Search Our Scientific Publications & Authors

PLoS Pathog 2021 Apr 19;17(4):e1009171. Epub 2021 Apr 19.

Division of Viral Products, Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, Food and Drug Administration, Silver Spring, Maryland, United States of America.

Virions are a common antigen source for many viral vaccines. One limitation to using virions is that the antigen abundance is determined by the content of each protein in the virus. This caveat especially applies to viral-based influenza vaccines where the low abundance of the neuraminidase (NA) surface antigen remains a bottleneck for improving the NA antibody response. Read More

Aging (Albany NY) 2021 Apr 19;13. Epub 2021 Apr 19.

Department of Orthopedics, The Second Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, Changsha, Hunan, China.

Budding Uninhibited By Benzimidazoles are a group of genes encoding proteins that play central roles in spindle checkpoint during mitosis. Improper mitosis may lead to aneuploidy which is found in many types of tumors. As a key mediator in mitosis, the dysregulated expression of BUBs has been proven to be highly associated with various malignancies, such as leukemia, gastric cancer, breast cancer, and liver cancer. Read More

J Anim Physiol Anim Nutr (Berl) 2021 Apr 19. Epub 2021 Apr 19.

Department of Animal Wealth Development, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Zagazig University, Zagazig, Egypt.

The impact of different dietary zinc sources on the growth, serum metabolites, tissue zinc content, economics and relative expression of cytokine and metallothionein genes was evaluated in this study. A total of 120 35-day-old male New Zealand White (NZW) rabbits were randomly distributed into four dietary experimental groups with 10 replicates per group and 3 animals per replicate. The control group was fed basal diet with a Zn-free vitamin-mineral premix; the other three groups received control basal diet supplemented with 50 mg/kg level with zinc oxide (ZnO; as inorganic source), Zn-methionine (Zn-Met; as organic source) and zinc oxide nanoparticles (nano-ZnO). Read More

Brain 2021 Apr 19. Epub 2021 Apr 19.

Foundation IRCCS Ca' Granda Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico, Neurology Unit, Milan, Italy.

The "homotypic fusion and protein sorting" (HOPS) complex is the structural bridge necessary for the fusion of late endosomes and autophagosomes with lysosomes. Recent publications linked mutations in genes encoding HOPS complex proteins with the etiopathogenesis of inherited dystonias (i.e. Read More

Mol Biol (Mosk) 2021 Mar-Apr;55(2):318-337

Research Institute of Medical Genetics, Tomsk National Research Medical Center, Russian Academy of Sciences, Tomsk, 634050 Russia.

The "Mendelian code" hypothesis postulates a relationship between Mendelian (monogenic) and common pathologies. In this hypothesis, polymorphisms in the genes of Mendelian diseases may have a significant contribution to predisposition to common diseases in which the same biochemical pathways may be involved. In this review a group of genes encoding various proteins participating in the DNA repair, with a particular focus on the BRCA1-associated genome surveillance complex (BASC), is presented through the prism of the "Mendelian code" hypothesis. Read More

Phytopathology 2021 Apr 18. Epub 2021 Apr 18.

Taicheng Road No.3Yangling, China, 712100;

Erysiphe necator, the fungal pathogen of grape powdery mildew disease, poses a great threat to the grape fruit market and wine industry. To better understand the molecular basis of grape responses to E. necator, we performed comparative transcriptome profiling on two Chinese wild grape accessions with varying degrees of resistance to E. Read More

Laryngoscope Investig Otolaryngol 2021 Apr 12;6(2):310-319. Epub 2021 Mar 12.

Department of Otolaryngology Northwestern University Chicago Illinois USA.

Objectives: We provide an appraisal of recent research on stimulation of the auditory system with light. In particular, we discuss direct infrared stimulation and ongoing controversies regarding the feasibility of this modality. We also discuss advancements and barriers to the development of an optical cochlear implant. Read More

Front Plant Sci 2021 1;12:662025. Epub 2021 Apr 1.

Université Paris-Saclay, CNRS, INRAE, University of Evry, Institute of Plant Sciences Paris-Saclay, Orsay, France.

Fusarium Head Blight (FHB) is a cereal disease caused primarily by the ascomycete fungus with public health issues due to the production of mycotoxins including deoxynivalenol (DON). Genetic resistance is an efficient protection means and numerous quantitative trait loci have been identified, some of them related to the production of resistance metabolites. In this study, we have functionally characterized the gene encoding a cytochrome P450 monooxygenase (CYP). Read More

Front Plant Sci 2021 1;12:639508. Epub 2021 Apr 1.

