Publications by authors named "Valbona Hoxha"

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is associated with alcohol abuse and higher ethanol sensitivity later in life. Currently, it is poorly understood how ethanol sensitivity changes with time after TBI and whether there are sex-dependent differences in the relationship between TBI and ethanol sensitivity. This study uses the fruit fly to investigate how TBI affects alcohol sensitivity and whether the effects are sex-specific.

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ERI1 is an evolutionary conserved 3'-5' exonuclease with an important function in multiple RNA processing pathways. Although the molecular mechanisms in which ERI1 is involved have been studied extensively in model organisms, the pathology associated with ERI1 variants in humans has remained elusive because no case has been reported so far. Here, we present a case of a female patient with a homozygous nonsense variant in ERI1 gene.

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Soluble circulating proteins play an important role in the regulation of mating behavior in Drosophila melanogaster. However, how these factors signal through the blood-brain barrier (bbb) to interact with the sex-specific brain circuits that control courtship is unknown. Here we show that male identity of the blood-brain barrier is necessary and that male-specific factors in the bbb are physiologically required for normal male courtship behavior.

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Male courtship behavior in Drosophila melanogaster is controlled by two main regulators, fruitless (fru) and doublesex (dsx). Their sex-specific expression in brain neurons has been characterized in detail, but little is known about the downstream targets of the sex-specific FRU and DSX proteins and how they specify the function of these neurons. While sexual dimorphism in the number and connections of fru and dsx expressing neurons has been observed, a majority of the neurons that express the two regulators are present in both sexes.

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The circadian clock controls many circadian outputs. Although a large number of transcripts are affected by the circadian oscillator, very little is known about their regulation and function. We show here that the Drosophila takeout gene, one of the output genes of the circadian oscillator, is regulated similarly to the circadian clock genes Clock (Clk) and cry.

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