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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences

Cysteine Residues Contribute To The Dimerization And Enzymatic Activity Of Human Nuclear Dutp Nucleotidohydrolase (Ndut)., Shawna M Rotoli, Julia L Jones, Salvatore J Caradonna Oct 2018

Cysteine Residues Contribute To The Dimerization And Enzymatic Activity Of Human Nuclear Dutp Nucleotidohydrolase (Ndut)., Shawna M Rotoli, Julia L Jones, Salvatore J Caradonna

Rowan-Virtua School of Osteopathic Medicine Departmental Research

dUTPase is an enzyme found in all organisms that have thymine as a constituent of DNA. Through evolution, humans have two major isoforms of dUTPase: a mitochondrial (mDut) and a nuclear (nDut) isoform. The nuclear isoform of dUTPase is a 164-amino-acids-long protein containing three cysteine residues. nDut's starting methionine is post-translationally cleaved, leaving four unique amino acids on its amino-terminus including one cysteine residue (C3). These are not present in the mitochondrial isoform (mDut). Using mass spectrometry analyses of recombinant dUTPase constructs, we have discovered an intermolecular disulfide bridge between cysteine-3 of each nDut monomer. We have found that these …


Escherichia Coli Itat Is A Type Ii Toxin That Inhibits Translation By Acetylating Isoleucyl-Trnaile, Brendan Wilcox, Ilya Osterman, Marina Serebryakova, Dmitry Lukyanov, Ekaterina Komarova, Bridget Gollan, Natalia Morozova, Yuri I Wolf, Kira S Makarova, Sophie Helaine, Petr Sergiev, Svetlana Dubiley, Sergei Borukhov, Konstantin Severinov Sep 2018

Escherichia Coli Itat Is A Type Ii Toxin That Inhibits Translation By Acetylating Isoleucyl-Trnaile, Brendan Wilcox, Ilya Osterman, Marina Serebryakova, Dmitry Lukyanov, Ekaterina Komarova, Bridget Gollan, Natalia Morozova, Yuri I Wolf, Kira S Makarova, Sophie Helaine, Petr Sergiev, Svetlana Dubiley, Sergei Borukhov, Konstantin Severinov

Rowan-Virtua School of Osteopathic Medicine Departmental Research

Prokaryotic toxin-antitoxin (TA) modules are highly abundant and are involved in stress response and drug tolerance. The most common type II TA modules consist of two interacting proteins. The type II toxins are diverse enzymes targeting various essential intracellular targets. The antitoxin binds to cognate toxin and inhibits its function. Recently, TA modules whose toxins are GNAT-family acetyltransferases were described. For two such systems, the target of acetylation was shown to be aminoacyl-tRNA: the TacT toxin targets aminoacylated elongator tRNAs, while AtaT targets the amino acid moiety of initiating tRNAMet. We show that the itaRT gene pair from Escherichia coli …


N-Terminal Domain Of Human Uracil Dna Glycosylase (Hung2) Promotes Targeting To Uracil Sites Adjacent To Ssdna-Dsdna Junctions, Brian P Weiser, Gaddiel Rodriguez, Philip A Cole, James T Stivers Aug 2018

N-Terminal Domain Of Human Uracil Dna Glycosylase (Hung2) Promotes Targeting To Uracil Sites Adjacent To Ssdna-Dsdna Junctions, Brian P Weiser, Gaddiel Rodriguez, Philip A Cole, James T Stivers

Rowan-Virtua School of Osteopathic Medicine Departmental Research

The N-terminal domain (NTD) of nuclear human uracil DNA glycosylase (hUNG2) assists in targeting hUNG2 to replication forks through specific interactions with replication protein A (RPA). Here, we explored hUNG2 activity in the presence and absence of RPA using substrates with ssDNA-dsDNA junctions that mimic structural features of the replication fork and transcriptional R-loops. We find that when RPA is tightly bound to the ssDNA overhang of junction DNA substrates, base excision by hUNG2 is strongly biased toward uracils located 21 bp or less from the ssDNA-dsDNA junction. In the absence of RPA, hUNG2 still showed an 8-fold excision bias …


The Role Of Developmental Timing Regulators In Progenitor Proliferation And Cell Fate Specification During Mammalian Neurogenesis, Jennifer S. Romer-Seibert Aug 2018

The Role Of Developmental Timing Regulators In Progenitor Proliferation And Cell Fate Specification During Mammalian Neurogenesis, Jennifer S. Romer-Seibert

Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences Theses and Dissertations

