Developmental and Injury-induced Changes in DNA Methylation in Regenerative versus Non-regenerative Regions of the Vertebrate Central Nervous System.

Background: Because some of its CNS neurons (e.g., retinal ganglion cells after optic nerve crush (ONC)) regenerate axons throughout life, whereas others (e.

Comparative gene expression profiling between optic nerve and spinal cord injury in Xenopus laevis reveals a core set of genes inherent in successful regeneration of vertebrate central nervous system axons.

Background: The South African claw-toed frog, Xenopus laevis, is uniquely suited for studying differences between regenerative and non-regenerative responses to CNS injury within the same organism, because some CNS neurons (e.g., retinal ganglion cells after optic nerve crush (ONC)) regenerate axons throughout life, whereas others (e.

A novel role for the nuclear localization signal in regulating hnRNP K protein stability in vivo.

hnRNP K is a highly conserved nucleocytoplasmic shuttling protein, which associates with RNAs through synergistic binding via its three KH domains. hnRNP K is required for proper nuclear export and translational control of its mRNA targets, and these processes are controlled by hnRNP K's movement between subcellular compartments. Whereas the nuclear export and localization of hnRNP K that is associated with mRNP complexes has been well studied, the trafficking of hnRNP K that is unbound to mRNA has yet to be elucidated.

Phosphorylation of heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein K at an extracellular signal-regulated kinase phosphorylation site promotes neurofilament-medium protein expression and axon outgrowth in Xenopus.

Post-transcriptional control of cytoskeletal genes fine-tunes the supply of structural materials to growing axons in response to extracellular cues. In Xenopus, heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein K (hnRNPK) plays a crucial role in the nuclear export and translation of multiple cytoskeletal-related mRNAs required for axon outgrowth, and as a substrate of multiple kinases, is thus a likely molecular target of cell signaling pathways regulating such outgrowth. To study the role of hnRNPK's phosphorylation by extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) in Xenopus axon outgrowth, we identified the only ERK1 phosphorylation site on Xenopus hnRNPK (S257; homologous with S284 of human hnRNPK) using an in vitro phosphorylation assay and tested its function in vivo by expressing phosphomimetic (S257D) and phosphodeficient (S257A) forms of hnRNPK in Xenopus embryos.

New York State TrueAllele ® casework validation study.

DNA evidence can pose interpretation challenges, particularly with low-level or mixed samples. It would be desirable to make full use of the quantitative data, consider every genotype possibility, and objectively produce accurate and reproducible DNA match results. Probabilistic genotype computing is designed to achieve these goals.

Validating TrueAllele® DNA mixture interpretation.

DNA mixtures with two or more contributors are a prevalent form of biological evidence. Mixture interpretation is complicated by the possibility of different genotype combinations that can explain the short tandem repeat (STR) data. Current human review simplifies this interpretation by applying thresholds to qualitatively treat STR data peaks as all-or-none events and assigning allele pairs equal likelihood.