In mammalian cells, newly synthesized mRNAs undergo a pioneer round of translation that is important for mRNA quality control. Following maturation of messenger ribonucleoprotein particles during and after the pioneer round, steady-state cycles of mRNA translation generate most of the cell's proteins. Translation factors, RNA-binding proteins, and targets of signaling pathways that are particul...

In woody plants, pioneer roots are the main roots used to expand the root system horizontally and vertically whereas fibrous 'feeder' roots are chiefly used in the absorption of water and nutrients. Because of their different roles, we expected newly emerged pioneer and fibrous roots to respond differently to restrictions in soil moisture. We hypothesized that fibrous roots would exhibit greate...

I evaluated the hypothesis that leaf-cutting ants are more common in early successional forests than in old-growth forests because pioneer species, which dominate in early successional habitats, appear more susceptible to leafcutters than shade-tolerant species, which dominate primary forests (palatable forage hypothesis). The relative importance of pioneer and shade-tolerant species as plant r...

Nuclear receptors and pioneer factors drive the development and progression of prostate cancer. In this disease, aggressive disease phenotypes and hormone therapy failures result from resurgent activity of androgen receptor (AR) and the upregulation of coactivator protein p300 and pioneer factors (e.g., GATA2 and FOXA1). Thus, a major emphasis in the field is to identify mechanisms by which cas...

Development of a functional neuronal network during embryogenesis begins with pioneer axons creating a scaffold along which later-outgrowing axons extend. The molecular mechanism used by these follower axons to navigate along pre-existing axons remains poorly understood. We isolated loss-of-function alleles of fmi-1, which caused strong axon navigation defects of pioneer and follower axons in t...