Elongator is a tRNA-modifying complex that regulates protein translation. Recently, a moonlighting function of Elongator has been identified in regulating the polarization of the microtubule cytoskeleton during asymmetric cell division. Elongator induces symmetry breaking of the anaphase midzone by selectively stabilizing microtubules on one side of the spindle, contributing to the downstream polarized segregation of cell-fate determinants, and therefore to cell fate determination.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Knee osteoarthritis (OA) represents a leading cause of disability globally. Exercise has been demonstrated to improve pain and function in people with knee OA. However, when in pain, commencement of exercise is difficult, and clinical effects with such interventions are often modest.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSeveral factors can affect drug release from polylactide coglycolide (PLGA)-based formulations, including polymer and drug properties, formulation components, manufacturing processes, and environmental or conditions. To achieve optimal release profiles for specific drug delivery applications, it is crucial to understand the mechanistic processes that determine drug release from PLGA-based formulations. In the current study, we developed a mechanistic model for the drug release of PLGA-based solid implants.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUnlabelled: A growing interest in uses for food, fiber, and medicine, and recent changes in regulations have spurred numerous genomic studies of this once-prohibited plant. Cannabis research uses Next Generation Sequencing technologies for genomics and transcriptomics. While other crops have genome portals enabling access and analysis of numerous genotyping data from diverse accessions, leading to the discovery of alleles for important traits, this is absent for cannabis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe unprecedented research effort associated with the emergence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) included several extensive proteomic studies that identified host proteins that interact with individual viral gene products. However, in most cases, the consequences of those virus-host interactions for virus replication were not experimentally pursued, which is a necessary step in determining whether the interactions represent pro- or anti-viral events. One putative interaction commonly identified in multiple studies was between the host adaptor protein complex 3 (AP-3) subunit B1 (AP3B1) and the SARS-CoV-2 envelope protein (E).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCommander is a multiprotein complex that orchestrates endosomal recycling of integral cargo proteins and is essential for normal development. While the structure of this complex has recently been described, how cargo proteins are selected for Commander-mediated recycling remains unclear. Here we identify the mechanism through which the unstructured carboxy-terminal tail of the cargo adaptor sorting nexin-17 (SNX17) directly binds to the Retriever sub-complex of Commander.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFertilization occurs before the completion of oocyte meiosis in the majority of animal species and sperm contents move long distances within the zygotes of mouse and . If incorporated into the meiotic spindle, paternal chromosomes could be expelled into a polar body resulting in lethal monosomy. Through live imaging of fertilization in , we found that the microtubule disassembling enzymes, katanin and kinesin-13 limit long-range movement of sperm contents and that maternal ataxin-2 maintains paternal DNA and paternal mitochondria as a cohesive unit that moves together.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA general approach to design proteins that bind tightly and specifically to intrinsically disordered regions (IDRs) of proteins and flexible peptides would have wide application in biological research, therapeutics, and diagnosis. However, the lack of defined structures and the high variability in sequence and conformational preferences has complicated such efforts. We sought to develop a method combining biophysical principles with deep learning to readily generate binders for any disordered sequence.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn many animal species, the oocyte meiotic spindle, which is required for chromosome segregation, forms without centrosomes. In some systems, Ran-GEF on chromatin initiates spindle assembly. We found that in oocytes, endogenously-tagged Ran-GEF dissociates from chromatin during spindle assembly but re-associates during meiotic anaphase.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPopulations can adapt to stressful environments through changes in gene expression. However, the fitness effect of gene expression in mediating stress response and adaptation remains largely unexplored. Here, we use an integrative field dataset obtained from 780 plants of ssp (rice) grown in a field experiment under normal or moderate salt stress conditions to examine selection and evolution of gene expression variation under salinity stress conditions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUtilizing a randomized control design, this mixed method study aimed to assess the impact of a personalized music intervention on mood, agitation level, and psychotropic drug use in individuals with moderate to advanced dementia residing in long-term care facilities. The sample comprised of 261 participants, with 148 in the intervention group and 113 in the control group. Data were collected from three sources: quantitative data from the Minimum Data Set and the Cohen-Mansfield Agitation Inventory, observational data of music-listening sessions, and an administrator survey regarding the lead staff person's perceptions of the intervention.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: As the number of genome-wide association study (GWAS) and quantitative trait locus (QTL) mappings in rice continues to grow, so does the already long list of genomic loci associated with important agronomic traits. Typically, loci implicated by GWAS/QTL analysis contain tens to hundreds to thousands of single-nucleotide polmorphisms (SNPs)/genes, not all of which are causal and many of which are in noncoding regions. Unraveling the biological mechanisms that tie the GWAS regions and QTLs to the trait of interest is challenging, especially since it requires collating functional genomics information about the loci from multiple, disparate data sources.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPhosphorylation is the most studied post-translational modification, and has multiple biological functions. In this study, we have reanalyzed publicly available mass spectrometry proteomics data sets enriched for phosphopeptides from Asian rice (). In total we identified 15,565 phosphosites on serine, threonine, and tyrosine residues on rice proteins.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Health Care Poor Underserved
