An ultra-conserved poison exon in the Tra2b gene encoding a splicing activator is essential for male fertility and meiotic cell division.

The cellular concentrations of splicing factors (SFs) are critical for controlling alternative splicing. Most serine and arginine-enriched (SR) protein SFs regulate their own concentration via a homeostatic feedback mechanism that involves regulation of inclusion of non-coding 'poison exons' (PEs) that target transcripts for nonsense-mediated decay. The importance of SR protein PE splicing during animal development is largely unknown despite PE ultra-conservation across animal genomes.

Diagnosing and managing androgen deficiency in men.

Androgens play a crucial role in bone, muscle and fat metabolism, erythropoiesis and cognitive health. In men aged 40-79 years the incidence of biochemical deficiency and symptomatic hypogonadism is 2.1-5.

In situ lineage tracking of human prostatic epithelial stem cell fate reveals a common clonal origin for basal and luminal cells.

Stem cells accumulate mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) mutations resulting in an observable respiratory chain defect in their progeny, allowing the mapping of stem cell fate. There is considerable uncertainty in prostate epithelial biology where both basal and luminal stem cells have been described, and in this study the clonal relationships within the human prostate epithelial cell layers were explored by tracing stem cell fate. Fresh-frozen and formalin-fixed histologically-benign prostate samples from 35 patients were studied using sequential cytochrome c oxidase (COX)/succinate dehydrogenase (SDH) enzyme histochemistry and COX subunit I immunofluorescence to identify areas of respiratory chain deficiency; mtDNA mutations were identified by whole mitochondrial genome sequencing of laser-captured areas.

The surgical management of the refractory overactive bladder.

The refractory overactive bladder is a clinically challenging entity to manage and affects millions of people worldwide. Current surgical treatment options include botulinum toxin type A, sacral neuromodulation, and bladder reconstruction surgery all of which require careful attention to the individual patients needs and circumstances. In our paper we present a detailed up-to-date review on all the above mentioned surgical techniques from current literature and briefly describe our units experience with sacral neuromodulation.