Prostate cancer (PCa) is the most common non-cutaneous cancer among U.S. men. Lack of effective treatments for advanced disease make it a significant public health concern. However, PCa’s long natural history makes it an excellent target for prevention approaches that reduce overtreatment of indolent disease, treatment related morbidity, and mortality....
NSD2, a histone methyltransferase specific for methylation of histone 3 lysine 36 (H3K36), exhibits a glutamic acid to lysine mutation at residue 1099 (E1099K) in childhood acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL). Cells harboring this mutation can become the predominant clone in relapsing disease. We studied the effects of this mutant enzyme...
Endothelial cells (ECs) require glycolysis for proliferation and migration during angiogenesis; however, the necessity for the mitochondrial respiratory chain during angiogenesis is not known. In this study, we report that inhibition of respiratory chain complex III impairs proliferation, but not migration of ECs in vitro by decreasing the NAD+/NADH ratio....
Glioblastoma (GBM) is a highly malignant brain tumor that accounts for the most commonly diagnosed type of primary brain tumors in adults. It has a poor prognosis of only 15 months from the time of diagnosis. The gold standard therapy regimen consists of radiotherapy and the chemotherapeutic temozolomide. Both of...
Oocyte meiosis is a specialized, but error prone, form of cell division that is poorly understood. Errors during meiosis often result in aneuploidy, or abnormal chromosome number, that impacts human health and fertility. Aneuploidy is the leading cause of miscarriages and birth defects, such as Down's syndrome in which cells...
Type I interferon (IFN) is the primary antiviral cytokine establishing a broad and potent antiviral response to protect mammalian cells from virus infection. The functional repertoire of IFN extends to innate and adaptive immunity, neoplastic transformation, resistance and cancer immunotherapy. IFN functions are primarily mediated through the Janus kinase (JAK)...
The cellular innate immune response to viruses is a defense mechanism executed by most cells in the human body to form the initial barrier to virus replication. Detection of viral nucleic acids initiates widespread gene expression changes that combine to establish an antiviral state and stimulate professional immune cell activation....
Proper size control of organs and tissues is critical to their function, and it is necessary for the millions of precisely sized tubes that make up those organs— for example, excessive cell growth can lead to devastating diseases such as Polycystic Kidney Disease. The regulation of tube growth is therefore...
Currently, platelet transfusions, possessing profound clinical importance in the clotting of blood and healing of wounds, are entirely derived from human volunteer donors. This approach is limited by a 5-day shelf life, the potential risk of contamination, and differences in donor/recipient immunology. In vivo, platelets are formed when bone marrow...
Inter-organelle contacts facilitate communication between organelles and impact fundamental cellular functions. Investigations into the molecular mechanisms of inter-organelle tethering are still in the early stages, and we are just beginning to appreciate the number and variety of inter-organelle tethers that exist. We have used budding yeast as a model polarized...