A research team from the School of Biomedical Sciences, LKS Faculty of Medicine at the University of Hong Kong (HKUMed), in collaboration with Queen Mary University of London and the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology, has unearthed the ancient evolutionary origins of genes critical to stem cell biology, dating back over 700 million years. Drawing on insights from evolutionary processes, this discovery reveals that tools borrowed from ancient single-celled organisms—and even recreated proteins from life’s earliest days—can transform mouse somatic cells into pluripotent stem cells capable of developing into any cell type in multicellular animals. This breakthrough challenges the longstanding belief that only animal genes possess this transformative ability, paving the way for new protein designs in novel therapies for regenerative medicine and disease studies to combat ageing and related health issues. The findings were recently published in Nature Communications.

The same chemicals and receptors that control the sensation of pain in the opioid system also play a role in regulating social behavior. The body produces natural opioid substances which are drawn to receptors throughout the nervous system, sending signals through neurons that induce pain relief, pleasure, and more. Low-dose morphine and buprenorphine that attach to the mu (μ) opioid receptors (MORs) could help promote social interactions, which could help people with neuropsychiatric disorders such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD) that affect social interactions.

Chronic jet lag causes drastically different effects on male and female metabolism in mice, say researchers from Kyushu University. The study, published in the journal, Biology of Sex Differences, found that the body clocks of female mice are more easily disrupted than the clocks of male mice, and revealed opposing metabolic effects; jet-lagged male mice gained weight and developed glucose intolerance, while jet-lagged females lost weight compared to female mice without jet lag.

Researchers from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) demonstrate that the way sardines eat, altered due to the reduction in size of plankton, undermines the efficiency of their feeding and increases the likelihood of consuming more plastic fibres. Although no direct negative effects of this ingestion were identified, environmental changes may have a greater impact than previously thought on how pelagic fish interact with plastic pollutants.

Prof. Zilong Zhang,Feifei Cui's team from Hainan University and Quan Zou's team from University of Electronic Science and Technology of China collaborated to build a model that can comprehensively predict the relative abundance of multiple proteins in the protein corona by using machine learning, and provide the corresponding web service, so as to make the established model have practical application value.