Medico-Legal Applications of the Human Microbiome and Critical Issues Due to Environmental Transfer: A Review.

Microbiome has recently seen an increase in its forensic applications. It could be employed to identify a suspect when DNA is not available; it can be used to establish postmortem interval (PMI). Furthermore, it could prove to be fundamental in cases of sexual assault.

Prion-like Spreading of Disease in TDP-43 Proteinopathies.

TDP-43 is a ubiquitous nuclear protein that plays a central role in neurodegenerative disorders collectively known as TDP-43 proteinopathies. Under physiological conditions, TDP-43 is primarily localized to the nucleus, but in its pathological form it aggregates in the cytoplasm, contributing to neuronal death. Given its association with numerous diseases, particularly ALS and FTLD, the mechanisms underlying TDP-43 aggregation and its impact on neuronal function have been extensively investigated.

Conserved region of human TDP-43 is structurally similar to membrane binding protein FARP1 and protein chaperons BAG6 and CYP33.

Transactive response DNA-binding protein of 43 KDa (TDP-43) is important for RNA metabolism in all animals and in humans is involved in neuromuscular diseases. Full-length TDP-43 is prone to oligomerization and misfolding what renders difficult its characterization. We report that TDP-43 domains are structurally similar to lipid binding protein FARP1 and protein chaperons BAG6 and CYP33.

Axon guidance genes are regulated by TDP-43 and RGNEF through long-intron removal.

Rho guanine nucleotide exchange factor (RGNEF) is a guanine nucleotide exchange factor (GEF) mainly involved in regulating the activity of Rho-family GTPases. It is a bi-functional protein, acting both as a guanine exchange factor and as an RNA-binding protein. RGNEF is known to act as a destabilizing factor of neurofilament light chain RNA (NEFL) and it could potentially contribute to their sequestration in nuclear cytoplasmic inclusions.