Publications by authors named "Kevin L Lu"

Introduction: Pediatric-type follicular lymphoma (PTFL) is a rare and recently recognized subtype of nodal follicular B-cell lymphoma. While significant recent progress has been made in understanding the morphologic, immunophenotypic, and molecular findings, there are only rare case reports describing the cytomorphologic features of PTFL.

Materials And Methods: Four cases of PTFL initially evaluated on fine needle aspiration (FNA) biopsy were retrieved from our institutions' databases.

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Prostate cancer is the second most common malignancy in men worldwide and consists of a mixture of tumor and non-tumor cell types. To characterize the prostate cancer tumor microenvironment, we perform single-cell RNA-sequencing on prostate biopsies, prostatectomy specimens, and patient-derived organoids from localized prostate cancer patients. We uncover heterogeneous cellular states in prostate epithelial cells marked by high androgen signaling states that are enriched in prostate cancer and identify a population of tumor-associated club cells that may be associated with prostate carcinogenesis.

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rDNA loci, composed of hundreds of tandemly duplicated arrays of rRNA genes, are known to be among the most unstable genetic elements due to their repetitive nature. rDNA instability underlies aging (replicative senescence) in yeast cells, however, its contribution to the aging of multicellular organisms is poorly understood. In this study, we investigate the dynamics of rDNA loci during aging in the male germline stem cell (GSC) lineage, and show that rDNA copy number decreases during aging.

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Two broadly known characteristics of germ cells in many organisms are their development as a 'cyst' of interconnected cells and their high sensitivity to DNA damage. Here we provide evidence that in the testis, connectivity serves as a mechanism that confers to spermatogonia a high sensitivity to DNA damage. We show that all spermatogonia within a cyst die synchronously even when only a subset of them exhibit detectable DNA damage.

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Similar multicellular structures can evolve within the same organism that may have different evolutionary histories, be controlled by different regulatory pathways, and play similar but nonidentical roles. In the human fungal pathogen Candida albicans, a quite extraordinary example of this has occurred. Depending upon the configuration of the mating type locus (a/α versus a/a or α/α), C.

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Like MTL-heterozygous (a/α) cells, white MTL-homozygous (a/a or α/α) cells of Candida albicans, to which a minority of opaque cells of opposite mating type have been added, form thick, robust biofilms. The latter biofilms are uniquely stimulated by the pheromone released by opaque cells and are regulated by the mitogen-activated protein kinase signal transduction pathway. However, white MTL-homozygous cells, to which opaque cells of opposite mating type have not been added, form thinner biofilms.

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Among the hemiascomycetes, only Candida albicans must switch from the white phenotype to the opaque phenotype to mate. In the recent evolution of this transition, mating-incompetent white cells acquired a unique response to mating pheromone, resulting in the formation of a white cell biofilm that facilitates mating. All of the upstream components of the white cell response pathway so far analyzed have been shown to be derived from the ancestral pathway involved in mating, except for the mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinase scaffold protein, which had not been identified.

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