Typologie d'actualités: CBM

Pure and stable white light

Current white light sources, such as LEDs, tend to oscillate between different color variations, which distorts the perception of the human eye. This limitation can be very disabling, even dangerous, during surgery or in the work of graphic designers and artists.

Researchers from the Center for Molecular Biophysics and the University of Michigan (United States) have developed a new system, based on dysprosium atoms and metallacrowns, which gives exactly white light that does not vary with conditions wear or temperature.

This work has been published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

See the information on the CNRS Institute of Chemistry website.

Impact of pesticides on health through diet

Jean-Marc Bonmatin and his collaborators from the Task Force on Systemic Pesticides  published a substantial article on the impact of pesticides on health through food, and on alternative agronomic solutions, in the journal Environment International.

This article follows two other journal articles on alternatives to pesticides and recently published article 1,  article 2. This new article resonates particularly with the questioning of the total ban on neonicotinoid insecticides in France.

Summary :

The article first examines the risks of pesticides associated with the consumption of fruits and vegetables. It then lists the effective agronomic alternatives by product, geography and chemical compound. Thus, in all countries, the use of pesticides contaminates up to 97% of food products and up to 42% of these products present a real risk to consumers. For example, multiple residues are present in 70-92% of stone fruits (USA and China) while 58% of American cauliflower is contaminated with neonicotinoid insecticides. Scientific alternatives and decision support frameworks can promote healthy eating. Increasingly, growers are reducing risk and potential harm by deliberately refraining from the use of pesticides. As such, opportunities abound to promote “win-win” diets that promote human health and preserve global biodiversity.

Creation of a predictive model of metabolic changes characteristic of neurodegenerative diseases

Drosophila flies are versatile animal models for the study of genetic mutations in neuronal pathologies. Their small size allows performing in vivo experiments to obtain high resolution nuclear magnetic resonance spectra. Dr. Martine Decoville of CBM, researchers from CEMHTIand ESPCI Paris used spatially-resolved ¹H high-resolution MAS NMR to investigate in vivo metabolite contents in different segments of the fly body. A comparative study of metabolic changes was performed for three neurodegenerative disorders: two cell-specific neuronal and glial models of Huntington disease and a model of glutamate excitotoxicity. These 3 pathologies are characterized by specific and sometimes anatomically localized variations in metabolite concentrations. In two cases, the modifications of ¹H MAS NMR spectra localized in fly heads were significant enough to allow the creation of a predictive model.

Spatially-resolved metabolic profiling of living Drosophila in neurodegenerative conditions using 1H magic angle spinning NMR - Scientific Reports (2020) https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-66218-z

Disturbed expression of autophagy genes in blood of Parkinson’s disease patients

Parkinson's disease is a neurodegenerative pathology characterized by the presence of protein aggregates in the neurons of patients. This neurotoxic accumulation of misfolded proteins could be due to insufficient elimination by autophagic cellular mechanisms. Alain Legrand's group has just published a study highlighting an alteration in the expression of genes coding for autophagy proteins in the blood of patients with Parkinson's disease. This pilot study, carried out in collaboration with the Neurology Department of the Centre Hospitalier Régional d'Orléans (CHRO) and the Fundamental Informatics Laboratory of the University of Orléans (LIFO), shows that defects in autophagic systems that affect the brain of patients can also be detected in peripheral blood cells. These deregulated genes could thus constitute diagnostic markers of Parkinson's disease that can be measured non-invasively after a simple blood test.

El Haddad S. et al, Disturbed expression of autophagy genes in blood of Parkinson's disease patients.  Gene vol. 738 (2020): 144454

Unveiling billion-year old life forms with X-ray vision

An international team of scientists from Brazil, France and Switzerland with financial support from the Serrapilheira Institute and Fapesp, has obtained the most detailed 3D views ever achieved of very ancient traces of life on Earth. The studied microfossils, from the Gunflint Formation, in Canada, are approximately 1.9 billion years old, and are the preserved remains of microorganisms similar to bacteria existing today, but from a period when only microscopic life existed on Earth. Using an advanced imaging method based on synchrotron light, unprecedented details of the shape, composition and preservation of these microfossils was attained. Moreover, in one locality, fossils previously termed “hematite-coated” are revealed to be composed of organic material – invisible in optical microscopy – coated with crystals of the iron oxide maghemite, instead of hematite. This finding challenges our understanding of past life and opens exciting perspectives for the study of even older fossils or future samples returned from Mars.

Maldanis, L., Hickman-Lewis, K., Verezhak, M. et al. Nanoscale 3D quantitative imaging of 1.88 Ga Gunflint microfossils reveals novel insights into taphonomic and biogenic characters. Scientific Reports 10, 8163 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-65176-w

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3D observation of microfossils