Rapid unleashing of macrophage efferocytic capacity via transcriptional pause release.

During development, inflammation or tissue injury, macrophages may successively engulf and process multiple apoptotic corpses via efferocytosis to achieve tissue homeostasis. How macrophages may rapidly adapt their transcription to achieve continuous corpse uptake is incompletely understood. Transcriptional pause/release is an evolutionarily conserved mechanism, in which RNA polymerase (Pol) II initiates transcription for 20-60 nucleotides, is paused for minutes to hours and is then released to make full-length mRNA.

Self-assembly of DNA parallel double-crossover motifs.

DNA double-crossover motifs, including parallel and antiparallel crossovers, serve as the structural foundation for the creation of diverse nanostructures and dynamic devices in DNA nanotechnology. Parallel crossover motifs have unique advantages over the widely used antiparallel crossover design but have not developed as substantially due to the difficulties in assembly. Here we created 29 designs of parallel double-crossover motifs varying in hybridization pathways, central domain lengths, and crossover locations to investigate their assembly mechanism.

Understanding Multilevel Factors Related to Retention Among the Direct Care Workforce: Incorporating Lessons Learned in Considering Innovative Interventions.

Goal: This article explores how broad, contextual factors may be influential in the retention of direct care workers (DCWs; i.e., entry-level caregivers) who provide vital support to patients in healthcare settings.

Early life high fructose exposure disrupts microglia function and impedes neurodevelopment.

Despite the success of fructose as a low-cost food additive, recent epidemiological evidence suggests that high fructose consumption by pregnant mothers or during adolescence is associated with disrupted neurodevelopment . An essential step in appropriate mammalian neurodevelopment is the synaptic pruning and elimination of newly-formed neurons by microglia, the central nervous system's (CNS) resident professional phagocyte . Whether early life high fructose consumption affects microglia function and if this directly impacts neurodevelopment remains unknown.