News archive

Intake of a high-fat diet leads to an increased risk for obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and fatty liver. A study in mice from Karolinska Institutet shows that it is possible to eliminate the deleterious effects of a high-fat diet by lowering the levels of apolipoprotein CIII (apoCIII), a key regulator of lipid metabolism. The study is published in the journal Science Advances.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have succeeded in mapping the neuron types comprising the enteric nervous system in the intestine of mice. The study, which is published today in the scientific journal Nature Neuroscience, also describes how the different neurons form during fetal development, a process that follows different principles to brain neurons.

We wish to congratulate Luca Jovine, Juha Kere, Janne Johansson and Eckardt Treuter at the Department of Biosciences and Nutrition, who have been awarded grants from the Swedish Research Council within the area of Medicine and Health as well as the area of Natural and Engineering Sciences for the years 2020-2024.

While proteins on the surface of cells are the targets for most drugs, refined methods are needed to analyse how these membrane proteins are organised. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have developed a new DNA-based analytical method that could contribute to the development of future drugs for breast and other cancers. The study is published in Nature Nanotechnology.

A study lead by KI researcher and SciLifeLab Fellow Simon Elsässer elucidates a new flavour of heterochromatin, used by embryonic stem cells to silence ‘parasitic’ DNA-elements within the context of their highly dynamic pluripotent chromatin. The study was recently published in Nature Communications.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have developed a new method for analysing intact tumour samples in 3D on a molecular level. The study is a collaboration with Karolinska University Hospital and is published in Nature Biomedical Engineering. Now the researchers are planning to use the method to study tissue samples from COVID-19 patients in the hope that it will provide information on where and how the new coronavirus attacks different organs.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have discovered that excessive degradation of the power plants of our cells plays an important role in the onset of mitochondrial disease in children. These inherited metabolic disorders can have severe consequences such as brain dysfunction and neurological impairment. The study is published in EMBO Molecular Medicine.

Research from Karolinska Institutet published today in Nature shows that an RNA molecule involved in preventing tumour formation can change its structure and thereby control protein production in the cell. The finding can have important clinical implications as it opens for new strategies to treat different types of cancer.

A recent paper published in Science Advances by scientists at Karolinska Institutet in a large joint effort with Hungarian, Japanese, Swedish and American researchers demonstrates a previously unknown mechanism by which cells can protect proteins from irreparable damage by oxygen. Because this damage occurs in diseases such as cardiovascular, neurodegenerative conditions and cancer, the mechanism helps us to better understand these diseases.

Arne Holmgren, Senior Professor at Karolinska Institutet, died on January 6, 2020, 79 years old. Dr. Holmgren was widely known as one of the groundbreaking scientists establishing the rapidly growing field of redox biology.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have uncovered a chromosome-wide mechanism that keeps the gene expression of sex chromosomes in balance in our cells. The findings shed light on molecular reasons for early miscarriage and could be important for the emerging field of regenerative medicine. The study is published in Nature Structural and Molecular Biology.

Reduction systems and protection of cells against oxidative stress are processes not entirely dependent on the electron carrier NADPH as generally believed. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet and Montana State University have now demonstrated how mice that are incapable of using the primary NADPH-dependent systems in their livers cope perfectly, as long as they get the amino acid methionine via their food. This discovery is published in the journal Nature Communications.