Publications by authors named "Aswathy Sebastian"

Malaria parasites must respond quickly to environmental changes, including during their transmission between mammalian and mosquito hosts. Therefore, female gametocytes proactively produce and translationally repress mRNAs that encode essential proteins that the zygote requires to establish a new infection. While the release of translational repression of individual mRNAs has been documented, the details of the global release of translational repression have not.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Twister ribozymes are an extensively studied class of nucleolytic RNAs. Thousands of natural twisters have been proposed using sequence homology and structural descriptors. Yet, most of these candidates have not been validated experimentally.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • CCR4-NOT is a complex involved in various stages of gene regulation like transcription, mRNA decay, and protein ubiquitylation, with extensive research in yeast but limited knowledge in mammals.
  • A study using an auxin-induced degron system showed that depleting key components CNOT1 and CNOT4 in human cells led to significant changes in mRNA stability and synthesis; CNOT1 depletion increased mRNA levels while CNOT4 depletion accelerated mRNA decay.
  • The results indicated that CCR4-NOT maintains the expression of certain transcriptional repressors (KZNFs), which in turn suppress retrotransposable elements (rTEs), establishing the complex as a crucial regulator of gene expression in mammals.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Adolescent sensitivity to alcohol is influenced by genetic background. Data from our laboratory suggested that adolescent C57BL/6J and DBA/2J inbred mice differed in susceptibility to alcohol-induced deficits in dorsal hippocampus-dependent contextual fear learning.

Methods: To investigate the biological underpinnings of this strain difference, we examined dorsal hippocampus gene expression using RNA-sequencing after alcohol or saline administration followed by Pavlovian fear conditioning across male and female C57BL/6J and DBA/2J adolescents.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Congenital lung malformations are fatal at birth in their severe forms. Prevention and early intervention of these birth defects require a comprehensive understanding of the molecular mechanisms of lung development. We find that the loss of inturned (Intu), a cilia and planar polarity effector gene, severely disrupts growth and branching morphogenesis of the mouse embryonic lungs.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Twister ribozymes are an extensively studied class of nucleolytic RNAs. Thousands of natural twisters have been proposed using sequence homology and structural descriptors. Yet, most of these candidates have not been validated experimentally.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • - The study focuses on how malaria parasites prepare for transmission by females producing and controlling mRNAs necessary for zygote infection, particularly using specific protein complexes to repress translation.
  • - Researchers conducted transcriptomics and proteomics to analyze the release of translational repression in parasites during the host-to-vector transmission, discovering nearly 200 transcripts that are activated post-fertilization, while some remain repressed.
  • - The findings highlight the spatial and compositional changes in the translational repressive complex (DOZI/CITH/ALBA) during transmission, showing that mRNA protein interactions shift from close proximity during repression to dissociation upon activation in zygotes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The circadian system influences many different biological processes, including memory performance. While the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) functions as the brain's central pacemaker, downstream "satellite clocks" may also regulate local functions based on the time of day. Within the dorsal hippocampus (DH), for example, local molecular oscillations may contribute to time-of-day effects on memory.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Malaria causes >600 thousand fatalities each year, with most cases attributed to the human-infectious Plasmodium falciparum species. Many rodent-infectious Plasmodium species, like Plasmodium berghei and Plasmodium yoelii, have been used as model species that can expedite studies of this pathogen. P.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

RNA-binding motif 8A (RBM8A) is a core component of the exon junction complex (EJC) that binds pre-mRNAs and regulates their splicing, transport, translation, and nonsense-mediated decay (NMD). Dysfunction in the core proteins has been linked to several detriments in brain development and neuropsychiatric diseases. To understand the functional role of in brain development, we have generated brain-specific knockout mice and used next-generation RNA-sequencing to identify differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in mice with heterozygous, conditional knockout (cKO) of in the brain at postnatal day 17 (P17) and at embryonic day 12.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Malaria causes over 200 million infections and over 600 thousand fatalities each year, with most cases attributed to a human-infectious species, . Many rodent-infectious species, like , and , have been used as genetically tractable model species that can expedite studies of this pathogen. In particular, is an especially good model for investigating the mosquito and liver stages of parasite development because key attributes closely resemble those of .

