trending Market Intelligence /marketintelligence/en/news-insights/trending/SxiBoarL3StycW6lwUCJDQ2 content esgSubNav
In This List

Opioid withdrawal in worms; a stress and eating switch for mice; monkey malaria

Blog

A Pharmaceutical Company Capitalizes on M&A Activity with Brokerage Research

Blog

2021 Year in Review: Highlighting Key Investment Banking Trends

Blog

Insight Weekly: US stock performance; banks' M&A risk; COVID-19 vaccine makers' earnings

Blog

Global M&A By the Numbers: Q3 2021


Opioid withdrawal in worms; a stress and eating switch for mice; monkey malaria

This is a recurring column on early-stage research in animals or other laboratory models that has not entered the clinic yet but could have implications for future research and development of human medicines.

Worm study sheds light on opioid response

Scientists at the Scripps Research Institute in Florida have unexpectedly discovered a biological system that controls the response of cells when exposed to opioid painkillers. The discovery could result in the development of safer opioid painkillers with less possibility for abuse.

Researchers engineered the soil-dwelling nematode worms to express the mu opioid receptor, or MOR, which does not naturally occur in the worm's DNA. The addition made the worms respond to opioids such as morphine and fentanyl, and those with an abnormal response were separated for further study.

The researchers were able to pinpoint the worms' FRPR-13 receptor — a protein conserved in all animals and known as GPR139 in mammals — as being responsible for the aberrant responses.

Further trials conducted in mice showed that GPR139 was expressed on the same neurons as MOR and neutralized the effects of opioids on neurons. The scientists then gave the mice drugs that activate GPR139, and found that opioid-dependent mice given the therapy stopped taking the drug.

Genetic elimination of GPR139 from the mice also increased the painkilling effect of the opioids. The genetically modified mice also showed "very minimal withdrawal symptoms" following chronic exposure to opioids.

Brock Grill, one of the study's two lead authors, said the discovery could "point a way" toward lessening the suffering of opioid withdrawal. The discovery of GPR139 presents a new target for developing therapies aimed at making the painkillers safer, according to Kirill Martemyanov, the study's other lead author.

The scientists published their findings in the journal Science. The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health Cutting Edge Basic Research Award.

About 130 people a day in the U.S. die due to opioid overdose, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

SNL Image

Researchers discovered that activating an "on-off switch" in the brains of mice can increase stress and lessen their desire to eat.

Source: The Associated Press

Linking stress and eating in mice

Researchers from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston have discovered how activating a certain neurocircuit in mice increases stress and lessens their desire to eat.

Qingchun Tong, the study's senior author and an associate professor in the Center for Metabolic and Degenerative Disease at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth, said the findings could shed light on the part of the human brain that controls hunger.

The study, published in the journal Nature Communications, focuses on a neurocircuit acting as an on-off switch between two parts of the mouse's brain: an eating-related zone, called the paraventricular hypothalamus; and an emotional zone, called the ventral lateral septum.

The scientists used a technique called optogenetics to "flip" the neurocircuit switch on or off. They also found out that inhibiting the neurocircuit led to higher levels of hunger and decreased anxiety.

The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health.

Monkey malaria could hold key to recurring type in humans

Two scientists from University of Otago in New Zealand discovered an in vitro, or test tube method, of culturing a monkey malaria parasite, which could help scientists diagnose and cure a relapsing form of the mosquito-borne disease in humans.

Relapsing malaria in humans stems from the vivax malaria parasite, one of the most hard-to-treat forms of the disease. Efforts to develop drugs and vaccines have been hindered by the lack of an in vitro method to culture the parasites.

"We can't culture vivax malaria, but now we can culture its almost identical sister species which gives us an unprecedented opportunity to develop and rapidly test new antimalarials," said Jessica Ong, a doctoral candidate from the university's Department of Microbiology and Immunology and one of the scientists behind the study.

The study was funded by the Marsden Fund and Health Research Council and published in the journal Nature Communications.