Department of Life Science, Chung-Ang University, Seoul, South Korea.

is a monocotyledonous model plant that contains castasterone (CS) but no brassinolide (BL) as the end product of brassinosteroids (BR) biosynthesis, indicating dysfunction of BL synthase, which catalyzes the conversion of CS to BL. To increase BR activity, () encoding BR 6-oxidase/BL synthase was introduced into with the seed-specific promoters , and . RT-PCR analysis and GUS activity revealed that was only expressed in the seeds of the transgenic plants , and . Read More

Front Plant Sci 2021 1;12:629903. Epub 2021 Apr 1.

Grain Crops Research Institute, Henan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Zhengzhou, China.

Analyzing the transcriptome of maize leaves under drought stress and rewatering conditions revealed that transcription factors were involved in this process, among which of the ABSCISIC ACID-INSENSITIVE 5-like protein 5 family was induced to significantly up-regulated. The functional mechanism of in Abscisic acd (ABA) signaling pathway and its response to drought stress and rewatering has not been studied yet. The present study found that ZmbZIP33 contains a DNA-binding and dimerization domain, has transcriptional activation activity, and is highly homologous to SbABI1,SitbZIP68 and OsABA1. Read More

Front Plant Sci 2021 31;12:585174. Epub 2021 Mar 31.

Key Laboratory of Molecular Design for Plant Cell Factory of Guangdong Higher Education Institutes, Department of Biology, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China.

RGB1, a subunit of heterotrimeric G protein, plays important roles in regulating grain size and weight of rice. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying controlling grain filling process by G protein are still largely unclear. In the present study, we show that RGB1 controls not only the grain size but also the grain filling process. Read More

Front Microbiol 2021 31;12:642487. Epub 2021 Mar 31.

Department of Chemistry, Bose Institute, Kolkata, India.

can survive within its host for extended periods of time without any clinical symptoms of disease and reactivate when the immune system is weakened. A detailed understanding of how enters into and exits out of dormancy, is necessary in order to develop new strategies for tackling tuberculosis. Omics methodologies are unsupervised and unbiased to any hypothesis, making them useful tools for the discovery of new drug targets. Read More

Front Microbiol 2021 18;12:640945. Epub 2021 Mar 18.

Department of Paraclinical Sciences, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Oslo, Norway.

Shiga toxin is the major virulence factor of enterohemorrhagic (EHEC), and the gene encoding it is carried within the genome of Shiga toxin-converting phages (Stx phages). Numerous Stx phages have been sequenced to gain a better understanding of their contribution to the virulence potential of EHEC. The Stx phages are classified into the lambdoid phage family based on similarities in lifestyle, gene arrangement, and nucleotide sequence to the lambda phages. Read More

Front Mol Neurosci 2021 23;14:651935. Epub 2021 Mar 23.

Institute for Auditory Neuroscience and InnerEarLab, University Medical Center Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany.

The afferent synapses between inner hair cells (IHC) and spiral ganglion neurons are specialized to faithfully encode sound with sub-millisecond precision over prolonged periods of time. Here, we studied the role of Rab3 interacting molecule-binding proteins (RIM-BP) 1 and 2 - multidomain proteins of the active zone known to directly interact with RIMs, Bassoon and Ca 1.3 - in IHC presynaptic function and hearing. Read More

Mar Genomics 2021 Jun 30;57:100832. Epub 2020 Nov 30.

Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Biodiversity Science and Ecological Engineering, Institute of Biodiversity Science, School of Life Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai, China; Shanghai Engineering Research Center of Industrial Microorganisms, Shanghai, China. Electronic address:

The general features and genomic characteristics of gram-positive Deinococcus sp. D7000 isolated from the hadal region of Mariana Trench Challenger Deep were analyzed in this study. Deinococcus sp. Read More

Crit Rev Biotechnol 2021 Apr 18:1-16. Epub 2021 Apr 18.

Amity Institute of Organic Agriculture, Amity University Uttar Pradesh, Noida, India.

Aluminum (Al) precipitates in acidic soils having a pH < 5.5, in the form of conjugated organic and inorganic ions. Al-containing minerals solubilized in the soil solution cause several negative impacts in plants when taken up along with other nutrients. Read More

Arch Virol 2021 Apr 17. Epub 2021 Apr 17.

Anhui Provincial Key Laboratory of Microbial Pest Control, Anhui Agricultural University, Hefei, 230036, China.

