Healthy people show a brief FGF21 drop after stress, while those with mitochondrial disease show a delayed rise. FGF21 also reflects social and emotional factors, linking stress and metabolic health.
Fasting triggers the body to shift from using glucose to burning fat and producing ketones, coordinated by hormones and liver signals like FGF21. Mice without liver-produced FGF21 still showed normal fasting metabolism, but they lost the usual increase in protein appetite
In C. elegans, the RNA that maintains chromosome ends doesn't have its own gene but is hidden inside another gene and "hitchhikes" there. This discovery may be common in animals and could inform future regenerative medicine research.
PAX3 and PAX7 guide the development of different neural cell types in the embryonic spinal cord. This activation occurs only in cells exposed to BMP signals.
Scientists at The University of Texas at Austin have developed a revolutionary gene-editing method using bacterial retrons that can correct multiple disease-causing mutations at once.