Adaptive changes in striatal projection neurons explain the long duration response and the emergence of dyskinesias in patients with Parkinson's disease.

Neuronal activity in the brain is tightly regulated. During operation in real time, for instance, feedback and feedforward loops limit excessive excitation. In addition, cell autonomous processes ensure that neurons' average activity is restored to a setpoint in response to chronic perturbations.

PIP determines length and stability of primary cilia by balancing membrane turnovers.

Primary cilia are sensory organelles on many postmitotic cells. The ciliary membrane is continuous with the plasma membrane but differs in its phospholipid composition with phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisposphate (PIP) being much reduced toward the ciliary tip. In order to determine the functional significance of this difference, we used chemically induced protein dimerization to rapidly synthesize or degrade PIP selectively in the ciliary membrane.

Integrin-Linked-Kinase Overexpression Is Implicated in Mechanisms of Genomic Instability in Human Colorectal Cancer.

Background: Genomic instability is a hallmark of cancer cells contributing to tumor development and progression. Integrin-linked kinase (ILK) is a focal adhesion protein with well-established role in carcinogenesis. We have previously shown that ILK overexpression is critically implicated in human colorectal cancer (CRC) progression.