Developmental timing is a key aspect of tissue and organ formation in which distinct cell types are generated through a series of steps from common progenitors. These progenitors undergo specific changes in gene expression that signifies both a distinct progenitor type and developmental time point that thereby specifies a particular cell fate at that stage of development. The nervous system is an important setting for understanding developmental timing because different cell types are produced in a certain order and the switch from stem cells to progenitors requires precise timing and regulation. Notable examples of such regulatory molecules include the RNA-binding …


Inhibition Of Ribosome Biogenesis Through Genetic And Chemical Approaches, Leonid Anikin Aug 2018

Inhibition Of Ribosome Biogenesis Through Genetic And Chemical Approaches, Leonid Anikin

Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences Theses and Dissertations

In order to maintain the ability to generate proteins, proliferating cells must continuously generate ribosomes, designating up to 80% of their energy to ribosome biogenesis (RBG). RBG involves transcription of rDNA by RNA polymerases I (Pol I) and III (Pol III), expression of approximately 80 ribosomal proteins, and assembly of these components in a process referred to as ribosome maturation. During maturation, the Pol I transcribed 47S pre-rRNA undergoes a number of processing events, while simultaneously interacting with processing factors and ribosomal proteins that drive pre-ribosome assembly. Inhibition of RBG has become one of the pursued targets for cancer therapy …


Loss Of Marv1 Promotes Chop Signaling In Mouse Liver, Shad Anthony Mitchell Jul 2018

Loss Of Marv1 Promotes Chop Signaling In Mouse Liver, Shad Anthony Mitchell

Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences Theses and Dissertations

Metabolic syndrome (MetS) is a term used to define a set of metabolic diseases: obesity, type 2 diabetes (T2D), hyperlipidemia, hypertension, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), and nonalcoholic hepatosteatosis (NASH). Those with MetS have a higher incidence of cardiovascular disease and stroke. Current drug treatments for MetS treat the individual pathologies associated with the diseases, rather than directly targeting MetS as a whole. We hypothesize that the inhibition of a ubiquitous lipid transporter known as ARV1 can improve pathologies associated with MetS. To test this hypothesis, we utilized liver tissue from mARV1 knockout mice fed a high-fat diet and examined …


The Zinc Transporter Zipt-7.1 Regulates Sperm Activation In Nematodes, Yanmei Zhao, Chieh-Hsiang Tan, Amber Krauchunas, Andrea Scharf, Nicholas Dietrich, Kurt Warnhoff, Zhiheng Yuan, Marina Druzhinina, Sam Guoping Gu, Long Miao, Andrew Singson, Ronald E Ellis, Kerry Kornfeld Jun 2018

The Zinc Transporter Zipt-7.1 Regulates Sperm Activation In Nematodes, Yanmei Zhao, Chieh-Hsiang Tan, Amber Krauchunas, Andrea Scharf, Nicholas Dietrich, Kurt Warnhoff, Zhiheng Yuan, Marina Druzhinina, Sam Guoping Gu, Long Miao, Andrew Singson, Ronald E Ellis, Kerry Kornfeld

Rowan-Virtua School of Osteopathic Medicine Departmental Research

Sperm activation is a fascinating example of cell differentiation, in which immotile spermatids undergo a rapid and dramatic transition to become mature, motile sperm. Because the sperm nucleus is transcriptionally silent, this transition does not involve transcriptional changes. Although Caenorhabditis elegans is a leading model for studies of sperm activation, the mechanisms by which signaling pathways induce this transformation remain poorly characterized. Here we show that a conserved transmembrane zinc transporter, ZIPT-7.1, regulates the induction of sperm activation in Caenorhabditis nematodes. The zipt-7.1 mutant hermaphrodites cannot self-fertilize, and males reproduce poorly, because mutant spermatids are defective in responding to activating …


Till Death Do Us Part: The Marriage Of Autophagy And Apoptosis., Katrina F Cooper May 2018

Till Death Do Us Part: The Marriage Of Autophagy And Apoptosis., Katrina F Cooper

Rowan-Virtua School of Osteopathic Medicine Departmental Research

Autophagy is a widely conserved catabolic process that is necessary for maintaining cellular homeostasis under normal physiological conditions and driving the cell to switch back to this status quo under times of starvation, hypoxia, and oxidative stress. The potential similarities and differences between basal autophagy and stimulus-induced autophagy are still largely unknown. Both act by clearing aberrant or unnecessary cytoplasmic material, such as misfolded proteins, supernumerary and defective organelles. The relationship between reactive oxygen species (ROS) and autophagy is complex. Cellular ROS is predominantly derived from mitochondria. Autophagy is triggered by this event, and by clearing the defective organelles effectively, …