Publications by authors named "Affaf Aliouat"

Rare multipotent stem cells replenish millions of blood cells per second through a time-consuming process, passing through multiple stages of increasingly lineage-restricted progenitors. Although insults to the blood-forming system highlight the need for more rapid blood replenishment from stem cells, established models of hematopoiesis implicate only one mandatory differentiation pathway for each blood cell lineage. Here, we establish a nonhierarchical relationship between distinct stem cells that replenish all blood cell lineages and stem cells that replenish almost exclusively platelets, a lineage essential for hemostasis and with important roles in both the innate and adaptive immune systems.

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Hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) residing in specialized niches in the bone marrow are responsible for the balanced output of multiple short-lived blood cell lineages in steady-state and in response to different challenges. However, feedback mechanisms by which HSCs, through their niches, sense acute losses of specific blood cell lineages remain to be established. While all HSCs replenish platelets, previous studies have shown that a large fraction of HSCs are molecularly primed for the megakaryocyte-platelet lineage and are rapidly recruited into proliferation upon platelet depletion.

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In addition to its role in translation termination, eRF3A has been implicated in the nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD) pathway through its interaction with UPF1. NMD is a RNA quality control mechanism, which detects and degrades aberrant mRNAs as well as some normal transcripts including those that harbour upstream open reading frames in their 5' leader sequence. In this study, we used RNA-sequencing and ribosome profiling to perform a genome wide analysis of the effect of either eRF3A or UPF1 depletion in human cells.

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The earliest step in the mRNA degradation process is deadenylation, a progressive shortening of the mRNA poly(A) tail by deadenylases. The question of when deadenylation takes place remains open. MYC mRNA is one of the rare examples for which it was proposed a shortening of the poly(A) tail during ongoing translation.

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Synopsis of recent research by authors named "Affaf Aliouat"

  • - Affaf Aliouat's recent research highlights the complex relationships between hematopoietic stem cells and their roles in blood cell differentiation, revealing a nonhierarchical model that allows for alternative pathways in platelet production, which is crucial for hemostasis and immune responses.
  • - Another significant finding shows that perivascular niche cells can detect thrombocytopenia and subsequently activate hematopoietic stem cells in an interleukin-1 (IL-1) dependent manner, illustrating feedback mechanisms between stem cells and their microenvironment in response to blood cell lineage loss.
  • - Additionally, Aliouat's work on the translation termination process has expanded our understanding of RNA quality control pathways, specifically investigating the roles of translation termination factors and their impact on mRNA stability and degradation processes, contributing to the broader field of gene expression regulation.