Publications by authors named "Jessica Rakijas"

Background: Collective cell migration underlies many essential processes, including sculpting organs during embryogenesis, wound healing in the adult, and metastasis of cancer cells. At mid-oogenesis, Drosophila border cells undergo collective migration. Border cells round up into a small group at the pre-migration stage, detach from the epithelium and undergo a dynamic and highly regulated migration at the mid-migration stage, and stop at the oocyte, their final destination, at the post-migration stage.

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Article Synopsis
  • - Multicellular evolution has led to diversification and increased complexity among species, with volvocine algae being an ideal model for studying this process due to their range of forms from unicellular to multicellular.
  • - Research on six volvocine genomes revealed a pattern of gradual gene loss alongside the utilization of specific key genes, indicating that significant evolutionary changes can occur with minimal genetic alterations.
  • - The study suggests that gene loss, rather than just the addition or rearrangement of genes, plays a crucial role in developing new and complex developmental traits through novel protein interactions and gene network dynamics.
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Inactivation of RB is one of the hallmarks of cancer, however gaps remain in our understanding of how RB-loss changes human cells. Here we show that pRB-depletion results in cellular reprogramming, we quantitatively measured how RB-depletion altered the transcriptional, proteomic and metabolic output of non-tumorigenic RPE1 human cells. These profiles identified widespread changes in metabolic and cell stress response factors previously linked to E2F function.

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E2F-mediated transcriptional repression of cell cycle-dependent gene expression is critical for the control of cellular proliferation, survival, and development. E2F signaling also interacts with transcriptional programs that are downstream of genetic predictors for cancer development, including hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Here, we evaluated the function of the atypical repressor genes E2f7 and E2f8 in adult liver physiology.

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