The Sex Differences in Uveal Melanoma: Potential Roles of EIF1AX, Immune Response and Redox Regulation.

Background: Uveal melanoma (UVM) is a rare cancer that shows sex difference in incidence and survival, with little previous report for the underlying mechanism.

Methods: This study used the SEER data (1974-2016) for an age-dependent analysis on sex difference in UVM, and further used the TCGA-UVM genomics dataset for analyzing the differential gene expression profiles in tumors from men and women.

Results: Our results demonstrate a sex difference in older age (≥40 years) but not in younger patients, with men exhibiting a higher incidence rate than women.

Analysis of a vinculin homolog in a sponge (phylum Porifera) reveals that vertebrate-like cell adhesions emerged early in animal evolution.

The evolution of cell-adhesion mechanisms in animals facilitated the assembly of organized multicellular tissues. Studies in traditional animal models have revealed two predominant adhesion structures, the adherens junction (AJ) and focal adhesions (FAs), which are involved in the attachment of neighboring cells to each other and to the secreted extracellular matrix (ECM), respectively. The AJ (containing cadherins and catenins) and FAs (comprising integrins, talin, and paxillin) differ in protein composition, but both junctions contain the actin-binding protein vinculin.

Characterization of the Cadherin-Catenin Complex of the Sea Anemone Nematostella vectensis and Implications for the Evolution of Metazoan Cell-Cell Adhesion.

The cadherin-catenin complex (CCC) mediates cell-cell adhesion in bilaterian animals by linking extracellular cadherin-based adhesions to the actin cytoskeleton. However, it is unknown whether the basic organization of the complex is conserved across all metazoans. We tested whether protein interactions and actin-binding properties of the CCC are conserved in a nonbilaterian animal, the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis We demonstrated that N.

The evolutionary origin of epithelial cell-cell adhesion mechanisms.

A simple epithelium forms a barrier between the outside and the inside of an organism, and is the first organized multicellular tissue found in evolution. We examine the relationship between the evolution of epithelia and specialized cell-cell adhesion proteins comprising the classical cadherin/β-catenin/α-catenin complex (CCC). A review of the divergent functional properties of the CCC in metazoans and non-metazoans, and an updated phylogenetic coverage of the CCC using recent genomic data reveal: (1) The core CCC likely originated before the last common ancestor of unikonts and their closest bikont sister taxa.

Danio rerio αE-catenin is a monomeric F-actin binding protein with distinct properties from Mus musculus αE-catenin.

It is unknown whether homologs of the cadherin·catenin complex have conserved structures and functions across the Metazoa. Mammalian αE-catenin is an allosterically regulated actin-binding protein that binds the cadherin·β-catenin complex as a monomer and whose dimerization potentiates F-actin association. We tested whether these functional properties are conserved in another vertebrate, the zebrafish Danio rerio.