.nytimes.com/health/guides/disease/infertility-in-women/print.html.
3.Board, A.D.A.M. "Infertility." Infertility. February 24, 2014. Accessed October 30, 2014. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0002173/.
4."Primary Ovarian Insufficiency (POI): Overview." Primary Ovarian Insufficiency (POI): Overview. Accessed October 30, 2014. http://www.nichd.nih.gov/health/topics/POI/Pages/default.aspx.

5."Iva Fertility." IVA Fertility. January 1, 2013. Accessed October 30, 2014. http://www.ivafertility.com/IVA/index.html.

Honey for Antibiotics!

Welcome to my blog about biology. This is my second post and in this post I will be writing about how recent news is connected to biology. The link to the news report is here. By the end of this post, you should know how bee's honey can be an alternative to antibiotics, what is antibiotic resistance and why finding an alternative to antibiotics is an important step in medicine.

The News
Scientists have recently discovered that the honey from bees mixed with 13 different lactic acid bacteria can kill antibiotic resistant bacteria. This was shown in the news by the example of the horse's leg infected with bacteria being healed using a mixture of lactic acid bacteria and honey . The veterinarians and specialists did not know what to do and no antibiotics helped them. However, when the mixture of honey was spread over the wound, it started healing and in about a week, the wound healed. The lactic acid bacteria were taken from the stomach of the bees.

How is this connected and why will it help? [1]
In our century, we have a problem of bacteria being antibiotic resistant. Antibiotic resistance is when the applied antibiotic no longer works on the target bacteria and the bacteria still grow in the presence of said antibiotic. This happens because some bacteria are less susceptible to the action of the antibiotic and they live on when the susceptible bacteria die. These bacteria then replicate and outnumber the susceptible bacteria. This is one way of how they naturally gain antibiotic resistance. Bacteria can also become resistant by a gene mutation and by acquiring resistance from other bacteria.

The gene mutation in bacteria can result in many different types of resistance. Some mutations can develop a specific enzyme which deactivates antibiotics and other mutations can result in the cell target of the antibiotic being removed. There are also specific types of mutation which closes the ports from which the antibiotic enters the bacteria cell and another mutation pushes the antibiotic out of the bacteria cell before it starts working.

Resistance from other bacteria can also be acquired several ways. The first way is when bacteria “mate” and exchange their DNA with one another, this is called “conjugation”. The DNA mixes and the part of the DNA which is responsible for resistance is now in the bacterium which was not resistant. Viruses can also pass their resistant DNA into the bacteria. 

Source: http://www.nature.com/nrmicro/journal/v4/n1/images/nrmicro1325-f2.jpg

Have we found a solution?
As this phenomenon is widely spread all over the world, a new alternative to antibiotics must be found. One of the alternatives is as said before, special honey. This can be a very useful alternative as it is not as expensive as antibiotic production and most people like honey. In addition, the scientists have already been testing the special honey out on patients and it has been giving out surprisingly positive and quick results. This gives us hope that soon, ill patients with incurable diseases will get well and antibiotic resistance will exist no more.

Reference:
"Bee’s honey could replace antibiotics." RSS. http://www.euronews.com/2014/09/15/bee-s-honey-could-replace-antibiotics/ (accessed October 9, 2014).

"General Background: About Antibiotic Resistance." Tufts University. http://www.tufts.edu/med/apua/about_issue/about_antibioticres.shtml (accessed October 6, 2014).

Welcome to the Anatomy of Proteins

Welcome to my blog about Biology. My name is Asel Kuanyshbek and currently, I am studying in Nazarbayev University, Astana, Kazakhstan as a first year Biology student. I think that Biology is very interesting and through it, new things can be discovered every day. That is why I picked Biology as my major. In this post, I will be explaining a topic that we have recently passed in Modern Biology 1. Macromolecules: Proteins. Specifically, their structure.

Macromolecules

First of all, we need to know what macromolecules are.
Macromolecules are large organic molecules made up of a number of repeating units called monomers. Monomers join together by condensation reaction, when H2O is released, to make a polymer = macromolecule.[1] For more information on macromolecules you can visit this site.

Protein Monomers

So, how are proteins related to macromolecules?

According to HHMI-Missouri, proteins are a macromolecule itself. They consist of one or more chains of amino acids and they play a vital role in our organism. All amino acids have a similar basic structure and the R side chain gives the amino acid its specific properties. When amino acids are joined to make proteins a peptide bond is formed between amino acids.

Source: http://education-portal.com/cimages/multimages/16/amino_acid_structure.png

As I previously stated, amino acids are binded together by peptide bonds to form proteins, but you may not have know that proteins have 4 different structures. (formations)

Structure[2]

The first structure is the primary structure. It consists of a sequence (chain) of amino acids and is usually called the polypeptide backbone.

The secondary structure also consists of a sequence of amino acids. However, this time, the primary structure coils or folds to produce either an alpha helix or a beta sheet. The alpha helix results from hydrogen bonding of neighboring peptide bonds. While, the beta sheets result from hydrogen bonding between peptide bonds of different strands of the same polypeptide backbone.
So this is how they look like:

Source: https://biochemanics.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/secondary.png

The tertiary structure is made when the secondary structure of a protein is folded and twisted into a round three-dimensional shape. Globular proteins such as enzymes usually have a tertiary structure.

Not many proteins have a quaternary structure. This is because a quaternary structure requires more than 1 polypeptide (chain of amino acids). Hemoglobin is an example of a quaternary protein.

This is how all the structures look like:

Source: http://cnx.org/resources/dd07e14d3e27fe2a7ef27c417bab74ec/Figure_03_04_09.jpg

Structural Mutations

Proteins have optimal temperatures and pH levels that have to be constant for them to work. If the temperature is too high or the pH is not for the protein, then it starts to denature. To denature is to lose shape and bonds. This is very critical as the structure of the protein unfolds and the protein becomes useless or mutates into a different protein, which can lead to neurodegenerative diseases. Fortunately, these "mutated" proteins are taken by chaperones, which assist in protein folding, to a destructive structure called the proteosome.[3]

Thank you for reading until the end. Please leave a comment below. If you would like to find out about proteins in general you can visit this site.

Resources:

"Macromolecules." HHMI-Missouri. http://hhmi.missouri.edu/assets/docs/prep/Macromolecules.pdf (accessed September 30, 2014).

Kimball. "Proteins." Proteins. http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/P/Proteins.html (accessed September 30, 2014).

"The Rules of Protein Structure." Rules of Protein Structure. http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/D/DenaturingProtein.html (accessed September 29, 2014).

"The Structure of Proteins." The Structure of Proteins. http://www.vivo.colostate.edu/hbooks/genetics/biotech/basics/prostruct.html (accessed September 28, 2014).