Published in European Biophysics Journal
In this work we present and analyse XAS measurements carried out on various portions of Prion-protein tetra-octa-repeat peptides in complexes with Cu(II) ions, both in the presence and in the absence of Zn(II). Because of the ability of the XAS technique to provide detailed local structural information, we are able to demonstrate that Zn acts by di...
Published in The Journal of cell biology
Schwann cells (SCs), the glial cells of the peripheral nervous system, cover synaptic terminals, allowing them to monitor and modulate neurotransmission. Disruption of glial coverage leads to axon degeneration and synapse loss. The cellular mechanisms that establish and maintain this coverage remain largely unknown. To address this, we labeled sing...
Published in Journal of Mammary Gland Biology and Neoplasia
Published in Journal of Mammary Gland Biology and Neoplasia
Slit, Netrin, Ephrin, and Semaphorin’s roles in development have expanded greatly in the past decade from their original characterization as axon guidance molecules (AGMs) to include roles as regulators of tissue morphogenesis and development in diverse organs. In the mammary gland, AGMs are important for maintaining normal cell proliferation and a...
Published in Journal of molecular biology
α-Synuclein (α-syn) is the major component of filamentous Lewy bodies found in the brains of patients diagnosed with Parkinson's disease (PD). Recent studies demonstrate that, in addition to the wild-type sequence, α-syn is found in several modified forms, including truncated and phosphorylated species. Although the mechanism by which the neuronal ...
Published in Journal of the American Chemical Society
The prion protein (PrP) takes up 4-6 equiv of copper in its extended N-terminal domain, composed of the octarepeat (OR) segment (human sequence residues 60-91) and two mononuclear binding sites (at His96 and His111; also referred to as the non-OR region). The OR segment responds to specific copper concentrations by transitioning from a multi-His mo...
Published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Methylation of histone H3 lysine 4 (H3K4me), a mark associated with gene activation, is mediated by SET1 and the related mixed lineage leukemia (MLL) histone methyltransferases (HMTs) across species. Mammals contain seven H3K4 HMTs, Set1A, Set1B, and MLL1-MLL5. The activity of SET1 and MLL proteins relies on protein-protein interactions within larg...
Published in Genome research
Chromatin immunoprecipitation identifies specific interactions between genomic DNA and proteins, advancing our understanding of gene-level and chromosome-level regulation. Based on chromatin immunoprecipitation experiments using validated antibodies, we define the genome-wide distributions of 19 histone modifications, one histone variant, and eight...
Published in Science (New York, N.Y.)
Published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Trinucleotide expansions cause disease by both protein- and RNA-mediated mechanisms. Unexpectedly, we discovered that CAG expansion constructs express homopolymeric polyglutamine, polyalanine, and polyserine proteins in the absence of an ATG start codon. This repeat-associated non-ATG translation (RAN translation) occurs across long, hairpin-formin...