Mycoviruses are widely distributed in fungi, but only a few mycoviruses have been reported in basal fungi to date. Here, we characterized a novel totivirus isolated from the basal fungus Conidiobolus heterosporus, and we designated this virus as "Conidiobolus heterosporus totivirus 1" (ChTV1). The complete genome of ChTV1 contains two discontinuous open reading frames (ORFs), ORF1 and ORF2, encoding a putative coat protein (CP) and a putative RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRP), respectively. Read More

Mol Genet Genomics 2021 Apr 17. Epub 2021 Apr 17.

Centre of Marine Sciences (CCMAR), University of Algarve, Faro, Portugal.

Holt-Oram syndrome (HOS) is a rare disorder characterized by cardiac and upper-limb defects. Pathogenic variants in TBX5-a gene encoding a transcription factor important for heart and skeletal development-are the only known cause of HOS. Here, we present the identification and functional analysis of two novel TBX5 pathogenic variants found in two individuals with HOS presenting distinct phenotypes. Read More

Brief Bioinform 2021 Apr 19. Epub 2021 Apr 19.

Diagnostic & Vaccine Group, ICAR-National Institute of High Security Animal Diseases, Bhopal 462022, India.

Intrinsically disordered regions/proteins (IDRs) are abundant across all the domains of life, where they perform important regulatory roles and supplement the biological functions of structured proteins/regions (SRs). Despite the multifunctionality features of IDRs, several interrogations on the evolution of viral genomic regions encoding IDRs in diverse viral proteins remain unreciprocated. To fill this gap, we benchmarked the findings of two most widely used and reliable intrinsic disorder prediction algorithms (IUPred2A and ESpritz) to a dataset of 6108 reference viral proteomes to unravel the multifaceted evolutionary forces that shape the codon usage in the viral genomic regions encoding for IDRs and SRs. Read More

Vet Microbiol 2021 Apr 10;257:109066. Epub 2021 Apr 10.

Department of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences, South Dakota State University, Brookings, SD, United States; Department of Population Medicine and Diagnostic Sciences, Animal Health Diagnostic Center, College of Veterinary Medicine, Cornell University, 240 Farrier Rd, Ithaca, NY, 14853, United States; Laboratório de Patologia Veterinária, Departamento de Patologia, Universidade Federal de Santa Maria, Av. Roraima, 1000, Santa Maria, Rio Grande do Sul, 97105-900, Brazil. Electronic address:

The parapoxvirus orf virus (ORFV) encodes several immunomodulatory proteins (IMPs) that modulate host innate and pro-inflammatory responses to infection. Using the ORFV IA82 strain as the parental virus, recombinant viruses with individual deletions in the genes encoding the IMPs chemokine binding protein (CBP; ORFV112), inhibitor of granulocyte-monocyte colony-stimulating factor and IL-2 (GIF, ORFV117) and interleukin 10 homologue (vIL-10; ORFV127) were generated and characterized in vitro and in vivo. The replication properties of the individual gene deletion viruses in cell culture was not affected comparing with the parental virus. Read More

Semin Arthritis Rheum 2021 Mar 4;51(3):513-522. Epub 2021 Mar 4.

Department of Internal Medicine IV (Nephrology and Hypertension), Medical University Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria.

The incidence of autoimmune diseases is increasing worldwide, thus stimulating studies on their etiopathogenesis, derived from a complex interaction between genetic and environmental factors. Genetic association studies have shown the PTPN22 gene as a shared genetic risk factor with implications in multiple autoimmune disorders. By encoding a protein tyrosine phosphatase expressed by the majority of cells belonging to the innate and adaptive immune systems, the PTPN22 gene may have a fundamental role in the development of immune dysfunction. Read More

Virology 2021 Apr 10;559:120-130. Epub 2021 Apr 10.

Pathology Division, Nansei Field Station, Fisheries Technology Institute, Japan Fisheries Research and Education Agency, Mie, 519-0193, Japan.

We isolated a novel Aquareovirus (hirame aquareovirus: HAqRV) from Japanese flounder Paralichthys olivaceus suffering from reovirus-like infection. In electron microscopy, the spherical virion (75 nm in diameter) was observed with multi-layered capsid structure. The viral genome consisted of 11 segments and regions encoding 7 virion structural proteins and 5 non-structural proteins were predicted. Read More

Genes Genomics 2021 Apr 17. Epub 2021 Apr 17.

Department of Biological Sciences, Konkuk University, 120 Neungdong-ro, Gwangjin-gu, Seoul, 05029, Republic of Korea.

Background: Haploinsufficiency of the human nuclear receptor binding suppressor of variegation 3-9, enhancer of zeste, and trithorax (SET) domain 1 (NSD1) gene causes a developmental disorder called Sotos syndrome 1 (SOTOS1), which is associated with overgrowth and macrocephaly. NSD family proteins encoding histone H3 lysine 36 (H3K36) methyltransferases are conserved in many species, and Drosophila has a single NSD homolog gene, NSD.

