Unraveling Links between Chronic Inflammation and Long COVID: Workshop Report.

As COVID-19 continues, an increasing number of patients develop long COVID symptoms varying in severity that last for weeks, months, or longer. Symptoms commonly include lingering loss of smell and taste, hearing loss, extreme fatigue, and "brain fog." Still, persistent cardiovascular and respiratory problems, muscle weakness, and neurologic issues have also been documented.

Metabolic Regulation of Inflammation and Its Resolution: Current Status, Clinical Needs, Challenges, and Opportunities.

Metabolism and inflammation have been viewed as two separate processes with distinct but critical functions for our survival: metabolism regulates the utilization of nutrients, and inflammation is responsible for defense and repair. Both respond to an organism's stressors to restore homeostasis. The interplay between metabolic status and immune response (immunometabolism) plays an important role in maintaining health or promoting disease development.

Imaging inflammation and its resolution in health and disease: current status, clinical needs, challenges, and opportunities.

Inflammation is a normal process in our body; acute inflammation acts to suppress infections and support wound healing. Chronic inflammation likely leads to a wide range of diseases, including cancer. Tools to locate and monitor inflammation are critical for developing effective interventions to arrest inflammation and promote its resolution.

Structural and functional studies of FKHR-PAX3, a reciprocal fusion gene of the t(2;13) chromosomal translocation in alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma.

Alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma (ARMS) is an aggressive pediatric cancer of skeletal muscle. More than 70% of ARMS tumors carry balanced t(2;13) chromosomal translocation that leads to the production of two novel fusion genes, PAX3-FKHR and FKHR-PAX3. While the PAX3-FKHR gene has been intensely studied, the reciprocal FKHR-PAX3 gene has rarely been described.

Post-transcriptional regulation of PDGFα-receptor in O-2A progenitor cells.

latelet-derived growth factor alpha-receptor (PDGFαR) mediated signaling plays a key role in the development of glial cells of the central nervous system. In vivo and in vitro studies show that PDGFαR is actively expressed in proliferative and motile oligodendrocyte type-2 astrocyte (O-2A) glial progenitor cells. However, PDGFαR expression is barely detectable in mature glial cells.

Credentialing a preclinical mouse model of alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma.

The highly aggressive muscle cancer alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma (ARMS) is one of the most common soft tissue sarcoma of childhood, yet the outcome for the unresectable and metastatic disease is dismal and unchanged for nearly three decades. To better understand the pathogenesis of this disease and to facilitate novel preclinical approaches, we previously developed a conditional mouse model of ARMS by faithfully recapitulating the genetic mutations observed in the human disease, i.e.

Comparative analysis of paired- and homeodomain-specific roles in PAX3-FKHR oncogenesis.

The alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma-associated t(2;13) chromosomal translocation produces an oncogenic fusion transcription factor PAX3-FKHR that combines the N-terminal DNA binding domains (paired domain and homeodomain) of PAX3 with the C-terminal activation domain of FKHR. In the context of PAX3-FKHR, the two DNA binding domains can work either cooperatively or autonomously in regulating gene transcription. The latter is a gain-of-function unique to the fusion protein.

PAX3-FKHR transformation increases 26 S proteasome-dependent degradation of p27Kip1, a potential role for elevated Skp2 expression.

PAX3-FKHR is an oncogenic form of the developmental regulator Pax3 transcription factor. PAX3-FKHR results from a t(2,13) chromosomal translocation, a unique genetic marker of alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma. In this study, we showed that ectopic expression of PAX3-FKHR, but not Pax3, in fibroblasts altered cell cycle control and accelerated G(0)/G(1) to S cell cycle transition.