Publications by authors named "Samuel C J Kim"

The battle against tobacco usage is being fought on all fronts. On December 19, 2019, a measure to raise the minimum age to buy tobacco products to 21 from 18 was passed by the United States Congress and signed by President Donald Trump. This instated banning the sale of all tobacco products and electronic cigarettes to anyone in the US under the age of 21.

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The study of the intestinal or gut microbiome is a newer field that is rapidly gaining attention. Bidirectional communication between gut microbes and the host can impact numerous biological systems regulating immunity and metabolism to either promote or negatively impact the host's health. Habitual routines, dietary choices, socioeconomic status, education, host genetics, medical care and environmental factors can all contribute to the composition of an individual's microbiome.

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The linker of the nucleoskeleton and cytoskeleton (LINC) complex is formed by the conserved interactions between Sad-1 and UNC-84 (SUN) and Klarsicht, ANC-1, SYNE homology (KASH) domain proteins, providing a physical coupling between the nucleoskeleton and cytoskeleton that mediates the transfer of physical forces across the nuclear envelope. The LINC complex can perform distinct cellular functions by pairing various KASH domain proteins with the same SUN domain protein. For example, in , SUN protein UNC-84 binds to two KASH proteins UNC-83 and ANC-1 to mediate nuclear migration and anchorage, respectively.

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Article Synopsis
  • Linkers of the nucleoskeleton and cytoskeleton connect the nuclear envelope to the cytoskeleton through SUN and KASH protein families, facilitating the transmission of mechanical signals.
  • Recent structural studies indicate that the SUN protein SUN2 forms a trimer to interact effectively with KASH, but it can exist as an autoinhibited monomer.
  • Computational modeling and molecular dynamics simulations of SUN2 reveal that interactions between specific regions (CC1 and CC2) may trigger the transition from a monomer to a trimer, highlighting the role of a specific residue (E452) in this process, which is linked to muscular dystrophy variants.
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