Human blood vessel organoids as a model of diabetic vasculopathy.

The increasing prevalence of diabetes has resulted in a global epidemic. Diabetes is a major cause of blindness, kidney failure, heart attacks, stroke and amputation of lower limbs. These are often caused by changes in blood vessels, such as the expansion of the basement membrane and a loss of vascular cells.

Analysis of PNGase F-Resistant N-Glycopeptides Using SugarQb for Proteome Discoverer 2.1 Reveals Cryptic Substrate Specificities.

SugarQb (www.imba.oeaw.

Comparative glycoproteomics of stem cells identifies new players in ricin toxicity.

Glycosylation, the covalent attachment of carbohydrate structures onto proteins, is the most abundant post-translational modification. Over 50% of human proteins are glycosylated, which alters their activities in diverse fundamental biological processes. Despite the importance of glycosylation in biology, the identification and functional validation of complex glycoproteins has remained largely unexplored.

A vital sugar code for ricin toxicity.

Ricin is one of the most feared bioweapons in the world due to its extreme toxicity and easy access. Since no antidote exists, it is of paramount importance to identify the pathways underlying ricin toxicity. Here, we demonstrate that the Golgi GDP-fucose transporter Slc35c1 and fucosyltransferase Fut9 are key regulators of ricin toxicity.

Embryonic stem cells facilitate the isolation of persistent clonal cardiovascular progenitor cell lines and leukemia inhibitor factor maintains their self-renewal and myocardial differentiation potential in vitro.

Compelling evidence for the existence of somatic stem cells in the heart of different mammalian species has been provided by numerous groups; however, so far it has not been possible to maintain these cells as self-renewing and phenotypically stable clonal cell lines in vitro. Thus, we sought to identify a surrogate stem cell niche for the isolation and persistent maintenance of stable clonal cardiovascular progenitor cell lines, enabling us to study the mechanism of self-renewal and differentiation in these cells. Using postnatal murine hearts with a selectable marker as the stem cell source and embryonic stem cells and leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF)-secreting fibroblasts as a surrogate niche, we succeeded in the isolation of stable clonal cardiovascular progenitor cell lines.

Mechanisms of cardiogenesis in cardiovascular progenitor cells.

Self-renewing cells of the vertebrate heart have become a major subject of interest in the past decade. However, many researchers had a hard time to argue against the orthodox textbook view that defines the heart as a postmitotic organ. Once the scientific community agreed on the existence of self-renewing cells in the vertebrate heart, their origin was again put on trial when transdifferentiation, dedifferentiation, and reprogramming could no longer be excluded as potential sources of self-renewal in the adult organ.

Forward and reverse genetics through derivation of haploid mouse embryonic stem cells.

All somatic mammalian cells carry two copies of chromosomes (diploidy), whereas organisms with a single copy of their genome, such as yeast, provide a basis for recessive genetics. Here we report the generation of haploid mouse ESC lines from parthenogenetic embryos. These cells carry 20 chromosomes, express stem cell markers, and develop into all germ layers in vitro and in vivo.