Publications by authors named "Shiqun Zhao"

Background: The binding of endothelin-1 (ET-1) to endothelin type A receptor (ETAR) performs a critical action in pulmonary arterial smooth muscle cell (PASMC) proliferation leading to pulmonary vascular structural remodeling. More evidence showed that cystathionine γ-lyase (CSE)-catalyzed endogenous hydrogen sulfide (HS) was involved in the pathogenesis of cardiovascular diseases. In this study, we aimed to explore the effect of endogenous HS/CSE pathway on the ET-1/ETAR binding and its underlying mechanisms in the cellular and animal models of PASMC proliferation.

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Article Synopsis
  • The text discusses a new method called SN2N that enhances live-cell super-resolution microscopy by using deep learning to denoise images.
  • SN2N operates with self-supervised data generation, requiring only one noisy image for training, which eliminates the need for large datasets of clean images.
  • This innovative approach significantly boosts photon efficiency and works well with various imaging techniques, potentially leading to advancements in live-cell imaging quality.
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Super-resolution microscopy has promoted the development of cell biology, but imaging proteins with low copy numbers in cellular structures remains challenging. The limited number of designated proteins within nuclear pore complexes (NPCs) impedes continuous observation in live cells, although they are often used as a standard for evaluating various SR methods. To address this issue, we tagged POM121 with Halo-SiR and imaged it using structured illumination microscopy with sparse deconvolution (Sparse-SIM).

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In fluorescence microscopy, computational algorithms have been developed to suppress noise, enhance contrast, and even enable super-resolution (SR). However, the local quality of the images may vary on multiple scales, and these differences can lead to misconceptions. Current mapping methods fail to finely estimate the local quality, challenging to associate the SR scale content.

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Hypomyelination leukodystrophies constitute a group of heritable white matter disorders exhibiting defective myelin development. Initially identified as a lysosomal protein, the TMEM106B D252N mutant has recently been associated with hypomyelination. However, how lysosomal TMEM106B facilitates myelination and how the D252N mutation disrupts that process are poorly understood.

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A main determinant of the spatial resolution of live-cell super-resolution (SR) microscopes is the maximum photon flux that can be collected. To further increase the effective resolution for a given photon flux, we take advantage of a priori knowledge about the sparsity and continuity of biological structures to develop a deconvolution algorithm that increases the resolution of SR microscopes nearly twofold. Our method, sparse structured illumination microscopy (Sparse-SIM), achieves ~60-nm resolution at a frame rate of up to 564 Hz, allowing it to resolve intricate structures, including small vesicular fusion pores, ring-shaped nuclear pores formed by nucleoporins and relative movements of inner and outer mitochondrial membranes in live cells.

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Under stress, the endomembrane system undergoes reorganization to support autophagosome biogenesis, which is a central step in autophagy. How the endomembrane system remodels has been poorly understood. Here we identify a new type of membrane contact formed between the ER-Golgi intermediate compartment (ERGIC) and the ER-exit site (ERES) in the ER-Golgi system, which is essential for promoting autophagosome biogenesis induced by different stress stimuli.

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Among the hypomyelinating leukodystrophies, Pelizaeus-Merzbacher disease (PMD) is a representative disorder. The disease is caused by different types of PLP1 mutations, among which PLP1 duplication accounts for ∼70% of the mutations. Previous studies have shown that PLP1 duplications lead to PLP1 retention in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER); in parallel, recent studies have demonstrated that PLP1 duplication can also lead to mitochondrial dysfunction.

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Despite the wide application of super-resolution (SR) microscopy in biological studies of cells, the technology is rarely used to monitor functional changes in live cells. By combining fast spinning disc-confocal structured illumination microscopy (SD-SIM) with loading of cytosolic fluorescent Ca indicators, we have developed an SR method for visualization of regional Ca dynamics and related cellular organelle morphology and dynamics, termed SR calcium lantern imaging. In COS-7 cells stimulated with ATP, we have identified various calcium macrodomains characterized by different types of Ca+ release from endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stores.

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Insulin secretion by pancreatic islet β-cells is regulated by glucose levels and is accompanied by proton generation. The voltage-gated proton channel Hv1 is present in pancreatic β-cells and extremely selective for protons. However, whether Hv1 is involved in insulin secretion is unclear.

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Many receptor-mediated endocytic processes are mediated by constitutive budding of clathrin-coated pits (CCPs) at spatially randomized sites before slowly pinching off from the plasma membrane (60-100 s). In contrast, clathrin-mediated endocytosis (CME) coupled with regulated exocytosis in excitable cells occurs at peri-exocytic sites shortly after vesicle fusion (∼10 s). The molecular mechanism underlying this spatiotemporal coupling remains elusive.

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