April 2024
Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention identified Prince William County (PWC), Va. as a hotspot with a high disease rate among Latinos. This study uses spatial, survey, and qualitative data to understand attitudes towards vaccine uptake among PWC Latinos.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn many animal species, the oocyte meiotic spindle, which is required for chromosome segregation, forms without centrosomes. In some systems, Ran-GEF on chromatin initiates spindle assembly. We found that in oocytes, endogenously-tagged Ran-GEF dissociates from chromatin during spindle assembly but re-associates during meiotic anaphase.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn all US localities, students provide proof of compliance with vaccination requirements to attend school. Despite benefits, vaccine legislation remains contentious. The human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine is recommended for adolescents and prevents cancer, but its inclusion in school immunization requirements is challenged.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPerfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) is a persistent environmental contaminant that can accumulate in the human body due to its long half-life. This substance has been associated with liver, pancreatic, testicular and breast cancers, liver steatosis and endocrine disruption. PFOA is a member of a large group of substances also known as "forever chemicals" and the vast majority of substances of this group lack toxicological data that would enable their effective risk assessment in terms of human health hazards.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFertilization occurs before completion of oocyte meiosis in the majority of animal species and sperm contents move long distances within zygotes of mouse and . If incorporated into the meiotic spindle, paternal chromosomes could be expelled into a polar body resulting in lethal monosomy. Through live imaging of fertilization in , we found that the microtubule disassembling enzymes, katanin and kinesin-13 limit long range movement of sperm contents and that maternal ataxin-2 maintains paternal DNA and paternal mitochondria as a cohesive unit that moves together.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFChromosome segregation during mitosis and male meiosis is mediated by centrosomal spindles that require the activity of the aurora A kinase, whereas female meiotic spindles of many species are acentrosomal. We addressed the role of the aurora A kinase, AIR-1 , in acentrosomal spindle assembly by generating a strain in which AIR-1 is tagged with both an auxin-induced degron and HALO tag. The meiotic spindle pole marker, MEI-1 , and chromosomes were labeled with GFP and mCH::histone respectively.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Little was known about the population coverage and causes of sight impairment (SI) registration within the Caribbean, or the extent to which register studies offer insights into population eye health.
Methods: We compared causes of SI registration in the Trinidad and Tobago Blind Welfare Association (TTBWA) register with findings from the 2014 National Eye Survey of Trinidad and Tobago (NESTT), and estimated registration coverage. Cross-sectional validation studies of registered clients included interviews, visual function and cause ascertainment in July 2013, and interviews and visual function in July 2016.
Background: Single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) are the most widely used form of molecular genetic variation studies. As reference genomes and resequencing data sets expand exponentially, tools must be in place to call SNPs at a similar pace. The genome analysis toolkit (GATK) is one of the most widely used SNP calling software tools publicly available, but unfortunately, high-performance computing versions of this tool have yet to become widely available and affordable.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBoth because of the shortcomings of existing risk assessment methodologies, as well as newly available tools to predict hazard and risk with machine learning approaches, there has been an emerging emphasis on probabilistic risk assessment. Increasingly sophisticated AI models can be applied to a plethora of exposure and hazard data to obtain not only predictions for particular endpoints but also to estimate the uncertainty of the risk assessment outcome. This provides the basis for a shift from deterministic to more probabilistic approaches but comes at the cost of an increased complexity of the process as it requires more resources and human expertise.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFResearch examining how crowd emotions impact observers usually requires participants to engage in an atypical mental process whereby (static) arrays of individuals are cognitively integrated to represent a crowd. The present work sought to extend our understanding of how crowd emotions may spread to individuals by assessing self-reported emotions, attention and muscle movement in response to emotions of dynamic, virtually modeled crowd stimuli. Self-reported emotions and attention from thirty-six participants were assessed when foreground and background crowd characters exhibited homogeneous (Study 1) or heterogeneous (Study 2) positive, neutral, or negative emotions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSchool nurses improve public health through vaccine promotion and mandate compliance. Despite recommendations and support for comprehensive adolescent HPV vaccination from organizations like the National Association of School Nurses as of 2023 only Virginia, Washington DC, Rhode Island, and Hawaii mandate HPV vaccine in schools. Virginia's mandate allows caregivers to opt out of vaccination.
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