The Tumor Suppressor Is Required for Neural Crest-Dependent Craniofacial Development in Zebrafish.

Neural crest (NC) is a unique vertebrate cell type arising from the border of the neural plate and epidermis that gives rise to diverse tissues along the entire body axis. Roberto Mayor and colleagues have made major contributions to our understanding of NC induction, delamination, and migration. We report that a truncating mutation of the classical tumor suppressor ( disrupts craniofacial development in zebrafish larvae, with a marked reduction in the cranial neural crest (CNC) cells that contribute to mandibular and hyoid pharyngeal arches.

Impaired Redox and Protein Homeostasis as Risk Factors and Therapeutic Targets in Toxin-Induced Biliary Atresia.

Background & Aims: Extrahepatic biliary atresia (BA) is a pediatric liver disease with no approved medical therapy. Recent studies using human samples and experimental modeling suggest that glutathione redox metabolism and heterogeneity play a role in disease pathogenesis. We sought to dissect the mechanistic basis of liver redox variation and explore how other stress responses affect cholangiocyte injury in BA.

TGFβ and Hippo Pathways Cooperate to Enhance Sarcomagenesis and Metastasis through the Hyaluronan-Mediated Motility Receptor (HMMR).

High-grade sarcomas are metastatic and pose a serious threat to patient survival. Undifferentiated pleomorphic sarcoma (UPS) is a particularly dangerous and relatively common sarcoma subtype diagnosed in adults. UPS contains large quantities of extracellular matrix (ECM) including hyaluronic acid (HA), which is linked to metastatic potential.

Synthesis and Structure-Activity Relationship Study of Biliatresone, a Plant Isoflavonoid That Causes Biliary Atresia.

We report the first synthesis of the plant isoflavonoid biliatresone. The convergent synthesis has been applied to the synthesis of several analogs, which have facilitated the first structure-activity relationship study for this environmental toxin that, on ingestion, recapitulates the phenotype of biliary atresia.

Glutathione antioxidant pathway activity and reserve determine toxicity and specificity of the biliary toxin biliatresone in zebrafish.

Unlabelled: Biliatresone is an electrophilic isoflavone isolated from Dysphania species plants that has been causatively linked to naturally occurring outbreaks of a biliary atresia (BA)-like disease in livestock. Biliatresone has selective toxicity for extrahepatic cholangiocytes (EHCs) in zebrafish larvae. To better understand its mechanism of toxicity, we performed transcriptional profiling of liver cells isolated from zebrafish larvae at the earliest stage of biliatresone-mediated biliary injury, with subsequent comparison of biliary and hepatocyte gene expression profiles.