Protein structure/folding: Shape your duty

How do your contacts (or their absence) shape your fate?

Tissue accumulation of contractile myofibroblasts is a key feature of a multitude of fibrotic diseases. Myofibroblast generation either from epithelial or mesenchymal precursors involves the activation of a myogenic program, hallmarked by the expression of α-smooth muscle actin (SMA). Recent research suggests that this robust phenotypic reprogramming requires two critical inputs: the fibrogenic...

What You Eat Affects Your Shape.

Diabetic cardiomyopathy is associated with cardiac lipotoxicity and mitochondrial dysfunction, and a better understanding of the mechanisms involved are needed. To examine the mechanisms linking lipid overload and diabetic cardiomyopathy, Tsushima et al studied a mouse model with overexpression of ACSL1 (long-chain acyl-CoA synthetase 1) in cardiomyocytes (ACS-transgenic [Tg]). ACSL1 was under ...

Mgm101: A double-duty Rad52-like protein

Mgm101 has well-characterized activity for the repair and replication of the mitochondrial genome. Recent work has demonstrated a further role for Mgm101 in nuclear DNA metabolism, contributing to an S-phase specific DNA interstrand cross-link repair pathway that acts redundantly with a pathway controlled by Pso2 exonuclease. Due to involvement of FANCM, FANCJ and FANCP homologues (Mph1, Chl1 a...

Preterm Birth and the Shape of Your Heart Running title: Norman; Preterm birth and the shape of your heart

Bring your own G protein.

G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR)-Galpha fusion proteins were first characterized more than 10 years ago as a strategy for studying receptor-G protein signaling. A large number of studies have used this approach to characterize receptor coupling to members of the Gs, Gi, and Gq families of Galpha subunits, but this strategy has not been widely used to study Galpha12 and Galpha13. As described i...