Published in Advances in Cancer Research
The Slit family of secreted proteins and their transmembrane receptor, Robo, were originally identified in the nervous system where they function as axon guidance cues and branching factors during development. Since their discovery, a great number of additional roles have been attributed to Slit/Robo signaling, including regulating the critical pro...
Published in BMC Genomics
BackgroundRNA-binding proteins (RBPs) play diverse roles in eukaryotic RNA processing. Despite their pervasive functions in coding and noncoding RNA biogenesis and regulation, elucidating the sequence specificities that define protein-RNA interactions remains a major challenge. Recently, CLIP-seq (Cross-linking immunoprecipitation followed by high-...
Published in Nature structural & molecular biology
Telomerase is a ribonucleoprotein (RNP) enzyme that maintains the ends of linear eukaryotic chromosomes and whose activation is a hallmark of 90% of all cancers. This RNP minimally contains a reverse transcriptase protein subunit (TERT) that catalyzes telomeric DNA synthesis and an RNA subunit (TER) that has templating, architectural and protein-sc...
Published in European journal of immunology
β-Defensins are cationic host defense peptides that form an amphipathic structure stabilized by three intramolecular disulfide bonds. They are key players in innate and adaptive immunity and have recently been shown to limit the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines in TLR4-stimulated macrophages. In the present study, we investigate the mechani...
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 Organic Letters
A furan amino acid, inspired by the recently discovered proximicin natural products, was incorporated into the scaffold of a DNA-binding hairpin polyamide. While unpaired oligomers of 2,4-disubstituted furan amino acids show poor DNA-binding activity, furan (Fn) carboxamides paired with N-methylpyrrole (Py) and N-methylimidazole (Im) rings demonstr...
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 ...
