Synergistic actions of mixed small and large pores for capillary absorption through biporous polymeric materials.

Water absorption in porous media is an important process involved in numerous materials for various applications, such as in the building industry, food processing and bioengineering. Designing new materials with appropriate absorption properties requires an understanding of how absorption behavior depends on both the material's morphology and the properties of the solid matrix, i.e.

Trim24-repressed VL30 retrotransposons regulate gene expression by producing noncoding RNA.

Trim24 (Tif1α) and Trim33 (Tif1γ) interact to form a co-repressor complex that suppresses murine hepatocellular carcinoma. Here we show that Trim24 and Trim33 cooperatively repress retinoic acid receptor-dependent activity of VL30-class endogenous retroviruses (ERVs) in liver. In Trim24-knockout hepatocytes, VL30 derepression leads to accumulation of reverse-transcribed VL30 cDNA in the cytoplasm that correlates with activation of the viral-defense interferon responses mimicking the preneoplastic inflammatory state seen in human liver following exogenous viral infection.

Loss of Trim24 (Tif1alpha) gene function confers oncogenic activity to retinoic acid receptor alpha.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a major cause of death worldwide. Here, we provide evidence that the ligand-dependent nuclear receptor co-regulator Trim24 (also known as Tif1alpha) functions in mice as a liver-specific tumor suppressor. In Trim24-null mice, hepatocytes fail to execute proper cell cycle withdrawal during the neonatal-to-adult transition and continue to cycle in adult livers, becoming prone to a continuum of cellular alterations that progress toward metastatic HCC.

Dynamic and selective interactions of the transcriptional corepressor TIF1 beta with the heterochromatin protein HP1 isotypes during cell differentiation.

Cell differentiation is a multi-step process marked by progressive silencing of gene expression through mechanisms believed to involve heterochromatin. We have previously shown that interaction between the Krüppel associated box-containing zinc finger proteins (KRAB-ZFP) corepressor TIF1beta and the heterochromatin proteins HP1 is essential for progression through differentiation of embryonal carcinoma F9 cells. This analysis clearly demonstrated the link between gene specific repressors, components of heterochromatin and cell differentiation.

Association of the transcriptional corepressor TIF1beta with heterochromatin protein 1 (HP1): an essential role for progression through differentiation.

The transcriptional intermediary factor 1beta (TIF1beta) is a corepressor for KRAB-domain-containing zinc finger proteins and is believed to play essential roles in cell physiology by regulating chromatin organization at specific loci through association with chromatin remodeling and histone-modifying activities and recruitment of heterochromatin protein 1 (HP1) proteins. In this study, we have engineered a modified embryonal carcinoma F9 cell line (TIF1beta(HP1box/-)) expressing a mutated TIF1beta protein (TIF1beta(HP1box)) unable to interact with HP1 proteins. Phenotypic analysis of TIF1beta(HP1box/-) and TIF1beta(+/-) cells shows that TIF1beta-HP1 interaction is not required for differentiation of F9 cells into primitive endoderm-like (PrE) cells on retinoic acid (RA) treatment but is essential for further differentiation into parietal endoderm-like (PE) cells on addition of cAMP and for differentiation into visceral endoderm-like cells on treatment of vesicles with RA.