Small code change - big effect

Scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, have developed a new method which enables researchers to label any protein of their choice with any of a wide variety of previously available compounds, in living cells, by introducing a single reactive artificial amino acid. Published in Angewandte Chemie, the new technique enables researchers to label even rare proteins very precisely for optical imaging and in the future likely also for Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). Carsten Schultz, Edward Lemke and colleagues tricked the cell's protein-synthesising machinery into replacing one of the protein's building blocks – amino acids – with an artificial amino acid variety that is suitable for performing biocompatible chemical reactions.

Non Invasive Tool to Diagnose Endometriosis

British scientists have used infrared spectroscopy to identify biochemical differences between endometrial tissue growing outside the uterus (ectopic) and the endometrial tissue of the uterus (eutopic). They also compared the results with tissue from endometriosis-free women (benign eutopic).

They used attenuated total reflection Fourier-transform IR (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy or transmission FTIR microspectroscopy for spectral acquisition, coupled with principal component analysis (PCA)-linear discriminant analysis (LDA) for chemometric analysis.

New Diagnostic Test for Schizophrenia

Scientists in Finland have revealed metabolic abnormalities that are associated with schizophrenia. This may be an important step towards development of a clinical test of the disease.

A new study performed by Matej Orešič and colleagues from VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland in collaboration with Jaana Suvisaari from the Finnish National Institute for Health and Welfare reveals metabolic abnormalities that are associated specifically with schizophrenia, as opposed to other psychotic disorders. These findings, which were published in Genome Medicine, might be an important step towards the development of a clinical diagnostic test for schizophrenia