Objective: To gain insight into the biological functions of NSD1 deficiency in the developmental anomalies seen in SOTOS1 patients using an NSD-deleted Drosophila mutant. Read More

Mol Biol Rep 2021 Apr 17. Epub 2021 Apr 17.

Cellular and Molecular Research Center, Research Institute for Prevention of Non-Communicable Disease, Qazvin University of Medical Sciences, Qazvin, Iran.

A new and atypical member of the ANGPTL family is angiopoietin-like protein 8 (ANGPTL8). This newly discovered hormone is a drug target that can be used to treat diabetes and dyslipidemia. The protein, as a hepatocyte-derived circulating factor, can control the triglyceride level of plasma. Read More

FEMS Microbiol Lett 2021 Apr 17. Epub 2021 Apr 17.

Normandie Univ, UNICAEN U2RM-Stress and Virulence, 14000 Caen, France.

Glycerol (Gly) can be dissimilated by two pathways in bacteria. Either this sugar alcohol is first oxidized to dihydroxyacetone (DHA) and then phosphorylated or it is first phosphorylated to glycerol-3-phosphate (GlyP) followed by oxidation. Oxidation of GlyP can be achieved by NAD-dependent dehydrogenases or by a GlyP oxidase. Read More

FEBS J 2021 Apr 17. Epub 2021 Apr 17.

Division of Life Science, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Hong Kong, China.

In the adult hippocampus, synaptic plasticity is important for information processing, learning, and memory encoding. Astrocytes, the most common glial cells, play a pivotal role in the regulation of hippocampal synaptic plasticity. While astrocytes were initially described as a homogenous cell population, emerging evidence indicates that in the adult hippocampus, astrocytes are highly heterogeneous and can differentially respond to changes in neuronal activity in a subregion-dependent manner to actively modulate synaptic plasticity. Read More

J Clin Immunol 2021 Apr 16. Epub 2021 Apr 16.

Department of Pediatrics, Division of Rheumatology/Immunology, Washington University in St. Louis, 660 S. Euclid Ave. Box 8208, St. Louis, MO, 63110, USA.

Inborn errors of immunity (IEIs) are a heterogeneous group of disorders due to genetic defects in the immune response that have a broad clinical spectrum. Diagnosis of the precise genetic cause of IEI has led to improved care and treatment of patients; however, genetic diagnosis using standard approaches is only successful in ~40% of patients and is particularly challenging in "sporadic" cases without a family history. Standard genetic testing for IEI evaluates for germline changes in genes encoding proteins important for the immune response. Read More

Nat Commun 2021 04 16;12(1):2303. Epub 2021 Apr 16.

Department of Plant and Soil Sciences, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK, USA.

Vernalization genes underlying dramatic differences in flowering time between spring wheat and winter wheat have been studied extensively, but little is known about genes that regulate subtler differences in flowering time among winter wheat cultivars, which account for approximately 75% of wheat grown worldwide. Here, we identify a gene encoding an O-linked N-acetylglucosamine (O-GlcNAc) transferase (OGT) that differentiates heading date between winter wheat cultivars Duster and Billings. We clone this TaOGT1 gene from a quantitative trait locus (QTL) for heading date in a mapping population derived from these two bread wheat cultivars and analyzed in various environments. Read More

Diabetes 2021 Apr 16. Epub 2021 Apr 16.

Department of Medicine (H7), Karolinska Institutet, Karolinska University Hospital, 141 86, Stockholm, Sweden

Selective hepatic insulin resistance is a feature of obesity and type 2 diabetes. Whether similar mechanisms operate in white adipose tissue (WAT) of obese subjects and to what extent these are normalized by weight loss is unknown. We determined insulin sensitivity by hyperinsulinemic euglycemic clamp and the insulin response in subcutaneous WAT by RNA-sequencing in 23 women with obesity before and two years after bariatric surgery. Read More

J Therm Biol 2021 Apr 12;97:102874. Epub 2021 Feb 12.

Animal Nutrition Institute, Sichuan Agricultural University, Chengdu, Sichuan, China; Key Laboratory for Animal Disease-Resistance Nutrition of China Ministry of Education, Chengdu, Sichuan, China. Electronic address:

With the globe warming, heat stress (HS) has frequently affected animal production. Selenium (Se) is an essential trace element for animals and exerts most of its biological functions through selenoproteins. We previously demonstrated that the damage to C2C12 cells by HS accompanied with the response of selenoprotein encoding genes and proteins. Read More