Controversy has long surrounded the question of whether spontaneous lateral demixing of membranes into coexisting liquid phases can organize proteins and lipids on micron scales within unperturbed, living cells. A clear answer hinges on observation of hallmarks of a reversible phase transition. Here, by directly imaging micron-scale membrane domains of yeast vacuoles both in vivo and cell free, we demonstrate that the domains arise through a phase separation mechanism. The domains are large, have smooth boundaries, and can merge quickly, consistent with fluid phases. Moreover, the domains disappear above a distinct miscibility transition temperature (T) and reappear below T, over multiple heating and cooling cycles. Hence, large-scale membrane organization in living cells under physiologically relevant conditions can be controlled by tuning a single thermodynamic parameter.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bpj.2017.09.029 | DOI Listing |
Mol Biol Rep
January 2025
Department of Integrative Biology, School of Bio-Sciences and Technology, Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore, Tamil Nadu, 632014, India.
Telomerase, constituted by the dynamic duo of telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT), the catalytic entity, and an integral RNA component (TERC), is predominantly suppressed in differentiated human cells due to postnatal transcriptional repression of the TERT gene. Dysregulation of telomerase significantly contributes to cancer development via telomere-dependent and independent mechanisms. Telomerase activity is often elevated in advanced cancers, with TERT reactivation and upregulation of TERC observed in early tumorigenesis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCancers (Basel)
January 2025
Department of Medicine and Surgery, LUM University, Casamassima, 70010 Bari, Italy.
Background/objectives: Telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT) is the catalytic subunit of the telomerase enzyme responsible for telomere length maintenance and is an important cancer hallmark. Our study aimed to clarify the mRNA expression of TERT in peritoneal mesothelioma (PeM), and to explore the relationship between its expression and the clinicopathological parameters and prognosis of patients with PeM.
Methods: In a cohort of 13 MpeM patients, we evaluated histotype, nuclear grade, mitotic count, necrosis, inflammation, Ki67, BAP1, MTAP and p16 expression by immunohistochemistry, / status by FISH and TERT mRNA expression by RNAscope.
J Nanobiotechnology
January 2025
Institute for Advanced Research, Cixi Biomedical Research Institute, The First Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, 325000, China.
The acidic tumor microenvironment, a hallmark of many solid tumors, is primarily induced by the high glycolytic rate of tumor cells. To avoid acidosis, tumor cells ingeniously maintain an acidic extracellular pH while keeping a relatively alkaline intracellular pH. Overturning the unique pH gradient of tumor cells has exhibited to be a viable approach for cancer therapy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNeuropharmacology
January 2025
Department of Anatomy & Neuroscience, School of Medicine, University College Cork (UCC), Cork, Ireland; APC Microbiome Ireland, UCC, Cork, Ireland. Electronic address:
Degeneration of midbrain nigrostriatal dopaminergic neurons is a pathological hallmark of Parkinson's disease (PD). Peripheral delivery of a compound(s) to arrest or slow this dopaminergic degeneration is a key therapeutic goal. Pan-inhibitors of histone deacetylase (HDAC) enzymes, key epigenetic regulators, have shown therapeutic promise in PD models.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSci Rep
January 2025
Division of General Surgery, Department of Surgery, Tri-Service General Hospital, National Defense Medical Center, Taipei City, 114, Taiwan, Republic of China.
The ribotoxic stress response is a pathway that gets activated when ribosomes get impaired, leading to disruptions in protein synthesis, increased inflammatory signaling, and cell death if left unresolved. Taraxacum can induce apoptosis-associated ribosomal RNA (rRNA) cleavage, however, the exact working mechanism of Taraxacum-induced rRNA cleavage remains unclear. In this study, we used the RNA integrity (RIN) value and 28S/18S ratio to confirm the integrity of experiments.
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