Recently acquired memories are reactivated in the hippocampus during sleep, an initial step for their consolidation. This process is concomitant with the hippocampal reactivation of previous memories, posing the problem of how to prevent interference between older and recent, initially labile, memory traces. Theoretical work has suggested that consolidating multiple memories while minimizing interference can be achieved by randomly interleaving their reactivation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe prognostication of individual disease trajectory and selection of optimal therapy in patients with localized, low-grade prostate cancer often presents significant difficulty. The phosphatase and tensin homolog on chromosome 10 (PTEN) has emerged as a potential novel biomarker in this clinical context, based on its demonstrated prognostic significance in multiple retrospective studies. Incorporation into standard clinical practice necessitates exceptional diagnostic accuracy, and PTEN's binary readout-retention or loss-suggests its suitability as a biomarker.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground And Aims: Brain metastases are prevalent in the late stages of malignant melanoma. Multimodal therapy remains challenging. Patient-derived organoids (PDOs) represent a valuable pre-clinical model, faithfully recapitulating key aspects of the original tumor, including the heterogeneity and the mutational status.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: This study seeks to contribute real-world data on the prevalence of BRCA1/2 and HRR gene mutations in prostate cancer.
Methods: We compiled sequencing data of 197 cases of primary and metastatic prostate cancer, in which HRR mutation analysis was performed upon clinical request within the last 5 years. All cases were analyzed using a targeted NGS BRCAness multigene panel, including 8 HRR genes (ATM, BRCA1, BRCA2, CDK12, CHEK2, FANCA, HDAC2, PALB2).
How CRISPR-Cas systems defend bacteria and archaea against invading genetic elements is well understood, but less is known about their regulation. In the cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803, the expression of one of the three different CRISPR-Cas systems responds to changes in environmental conditions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe neural crest (NC) is an embryonic multipotent and transitory population of cells that appears during late gastrulation/early neurulation in the developing embryos of vertebrate organisms. Often called "the fourth germ layer", the NC is characterised by incredible mobility, which allows the NC cells to migrate throughout the whole embryo, giving rise to an astonishing number of different derivatives in the adult organism, such as craniofacial skeleton, adrenal gland, enteric nervous system and melanocytes. Because of these properties, neurocristopathies (NCPs), which is the term used to classify genetic diseases associated with NC developmental defects, are often syndromic and, taken all together, are the most common type of genetic disease.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTrait-based frameworks are promising tools to understand the functional consequences of community shifts in response to environmental change. The applicability of these tools to soil microbes is limited by a lack of functional trait data and a focus on categorical traits. To address this gap for an important group of soil microorganisms, we identify trade-offs underlying a fungal economics spectrum based on a large trait collection in 28 saprobic fungal isolates, derived from a common grassland soil and grown in culture plates.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn protein-RNA cross-linking mass spectrometry, UV or chemical cross-linking introduces stable bonds between amino acids and nucleic acids in protein-RNA complexes that are then analyzed and detected in mass spectra. This analytical tool delivers valuable information about RNA-protein interactions and RNA docking sites in proteins, both in vitro and in vivo. The identification of cross-linked peptides with oligonucleotides of different length leads to a combinatorial increase in search space.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTo understand and handle the COVID-19 pandemic, digital tools and infrastructures were built in very short timeframes, resulting in stand-alone and non-interoperable solutions. To shape an interoperable, sustainable, and extensible ecosystem to advance biomedical research and healthcare during the pandemic and beyond, a short-term project called "Collaborative Data Exchange and Usage" (CODEX+) was initiated to integrate and connect multiple COVID-19 projects into a common organizational and technical framework. In this paper, we present the conceptual design, provide an overview of the results, and discuss the impact of such a project for the trade-off between innovation and sustainable infrastructures.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe mechanisms by which viruses hijack the genetic machinery of the cells they infect are of current interest. When bacteriophage T4 infects Escherichia coli, it uses three different adenosine diphosphate (ADP)-ribosyltransferases (ARTs) to reprogram the transcriptional and translational apparatus of the host by ADP-ribosylation using nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) as a substrate. NAD has previously been identified as a 5' modification of cellular RNAs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTo implement a specific function, cells recognize multiple physical and chemical cues and exhibit molecular responses at their interfaces - the boundary regions between the cell lipid-based membrane and the surrounding extracellular matrix (ECM). Mimicking the cellular external microenvironment presents a big challenge in nanoarchitectonics due to the complexity of the ECM and lipid membrane fragility. This study reports an approach for the assembly of a lipid bilayer, mimicking the cellular membrane, placed on top of a polyelectrolyte multilayer cushion made of hyaluronic acid and poly-L-lysine - a nanostructured biomaterial, which represents a 3D artificial ECM.