Stomata are microscopic pores on the surface of land plants used for gas and water vapor exchange. A pair of highly specialized guard cells surround the pore and adjust pore size. Studies in Arabidopsis have revealed that cell-cell communication is essential to coordinate the asymmetric cell divisions required for proper stomatal patterning. Initial research in this area identified signaling molecules that negatively regulate stomatal differentiation. However, genes promoting cell-fate transition leading to mature guard cells remained elusive. Now, three closely related basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) proteins, SPEECHLESS, MUTE and FAMA have been identified as positive regulators that direct three consecutive cell-fate decisions during stomatal development. The identification of these genes opens a new direction to investigate the evolution of stomatal development and the conserved functions of bHLH proteins in cell type differentiation adopted by plants and animals.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/bies.20625 | DOI Listing |
Biol Direct
January 2025
Department of General Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University, 277 West Yanta Road, Xi'an, Shaanxi, 710061, China.
Pancreatic cancer is a lethal disease with an insidious onset, and little is known about its early molecular events. Here, we found that the sterol regulatory element-binding protein 1 (SREBP1) expression is gradually upregulated during the initiation of pancreatic cancer. Through in vitro 3D culture of pancreatic acinar cells and experiments in LSL-Kras;Pdx1-Cre (KC) mice, we found that pharmacological inhibition of SREBP1 suppressed pancreatic tumorigenesis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMol Neurodegener
January 2025
College of Life Sciences and Oceanography, Brain Disease and Big Data Research Institute, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, 518060, Guangdong, China.
Background: Astrocytes, the most abundant glial cell type in the brain, will convert into the reactive state in response to proteotoxic stress such as tau accumulation, a characteristic feature of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and other tauopathies. The formation of reactive astrocytes is partially attributed to the disruption of autophagy lysosomal signaling, and inhibiting of some histone deacetylases (HDACs) has been demonstrated to reduce the molecular and functional characteristics of reactive astrocytes. However, the precise role of autophagy lysosomal signaling in astrocytes that regulates tau pathology remains unclear.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBMC Genom Data
January 2025
Institute of Biotechnology and Food Science, Hebei Academy of Agriculture and Forestry Sciences/Hebei Key Laboratory of Plant Genetic Engineering, Shijiazhuang, 050000, China.
Background: Wheat seeds display different colors due to the types and contents of anthocyanins, which is closely related to anthocyanin metabolism. In this study, a transcriptomic and metabolomic analysis between white and purple color wheat pericarp aimed to explore some key genes and metabolites involved in anthocyanin metabolism.
Results: Two wheat cultivars, a white seed cultivar Shiluan02-1 and purple seed cultivar Hengzi151 were used to identify the variations in differentially expressed genes (DEGs) and differentially accumulated flavonoids (DAFs).
Cell Res
January 2025
State Key Laboratory of Crop Gene Exploration and Utilization in Southwest China, Sichuan Agricultural University, Chengdu, Sichuan, China.
Hydrogen peroxide (HO) is a ubiquitous signal regulating many biological processes, including innate immunity, in all eukaryotes. However, it remains largely unknown that how transcription factors directly sense HO in eukaryotes. Here, we report that rice basic/helix-loop-helix transcription factor bHLH25 directly senses HO to confer resistance to multiple diseases caused by fungi or bacteria.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNat Commun
January 2025
Jiangsu Provincial Key Laboratory of Geriatrics, Department of Geriatrics, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China.
Immune functions decline with aging, leading to increased susceptibility to various diseases including tumors. Exploring aging-related molecular targets in elderly patients with cancer is thus highly sought after. Here we find that an ER transmembrane enzyme, sterol O-acyltransferase 2 (SOAT2), is overexpressed in regulatory T (Treg) cells from elderly patients with lung squamous cell carcinoma (LSCC), while radiomics analysis of LSCC patients associates increased SOAT2 expression with reduced immune infiltration and poor prognosis.
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