Publications by authors named "E D McParland"
Article Synopsis
- Cells must change shape and move during development without disrupting tissue structure, requiring strong connections between adherens junctions and the actomyosin cytoskeleton.
- Drosophila Canoe and mammalian Afadin are critical for this process, and understanding how Ras-family GTPases influence their function is a major focus of research.
- Through experiments, researchers found that although both RA1 and RA2 domains bind to active Rap1 with similar strengths, they have different roles in Canoe function, with RA1 being essential while RA2 contributes to junction stability in certain developmental stages.
Chewing kinematics are well-documented in several mammal species with fused mandibular symphyses, but relatively understudied in mammals with an unfused symphysis, despite the fact that more than half of extant Mammalia have an unfused mandibular symphysis. The Wistar brown rat () is widely used in human health research, including studies of mastication or neurological studies where mastication is the output behavior. These animals are known to have unfused mandibular symphyses and proal jaw (rostrocaudal) motion during occlusion, but the lack of high resolution, 3-dimensional analysis of rat chewing leaves the functional significance of symphyseal mobility unknown.
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- The study focuses on the protein Canoe and its role in maintaining strong connections between adherens junctions and the actomyosin cytoskeleton, which is essential for cell shape changes during morphogenesis without damaging tissues.
- It investigates the functionality of Canoe's largest domain, the Dilute domain, using various scientific methods, including structural predictions and mutant analysis.
- Findings indicate that while mutants lacking the Dilute domain (CnoΔDIL) can survive and reproduce, they still show defects in eye development, demonstrating the critical role of junction-cytoskeletal connections in cellular movements and the evolutionary preservation of protein structures.
Article Synopsis
- The study investigates how the protein Canoe (and its mammalian counterpart Afadin) links cell-cell adherens junctions to the actomyosin cytoskeleton, enabling cells to change shape during development without damaging tissues.
- The researchers examined the structure and function of the Dilute domain in Canoe, discovering that while deletion of this domain still allows for viable and fertile mutants, it leads to reduced functionality and issues in specific developmental processes like eye development.
- The findings highlight the importance of robust connections between adherens junctions and the cytoskeleton in morphogenesis, emphasizing the role of natural selection in maintaining protein structure within these resilient systems.
The organic sulfur compounds dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP) and dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) play major roles in the marine microbial food web and have substantial climatic importance as sources and sinks of dimethyl sulfide (DMS). Seasonal shifts in the abundance and diversity of the phytoplankton and bacteria that cycle DMSP are likely to impact marine DMS (O) (P) concentrations, but the dynamic nature of these microbial interactions is still poorly resolved. Here, we examined the relationships between microbial community dynamics with DMS (O) (P) concentrations during a 2-year oceanographic time series conducted on the east Australian coast.
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