Review
Physiology
Peng Tan, Lian He, Yun Huang, Yubin Zhou
Summary: Optogenetics combines light and genetics to precisely control living cells, tissues, and organisms. It has advantages such as noninvasiveness, rapid responsiveness, tunability, and high spatiotemporal resolution. This review summarizes the fundamental photochemical properties of optogenetic tools and highlights applications in cellular physiology. It also discusses the progress and future trends in wireless optogenetics.
PHYSIOLOGICAL REVIEWS
(2022)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Geoff P. O'Donoghue, Lukasz J. Bugaj, Warren Anderson, Kyle G. Daniels, David J. Rawlings, Wendell A. Lim
Summary: T cells are able to pick out antigenic signals and establish self-tolerance from complex temporal patterns of stimulus. By engineering T cells to respond to light as a stimulus, researchers found that T cells can filter out minute-scale oscillations of activation signal. CD69 expression reached a local minimum at a period of around 25 minutes, suggesting a potential frequency filtering mechanism downstream of the Erk signaling branch. This study highlights the ability of T cell signaling machinery to temporally filter and interpret time-variant input signals in discriminatory ways.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
(2021)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Geoff P. O'Donoghue, Lukasz J. Bugaj, Warren Anderson, Kyle G. Daniels, David J. Rawlings, Wendell A. Lim
Summary: T cells experience complex temporal patterns of stimulation through receptor-ligand-binding interactions with surrounding cells, enabling them to pick out antigenic signals and establish self-tolerance. This study demonstrates that T cells are able to respond to minute-scale oscillations of activation signal and interpret time-variant input signals through a frequency filtering mechanism downstream of the Erk signaling branch. Temporal filtering may play a functional role in vivo, as indicated by observed T cell encounters with self-peptide-presenting antigen-presenting cells.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
(2021)
Review
Cell Biology
Courtney A. Dreyer, Kacey VanderVorst, Kermit L. Carraway
Summary: This article discusses the importance of Wnt/planar cell polarity (Wnt/PCP) signaling in the establishment of polarity and cellular motility events in developing and adult tissues. It highlights the role of the transmembrane protein Vangl as a master scaffold for Wnt/PCP signaling and explores how dysregulation of these processes contributes to human diseases.
FRONTIERS IN CELL AND DEVELOPMENTAL BIOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Hui Chen, Wanyu Xu, Hui Shi, Yan Qiao, Xiaoxiao He, Jing Zheng, Shaohong Zhou, Xiaohai Yang, Kemin Wang, Jianbo Liu
Summary: In this study, an artificial transmembrane signal transduction system using DNA-based artificial membrane receptors is described. Through low pH-mediated formation of the i-motif and dimerization of the receptors, fluorescence resonance energy transfer and G-quadruplex/hemin-mediated fluorescence amplification are activated within giant unilamellar vesicles. The study also establishes an intercellular signal communication model using coacervate microdroplets, which activate the dimerization of artificial receptors and subsequent fluorescence production or polymerization in giant unilamellar vesicles.
ANGEWANDTE CHEMIE-INTERNATIONAL EDITION
(2023)
Article
Mechanics
Rati Sharma
Summary: This study investigates the effect of extrinsic noise on mRNA translation and reveals its impact on ribosome residence time, ribosomal traffic, and protein production through stochastic simulations and statistical analysis. The results show that noise in the translation initiation rate significantly affects the distribution of ribosome residence times on mRNA, while the presence of slow codons increases the average residence time.
JOURNAL OF STATISTICAL MECHANICS-THEORY AND EXPERIMENT
(2022)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Amanda N. Johnson, Guoliang Li, Hossein Jashnsaz, Alexander Thiemicke, Benjamin K. Kesler, Dustin C. Rogers, Gregor Neuert
Summary: Our study shows that signaling is dependent on a rate threshold combined with stimulus concentration to determine the timing of MAPK signaling during rate-varying stimulus treatments. Additionally, we found that the stimulation rate threshold and stimulation rate-dependent cell survival are sensitive to changes in the expression levels of the Ptp2 phosphatase. This suggests that stimulation rate is a regulated determinant of cell behavior and can guide the dissection of major stimulation rate dependent mechanisms in other systems.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
(2021)
Review
Oncology
Akira Sato, Nor Idayu A. Rahman, Akio Shimizu, Hisakazu Ogita
Summary: Tumor growth and progression are complex processes regulated by interactions between cancer cells and their surrounding stroma. Direct intercellular communication in the tumor microenvironment plays important roles in the biological behaviors of tumors.
