The endocycle is a variant cell cycle consisting of successive DNA synthesis and gap phases that yield highly polyploid cells. Although essential for metazoan development, relatively little is known about its control or physiologic role in mammals. Using lineage-specific cre mice we identified two opposing arms of the E2F program, one driven by canonical transcription activation (E2F1, E2F2 and E2F3) and the other by atypical repression (E2F7 and E2F8), that converge on the regulation of endocycles in vivo. Ablation of canonical activators in the two endocycling tissues of mammals, trophoblast giant cells in the placenta and hepatocytes in the liver, augmented genome ploidy, whereas ablation of atypical repressors diminished ploidy. These two antagonistic arms coordinate the expression of a unique G2/M transcriptional program that is critical for mitosis, karyokinesis and cytokinesis. These results provide in vivo evidence for a direct role of E2F family members in regulating non-traditional cell cycles in mammals.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncb2595 | DOI Listing |
Autophagy
January 2025
Life Sciences Institute, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada.
The multi-step macroautophagy/autophagy process ends with the cargo-laden autophagosome fusing with the lysosome to deliver the materials to be degraded. The metazoan-specific autophagy factor EPG5 plays a crucial role in this step by enforcing fusion specificity and preventing mistargeting. How EPG5 exerts its critical function and how its deficiency leads to diverse phenotypes of the rare multi-system disorder Vici syndrome are not fully understood.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNat Commun
January 2025
State Key Laboratory of Medicinal Chemical Biology and Frontiers Science Center for Cell Responses, College of Life Sciences, Nankai University, Tianjin, 300350, China.
The zinc-activated channel (ZAC) is an atypical mammalian cys-loop receptor (CLR) that is activated by zinc ions and protons, allowing cations to pass through. The molecular mechanism that ligands use to activate ZAC remains elusive. Here, we present three cryo-electron microscopy reconstructions of human ZAC (hZAC) under different conditions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBiomedicines
November 2024
Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, University Hospital Regensburg, Franz-Josef-Strauss-Allee 11, 93053 Regensburg, Germany.
Protein kinase C (PKC) plays an essential role during many biological processes including development from early embryonic stages until the terminal differentiation of specialized cells. This review summarizes the current knowledge about the involvement of PKC in molecular processes during the differentiation of stem/precursor cells into tissue cells with a particular focus on osteogenic, adipogenic, chondrogenic and neuronal differentiation by using a comprehensive approach. Interestingly, studies examining the overall role of PKC, or one of its three isoform groups (classical, novel and atypical PKCs), often showed controversial results.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFront Immunol
January 2025
Blood Group Reference Laboratory, Dalian Blood Center, Dalian, China.
Background: Mutations in the ABO gene, including base insertions, deletions, substitutions, and splicing errors, can result in blood group subgroups associated with the quantity and quality of blood group antigens. Here, we employed third-generation PacBio sequencing to uncover a novel allele arising from an intron splice site mutation, which altered the expected A phenotype to manifest as an Ael phenotype. The study aimed to characterize the molecular mechanism underlying this phenotypic switch.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFbioRxiv
December 2024
Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA.
The constitutive (ligand-independent) signaling of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) is being increasingly appreciated as an integral aspect of their function; however, it can be technically hard to detect for poorly characterized, e.g. orphan, receptors of the cAMP-inhibitory Gi-coupled (GiPCR) family.
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