The molecular mechanisms of biological processes, focusing on DNA, RNA, and protein interactions, gene expression, signal transduction, molecular techniques, and the molecular basis of cellular function
8 papersThis mouse and cell line study reveals that an imbalance in building blocks for DNA leads to "mistakes" where RNA components are incorporated into mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). These faulty mtDNAs then leak out of mitochondria, triggering the cGAS-STING pathway and causing inflammation, particularly in aging kidneys and senescent cells, a process that can be reversed by adding back the correct building blocks.
This study, largely conducted in C. elegans and mice, reveals that the DREAM protein complex plays a central role in mediating the cellular effects of circadian rhythm disruption and sleep deprivation. High DREAM levels during wakefulness are linked to DNA protection, while lower levels during sleep promote repair; disrupted sleep or circadian rhythms lead to persistently high DREAM and impaired cellular repair, which can be partially reversed by DREAM inhibition. The direct relevance of these findings to humans remains to be determined.
This review summarizes the current knowledge on alternative polyadenylation (APA), a process where different mRNA versions are created from the same gene. It describes how APA works, what methods are used to study it, and its role in normal development and in diseases like cancer, neurological, and cardiovascular disorders.
This study found that under cellular stress, a specific enzyme (LATS kinase) modifies a DNA-organizing protein (CTCF), causing it to detach from certain growth-promoting genes. This detachment alters the 3D structure of DNA, leading to the downregulation of those genes. The research was primarily conducted in cell lines.
This review summarizes different versions of the bacterial two-hybrid (B2H) assay, a method used to study how proteins interact with each other in bacteria. It covers general considerations for using the technique, discusses several variations of the method, and compares it to other common methods for detecting protein interactions.
Calorie restriction (CR) and calorie-restriction mimetics (CRMs) activate chaperone-mediated autophagy (CMA), a cellular recycling process. This activation is due to increased stability of LAMP2A, the CMA receptor, at the lysosome membrane, and is required for the protective effects of CRMs against high-carbohydrate diets in mice.
This study found that increased mitochondrial calcium levels are associated with amyloid plaques and neuronal death in a mouse model of Alzheimer's disease. Soluble Aβ oligomers directly increase mitochondrial calcium in neurons, an effect dependent on the mitochondrial calcium uniporter.
This paper introduces AiZynthFinder, an open-source software for retrosynthetic planning based on Monte Carlo tree search and a neural network policy. The software is designed for speed and flexibility and has been shown to generate plausible synthetic routes, although comprehensive benchmarking and experimental validation are areas for future development.