[HN Gopher] Leonard Rome's lab discovered an odd component of ce...
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Leonard Rome's lab discovered an odd component of cells in the
1980s: Vaults
Author : JPLeRouzic
Score : 61 points
Date : 2024-07-06 16:38 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.science.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.science.org)
| FiatLuxDave wrote:
| This is really interesting. I wonder what other known cellular
| structures are left out of biology textbooks because their
| functions are unknown?
| ffhhj wrote:
| > We usually think of neurons as the only cells in our body
| that produce intelligent behavior by communicating in large
| networks. Neurons are constantly communicating with each other
| in the form of electrical patterns on their membrane and
| neurotransmitters, which are chemicals that transfer messages
| between cells. But it turns out that cells throughout the body
| have the exact same building blocks for such communication.
| They do the same communication, but slower. Levin and company
| call this the bioelectric network, as distinguished from a
| neural network.
|
| https://www.bitsofwonder.co/p/a-revolution-in-biology
| bglazer wrote:
| I'm begging everyone on HN to understand that Michael Levin's
| work is not the beginning and end of biology. This is not
| meant to disparage his research, it's really quite cool, but
| bioelectric signaling is just one piece of a very complex,
| very large, and very interesting story.
|
| I only say this because he is invariably mentioned in any
| story related to biological research. I think this is
| partially because his work is cool, he has been on Lex
| Fridman's podcast several times, and he's very good at
| talking about his research. So, again, not knocking his work,
| just don't forget there's a lot more bio research out there
| that's equally interesting.
| Iku_Tri wrote:
| Can I get some links please? Interested in what's out there
| too.
| rapjr9 wrote:
| Also what other structures are left out because they haven't
| been discovered because staining techniques don't make them
| visible? The dark matter of biology, is anyone even trying to
| look for such things? Though you would think electron
| microscopy would reveal everything.
|
| Everything I read in the article makes it sound like vaults are
| part of the immune system, but nobody understands how they
| work. It seems really weird that there can be a major structure
| in a cell "thousands in some cells" and research has not found
| what role they play after decades. Probably a noble prize
| waiting here.
|
| They knocked out the vaults in experiments, but did they then
| challenge the vault-deprived mice with viruses or did the mice
| live in an isolated environment to keep them away from
| confounders? If you remove part of the immune system and there
| are no immune challenges then it would seem like that part of
| the system does nothing. The environment matters a lot in such
| experiments.
| Bluestein wrote:
| >;they haven't been discovered because staining techniques
| don't make them visible?
|
| To that point, there was a recent article here (that, sadly
| went mostly unnoticed), about Polish scientists finding novel
| applicability of _gold particles_ of a certain shape in
| cancer treatment ...
|
| ... but crucial and structural to their findings (and salient
| about the article, I thought) was the use of a novel kind of
| microscopy and procedure that _enabled the discovery_ itself.
| Worth reading ...
| Bluestein wrote:
| Found the article. Interesting:
|
| - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40819854
| uj8efdjkfdshf wrote:
| Interesting read. From what I can tell, it seems to provide gain
| control for the innate immune system?
|
| [0] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11033-024-09305-y
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