https://www.yahoo.com/news/16-old-pocketed-50-000-135300578.htmlNatasha Kulviwat is no ordinary high schooler. Starting last August, she spent six months in the lab at Columbia University studying the brain tissue of people who died by suicide.
Her research investigated if any biomarkers — physical and measurable substances in the brain — might help explain and, perhaps someday, prevent suicide.
https://fluidsbarrierscns.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12987-019-0123-zCytokines create inflammation as a normal part of your immune system's response to pathogens. But your body can also release them when there is no threat — during chronic stress, for example — and that can cause excessive inflammation.
Too much inflammation in the body over time can have many negative effects — it's implicated in conditions like heart disease, cancer, and autoimmune disease. In this case, Kulviwat's research suggests that inflammation affected a specific protein in the brain known as claudin-5.
I have read that chronic stress increases levels of cytokines. It's complicated.Claudin-5 is usually found in cells that make up the blood-brain barrier (BBB) — playing an important role in regulating what substances can pass from the blood into brain cells.
But Kulviwat found elevated levels of claudin-5 in other parts of the brain — in the neurons and microvessels — of those who died by suicide, indicating there was a breakdown of the BBB.
That means foreign agents in the blood can now get into functional areas of the brain, which can be neurotoxic, she said. The results suggest elevated levels of claudin-5 in the brain might serve as a biomarker of suicide risk.
Claudin-5 is a protein that is a crucial component of tight junctions in endothelial cells, which line the blood-brain barrier and other blood vessels. It plays a key role in maintaining the integrity and selective permeability of these barriers. Its importance lies in its potential role in various diseases, including neurological disorders and cancers, making it a significant biomarker for scientific research.
The Science Fair winner likely used a combination of molecular biology techniques such as gene expression analysis, protein assays, and possibly imaging techniques to study Claudin-5. They may have also used cell culture models and animal models to understand the protein's function and regulation in different biological contexts.
Studying Claudin-5 can have several applications, including the development of new diagnostic tools for diseases where Claudin-5 is dysregulated, such as certain cancers and neurological conditions. It can also aid in the creation of targeted therapies that aim to modulate Claudin-5 expression or function to restore normal barrier integrity and function.
Claudin-5 is considered a potential biomarker because changes in its expression levels or function are associated with various pathological conditions. Biomarkers are measurable indicators of a biological state or condition, and Claudin-5's involvement in critical processes like maintaining the blood-brain barrier makes it a valuable indicator for disease diagnosis and progression.
The key findings likely include new insights into how Claudin-5 functions at the molecular level, how its expression is regulated, and how its dysregulation contributes to disease. These findings could provide a foundation for further research into therapeutic interventions and enhance our understanding of the biological significance of Claudin-5.