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The triatomine beetles that transmit Chagas disease are known as kissing bugs because they tend to feed on peopleÂ’s facesScientists in the US and Spain have synthesised the combinations of sugars from the surface of the Chagas disease parasite that trigger the human immune response to it. This could help establish better diagnostic tests for the disease, and even a vaccine.Chagas disease is caused by the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi. The parasite is transmitted by contaminated food, blood transfusions and blood sucking beetles commonly known as kissing bugs. After a phase of acute local infection, the disease becomes chronic and can...

Method uses core carbohydrate to build variations of ubiquitous but enigmatic biomolecules Scientists have demonstrated a new method for synthesizing glycans, a class of crucial but elusive carbohydrates. The technique opens the way to a comprehensive study of glycans, one of four key macromolecule groups in biology — along with proteins, nucleic acids and lipids — and the least studied of them. The results could also lead to a better understanding of the outer shells of viruses. Glycans are made of sugar molecules, which can form simple chains or more elaborate, branching arrangements. They are ubiquitous in the living world....

Why is it that the origins of many serious diseases remain a mystery? In considering that question, a scientist at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine has come up with a unified molecular view of the indivisible unit of life, the cell, which may provide an answer. Reviewing findings from multiple disciplines, Jamey Marth, Ph.D., UC San Diego Professor of Cellular and Molecular Medicine and Investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, realized that only 68 molecular building blocks are used to construct these four fundamental components of cells: the nucleic acids (DNA and RNA), proteins, glycans...