Integrin signaling downregulates filopodia during muscle-tendon attachment.

Cells need to sense their environment to ensure accurate targeting to specific destinations. This occurs in developing muscles, which need to attach to tendon cells before muscle contractions can begin. Elongating myotube tips form filopodia, which are presumed to have sensory roles, and are later suppressed upon building the attachment site.

High-oleate yeast oil without polyunsaturated fatty acids.

Background: Oleate-enriched triacylglycerides are well-suited for lubricant applications that require high oxidative stability. Fatty acid carbon chain length and degree of desaturation are key determinants of triacylglyceride properties and the ability to manipulate fatty acid composition in living organisms is critical to developing a source of bio-based oil tailored to meet specific application requirements.

Results: We sought to engineer the oleaginous yeast for production of high-oleate triacylglyceride oil.

Engineering of a high lipid producing Yarrowia lipolytica strain.

Background: Microbial lipids are produced by many oleaginous organisms including the well-characterized yeast Yarrowia lipolytica, which can be engineered for increased lipid yield by up-regulation of the lipid biosynthetic pathway and down-regulation or deletion of competing pathways.

Results: We describe a strain engineering strategy centered on diacylglycerol acyltransferase (DGA) gene overexpression that applied combinatorial screening of overexpression and deletion genetic targets to construct a high lipid producing yeast biocatalyst. The resulting strain, NS432, combines overexpression of a heterologous DGA1 enzyme from Rhodosporidium toruloides, a heterlogous DGA2 enzyme from Claviceps purpurea, and deletion of the native TGL3 lipase regulator.

Proliferation and migration of label-retaining cells of the kidney papilla.

The kidney papilla contains a population of cells with several characteristics of adult stem cells, including the retention of proliferation markers during long chase periods (i.e., they are label-retaining cells [LRCs]).