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Macrophages play a pivotal role in mediating inflammation and subsequent resolution of inflammation. The availability of selenium as a micronutrient and the subsequent biosynthesis of selenoproteins, containing the 21 amino acid selenocysteine (Sec), are important for the physiological functions of macrophages. Selenoproteins regulate the redox tone in macrophages during inflammation, the early onset of which involves oxidative burst of reactive oxygen and nitrogen species.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Vitamin A (VA) deficiency and diarrheal diseases are both serious public health issues worldwide. VA deficiency is associated with impaired intestinal barrier function and increased risk of mucosal infection-related mortality. The bioactive form of VA, retinoic acid, is a well-known regulator of mucosal integrity.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Strain MS-P2 was isolated from microbial mats associated with Mushroom Spring, an alkaline siliceous hot spring in Yellowstone National Park, WY, USA. The isolate grows chemoheterotrophically by oxygen-dependent respiration, and light stimulates photoheterotrophic growth under strictly oxic conditions. Strain MS-P2 synthesizes bacteriochlorophyll and the carotenoid spirilloxanthin.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Ovarian cancer is the most lethal gynecological malignancy in women. Metformin intake is associated with a reduced incidence of ovarian cancer and increased overall survival rate. We determined the effect of metformin on sphere formation, extracellular matrix invasion, and transcriptome profile of ovarian cancer cells (COVCAR) isolated from ascites of chickens that naturally developed ovarian cancer.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Productive transmission of malaria parasites hinges upon the execution of key transcriptional and posttranscriptional regulatory events. While much is now known about how specific transcription factors activate or repress sexual commitment programs, far less is known about the production of a preferred mRNA homeostasis following commitment and through the host-to-vector transmission event. Here, we show that in Plasmodium parasites, the NOT1 scaffold protein of the CAF1/CCR4/Not complex is duplicated, and one paralogue is dedicated for essential transmission functions.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Microbial communities are crucial to the effectiveness and stability of bioremediation systems treating acid mine drainage (AMD); however, little research has addressed how they correlate to system performance under changing environmental conditions. In this study, 16S rRNA gene sequencing and quantitative PCR (qPCR) were used to characterize microbial communities within different substrate combinations of crab shell (CS) and spent mushroom compost (SMC) and their association with chemical performance in pilot-scale vertical flow ponds (VFPs) treating high risk AMD in central Pennsylvania over 643 days of operation. As compared to a control containing SMC, VFPs containing CS sustained higher alkalinity, higher sulfate-reducing rates, and more thorough metals removal (>90% for Fe and Al, >50% for Mn and Zn).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Vitamin A (VA) deficiency remains prevalent in resource limited areas. Using Citrobacter rodentium infection in mice as a model for diarrheal diseases, previous reports showed reduced pathogen clearance and survival due to vitamin A deficient (VAD) status. To characterize the impact of preexisting VA deficiency on gene expression patterns in the intestines, and to discover novel target genes in VA-related biological pathways, VA deficiency in mice were induced by diet.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

is the first and until now the sole genus in the phylum (formerly ) whose members perform chlorophyll-dependent phototrophy (i.e., chlorophototrophy).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Opioid-related deaths have rapidly increased in the U.S., driven by both genetic and environmental factors, particularly stress during adolescence, which may heighten the risk of future drug abuse.
  • A study involving male and female mice examined the effects of chronic social stress during adolescence on morphine behavior in adulthood, revealing that stress impacted male C57BL/6J mice but not BALB/cJ mice or female C57BL/6J mice.
  • Results indicated that C57BL/6J mice showed lower sensitivity to morphine after stress exposure and altered physiological responses, suggesting a complex gene-environment interaction that affects opioid use behaviors; however, further research is needed to explore different morphine doses and behavioral
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

We report the complete 4,352,172-bp genome sequence of strain 51145 assembled into a single circular chromosome. Comparative genomic analyses with other lineages of the complex can provide insights into the biology, evolution, and epidemiology of this important group of pathogenic mycobacteria.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

A novel thermophilic phototrophic purple sulphur bacterium was isolated from microbial mats (56 °C) at Nakabusa hot springs, Nagano prefecture, Japan. Cells were motile, rod-shaped, stain Gram-negative and stored sulphur globules intracellularly. Bacteriochlorophyll and carotenoids of the normal spirilloxanthin series were the major pigments.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

is an intracellular bacterium that blocks virus replication in insects and has been introduced into the mosquito, for the biocontrol of arboviruses including dengue, Zika, and chikungunya. Despite ongoing research, the mechanism of mediated virus blocking remains unclear. We recently used experimental evolution to reveal that mediated dengue blocking could be selected upon in the host and showed evidence that strong levels of blocking could be maintained by natural selection.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF