ARDD 2020: from aging mechanisms to interventions.

Aging is emerging as a druggable target with growing interest from academia, industry and investors. New technologies such as artificial intelligence and advanced screening techniques, as well as a strong influence from the industry sector may lead to novel discoveries to treat age-related diseases. The present review summarizes presentations from the 7 Annual Aging Research and Drug Discovery (ARDD) meeting, held online on the 1 to 4 of September 2020.

TMEM163 Regulates ATP-Gated P2X Receptor and Behavior.

Fast purinergic signaling is mediated by ATP and ATP-gated ionotropic P2X receptors (P2XRs), and it is implicated in pain-related behaviors. The properties exhibited by P2XRs vary between those expressed in heterologous cells and in vivo. Several modulators of ligand-gated ion channels have recently been identified, suggesting that there are P2XR functional modulators in vivo.

Expression and Characterization of Human Fragile X Mental Retardation Protein Isoforms and Interacting Proteins in Human Cells.

Fragile X mental retardation protein is an mRNA-binding protein associated with phenotypic manifestations of fragile X syndrome, an X-linked disorder caused by mutation in the gene that is the most common inherited cause of intellectual disability. Despite the well-studied genetic mechanism of the disease, the proteoforms of fragile X mental retardation protein have not been thoroughly characterized. Here, we report the expression and mass spectrometric characterization of human fragile X mental retardation protein.

Elevation of TP53 Autoantibody Before CA125 in Preclinical Invasive Epithelial Ovarian Cancer.

The tumor-suppressor gene is mutated in >95% of high-grade serous ovarian cancers. Detecting an autologous antibody response to TP53 that might improve early detection. An immunoassay was developed to measure TP53 autoantibody in sera from 378 cases of invasive epithelial ovarian cancer and 944 age-matched healthy controls from the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom.

Using protein microarray technology to screen anti-ERCC1 monoclonal antibodies for specificity and applications in pathology.

Background: An antibody with cross-reactivity can create unexpected side effects or false diagnostic reports if used for clinical purposes. ERCC1 is being explored as a predictive diagnostic biomarker for cisplatin-based chemotherapy. High ERCC1 expression is linked to drug resistance on cisplatin-based chemotherapy.

Tpl2/AP-1 enhances murine gammaherpesvirus 68 lytic replication.

How cellular factors regulate gammaherpesvirus lytic replication is not well understood. Here, through functional screening of a cellular kinase expression library, we identified mitogen-activated protein kinase kinase kinase 8 (MAP3K8/Tpl2) as a positive regulator of murine gammaherpesvirus 68 (MHV-68 or gammaHV-68) lytic gene expression and replication. Tpl2 enhances MHV-68 lytic replication by upregulating lytic gene expression and promoter activities of viral lytic genes, including RTA and open reading frame 57 (ORF57).

Application of active and kinase-deficient kinome collection for identification of kinases regulating hedgehog signaling.

To allow genome-scale identification of genes that regulate cellular signaling, we cloned >90% of all human full-length protein kinase cDNAs and constructed the corresponding kinase activity-deficient mutants. To establish the utility of this resource, we tested the effect of expression of the kinases on three different cellular signaling models. In all screens, many kinases had a modest but significant effect, apparently due to crosstalk between signaling pathways.

A pathway sensor for genome-wide screens of intracellular proteolytic cleavage.

Protein cleavage is a central event in many regulated biological processes. We describe a system for detecting intracellular proteolysis based on non-conventional secretion of Gaussia luciferase (GLUC). GLUC exits the cell without benefit of a secretory leader peptide, but can be anchored in the cell by fusion to beta-actin.

Glial-derived nexin, a differentially expressed gene during neuronal differentiation, transforms HEK cells into neuron-like cells.

Glial-derived nexin (GDN) is a proteinase inhibitor secreted from glial cells and it can enhance neuronal function. However, its expression and function in neuronal differentiation are not, as yet, well-known. In the present study, we analyzed glial-derived nexin gene expression in dissociated neural stem/progenitor cells (NS/PCs) (D0) from the embryonic mouse cerebral cortex, expanded NS/PC cultures (D4 and D10 cultures) and cultured neurons (E15) using a semi-quantitative RT-PCR assay.

AF1q, a differentially expressed gene during neuronal differentiation, transforms HEK cells into neuron-like cells.

Three cell groups, neural stem/progenitor cells (NS/PCs) dissociated from the embryonic day 11 (E11) rodent cerebral cortex, expanded NS/PC cultures, and cultured neurons from E15, were used to conduct a genomic study with differential display (DD). The mouse Af1q, homologue of human AF1q, was found to be significantly up-regulated during the neuronal production from NS/PCs. The ectopic expression of human AF1q triggered the expression of the neuronal marker TuJ1 in non-neuronal human embryonic kidney (HEK) cells.