Article
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Matthew M. Wootten, Bryden A. F. Le Bailly, Sofja Tshepelevitsh, Ivo Leito, Jonathan Clayden
Summary: This study reports a molecular system that selectively protonates chiral anionic ligands of different basicity based on the pH of the solution. The system utilizes a cationic circular dichroism (CD) reporter complex to respond to anion binding by adopting one of two alternative enantiomeric conformations. By altering the pH through sequential addition of base and acid, the system achieves cyclic switching between three ligand-bound states. Furthermore, by appending an aminoisobutyric acid oligomer to the binding site, the pH-dependent conformational response can be transduced into a programmable response that is detectable through remote NMR spectroscopy.
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Yan Li, Yi-Xin Zhang, Da-Sheng Ning, Jing Chen, Shang-Xuan Li, Zhi-Wei Mo, Yue-Ming Peng, Shi-Hui He, Ya-Ting Chen, Chun-Juan Zheng, Jian-Jun Gao, Hao-Xiang Yuan, Jing-Song Ou, Zhi-Jun Ou
Summary: Endothelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EndMT) is an important process in atherosclerosis, with POVPC playing a role in inducing this transition. Simvastatin was found to inhibit POVPC-induced EndMT by reducing oxidative stress, suppressing TGF-beta/Smad signaling, and deactivating Snail-1 and Twist-1. This reveals a novel mechanism of atherosclerosis that can be targeted by simvastatin.
JOURNAL OF LIPID RESEARCH
(2021)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Ryan J. Butcher, Jeffrey J. Tabor
Summary: This article mainly introduces a method to monitor the dynamics of RR dimerization in live bacteria in real time through the depolarization of excitation light. Mathematical modeling reveals that TCS phosphosignaling accelerates with SHK expression but decelerates with RR expression and SHK phosphatase activity. Pulsatile activation of the SHK NarX is observed in response to addition and depletion of the extracellular electron acceptor nitrate. The combination of this method with polarized light microscopy enables single-cell measurements of RR dimerization under changing stimulus conditions.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
(2022)
Review
Nanoscience & Nanotechnology
Peng He, Mao-Sheng Cao, Wen-Qiang Cao, Jie Yuan
Summary: MXenes, as a novel family of 2D materials, have shown excellent properties for wireless communication and EM attenuation. Recent advances on MXene-based materials with different structural designs for wireless communication, EMI shielding, and EM wave absorption clearly reveal the relationship governing the effectiveness. Challenges and guidelines for designing MXene-based materials for industrial application and foundational research are highlighted for future directions.
NANO-MICRO LETTERS
(2021)
Article
Plant Sciences
Lourdes Infantes, Maria Rivera-Moreno, Miguel Daniel-Mozo, Juan Luis Benavente, Javier Ocana-Cuesta, Alberto Coego, Jorge Lozano-Juste, Pedro L. Rodriguez, Armando Albert
Summary: Modulating the activity of plant phytohormone receptors through genetic or chemical strategies has biotechnological relevance. Designing receptors with single point mutations can enhance plant responses to phytohormones. Structural studies on receptors can lead to the discovery of antagonist molecules for plant hormones.
FRONTIERS IN PLANT SCIENCE
(2022)
Article
Dentistry, Oral Surgery & Medicine
D. Wu, Y. Weng, Y. Feng, B. Liang, H. Wang, L. Li, Z. Wang
Summary: In periodontitis, Trem1 regulates polarization of M1 macrophages through the STAT3/HIF-1α signaling pathway. Studies suggest that targeting Trem1 could be a potential strategy for the treatment of periodontitis by modulating macrophage polarization.
JOURNAL OF DENTAL RESEARCH
(2022)
Article
Oncology
Masao Saitoh
Summary: The epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) is a process where epithelial cells transform into mesenchymal cells, which is associated with invasion, metastasis, and resistance to therapy in cancer. Transcription factors, such as ZEB1/ZEB2, SNAIL, and TWIST, play important roles in driving the EMT process. This review focuses on understanding the molecular mechanisms that sustain high levels of these transcription factors in aggressive carcinomas and their upregulation by transforming growth factor-β during cancer progression.
SEMINARS IN CANCER BIOLOGY
(2023)