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRNA-binding proteins (RBPs) control every RNA metabolic process by multiple protein-RNA and protein-protein interactions. Their roles have largely been analyzed by crude mutations, which abrogate multiple functions at once and likely impact the structural integrity of the large ribonucleoprotein particles (RNPs) these proteins function in. Using UV-induced RNA-protein crosslinking of entire cells, protein complex purification and mass spectrometric analysis, we identified >100 in vivo RNA crosslinks in 16 nuclear mRNP components in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSleep is an essential state that allows for recuperation and survival processes. Disturbing sleep triggers stress responses that promote protective gene expression. Sleep and its deprivation grossly impact gene expression, but little is known about how normal or disturbed sleep control gene expression.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBeach Surface Moisture (BSM) is a key attribute in the coastal investigations of land-atmospheric water and energy fluxes, groundwater resource budgets and coastal beach/dune development. In this study, an attempt has been made for the first time to estimate BSM from terrestrial LiDAR intensity data based on the Support Vector Regression (SVR). A long-range static terrestrial LiDAR (Riegl VZ-2000) was adopted to collect point cloud data of high spatiotemporal resolution on the Ostend-Mariakerke beach, Belgium.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNeuroblastoma is a common extracranial solid tumour of childhood, responsible for 15% of cancer-related deaths in children. Prognoses vary from spontaneous remission to aggressive disease with extensive metastases, where treatment is challenging. Tumours are thought to arise from sympathoadrenal progenitor cells, which derive from an embryonic cell population called neural crest cells that give rise to diverse cell types, such as facial bone and cartilage, pigmented cells, and neurons.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFProtein-DNA interactions are key to the functionality and stability of the genome. Identification and mapping of protein-DNA interaction interfaces and sites is crucial for understanding DNA-dependent processes. Here, we present a workflow that allows mass spectrometric (MS) identification of proteins in direct contact with DNA in reconstituted and native chromatin after cross-linking by ultraviolet (UV) light.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe French society of clinical biology "Biochemical markers of COVID-19" has set up a working group with the primary aim of reviewing, analyzing and monitoring the evolution of biological prescriptions according to the patient's care path and to look for markers of progression and severity of the disease. This study covers all public and private sectors of medical biology located in metropolitan and overseas France and also extends to the French-speaking world. This article presents the testimonies and data obtained for the "Overseas and French-speaking countries" sub-working group made up of 45 volunteer correspondents, located in 20 regions of the world.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWhat started as a cluster of patients with a mysterious respiratory illness in Wuhan, China, in December 2019, was later determined to be coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The pathogen severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), a novel , was subsequently isolated as the causative agent. SARS-CoV-2 is transmitted by respiratory droplets and fomites and presents clinically with fever, fatigue, myalgias, conjunctivitis, anosmia, dysgeusia, sore throat, nasal congestion, cough, dyspnea, nausea, vomiting, and/or diarrhea.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWith the continuing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic coupled with phased reopening, it is critical to identify risk factors associated with susceptibility and severity of disease in a diverse population to help shape government policies, guide clinical decision making, and prioritize future COVID-19 research. In this retrospective case-control study, we used de-identified electronic health records (EHR) from the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) Health System between March 9, 2020 and June 14, 2020 to identify risk factors for COVID-19 susceptibility (severe acute respiratory distress syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) PCR test positive), inpatient admission, and severe outcomes (treatment in an intensive care unit or intubation). Of the 26,602 individuals tested by PCR for SARS-CoV-2, 992 were COVID-19 positive (3.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSoils underpin terrestrial ecosystem functions, but they face numerous anthropogenic pressures. Despite their crucial ecological role, we know little about how soils react to more than two environmental factors at a time. Here, we show experimentally that increasing the number of simultaneous global change factors (up to 10) caused increasing directional changes in soil properties, soil processes, and microbial communities, though there was greater uncertainty in predicting the magnitude of change.
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