Publications Autophagy gene expression in skeletal muscle of older individuals is associated with physical performance, muscle volume and mitochondrial function in the study of muscle, mobility and aging (SOMMA)Description: Autophagy is essential for proteostasis, energetic balance, and cell defense and is a key pathway in aging. Identifying associations between autophagy gene expression patterns in skeletal muscle and physical performance outcomes would further our knowledge of mechanisms related with proteostasis and healthy aging. Muscle biopsies were obtained from participants in the Study of Muscle, Mobility, and Aging (SOMMA). For 575 participants, RNA was sequenced and expression of 281 genes related to...Published: Wednesday, April 17, 2024 2024 European Heart Rhythm Association/Heart Rhythm Society/Asia Pacific Heart Rhythm Society/Latin American Heart Rhythm Society expert consensus statement on catheter and surgical ablation of atrial fibrillationDescription: In the last three decades, ablation of atrial fibrillation (AF) has become an evidence-based safe and efficacious treatment for managing the most common cardiac arrhythmia. In 2007, the first joint expert consensus document was issued, guiding healthcare professionals involved in catheter or surgical AF ablation. Mounting research evidence and technological advances have resulted in a rapidly changing landscape in the field of catheter and surgical AF ablation, thus stressing the need for...Published: Friday, April 12, 2024 European Heart Rhythm Association (EHRA)/Heart Rhythm Society (HRS)/Asia Pacific Heart Rhythm Society (APHRS)/Latin American Heart Rhythm Society (LAHRS) expert consensus statement on catheter and surgical ablation of atrial fibrillationDescription: No abstractPublished: Wednesday, April 10, 2024 2024 European Heart Rhythm Association/Heart Rhythm Society/Asia Pacific Heart Rhythm Society/Latin American Heart Rhythm Society expert consensus statement on catheter and surgical ablation of atrial fibrillationDescription: In the last three decades, ablation of atrial fibrillation (AF) has become an evidence-based safe and efficacious treatment for managing the most common cardiac arrhythmia. In 2007, the first joint expert consensus document was issued, guiding healthcare professionals involved in catheter or surgical AF ablation. Mounting research evidence and technological advances have resulted in a rapidly changing landscape in the field of catheter and surgical AF ablation, thus stressing the need for...Published: Monday, April 8, 2024 Involution of brown adipose tissue through a Syntaxin 4 dependent pyroptosis pathwayDescription: Aging, chronic high-fat diet feeding, or housing at thermoneutrality induces brown adipose tissue (BAT) involution, a process characterized by reduction of BAT mass and function with increased lipid droplet size. Single nuclei RNA sequencing of aged mice identifies a specific brown adipocyte population of Ucp1-low cells that are pyroptotic and display a reduction in the longevity gene syntaxin 4 (Stx4a). Similar to aged brown adipocytes, Ucp1-STX4KO mice display loss of brown adipose tissue mass...Published: Tuesday, April 2, 2024 Human Adenovirus B3 Associated Colitis and Hemophagocytic Lymphohistiocytosis in 9-year-old Previously Healthy GirlDescription: No abstractPublished: Tuesday, March 19, 2024 The β-catenin C terminus links Wnt and sphingosine-1-phosphate signaling pathways to promote vascular remodeling and atherosclerosisDescription: Canonical Wnt and sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P) signaling pathways are highly conserved systems that contribute to normal vertebrate development, with key consequences for immune, nervous, and cardiovascular system function; despite these functional overlaps, little is known about Wnt/β-catenin-S1P cross-talk. In the vascular system, both Wnt/β-catenin and S1P signals affect vessel maturation, stability, and barrier function, but information regarding their potential coordination is scant. We...Published: Wednesday, March 13, 2024 Thrombopoietin mimetic stimulates bone marrow vascular and stromal niches to mitigate acute radiation syndromeDescription: CONCLUSIONS: TPOm interacts with BM vascular and stromal niches to locally support hematopoietic reconstitution and systemically improve survival in mice after TBI. Therefore, this work warrants the development of TPOm as a potent radiation MCM for the treatment of ARS.Published: Monday, March 11, 2024 International consensus guidelines for the definition, detection, and interpretation of autophagy-dependent ferroptosisDescription: Macroautophagy/autophagy is a complex degradation process with a dual role in cell death that is influenced by the cell types that are involved and the stressors they are exposed to. Ferroptosis is an iron-dependent oxidative form of cell death characterized by unrestricted lipid peroxidation in the context of heterogeneous and plastic mechanisms. Recent studies have shed light on the involvement of specific types of autophagy (e.g. ferritinophagy, lipophagy, and clockophagy) in initiating or...Published: Tuesday, March 5, 2024 Improving Unrelated Donor Equity: Assessing Mismatched Donor Opportunities with Real-World Data in a Minority-Predominant CohortDescription: Recent advances in graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) prophylaxis including post-transplant cyclophosphamide (PTCy) and abatacept have significantly improved outcomes following HLA-mismatched allogenic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT) and have tremendous potential for reducing racial disparities in donor availability. A recent small study employing bone marrow as the source of stem cells showed similar outcomes after 5/8 versus 7/8 matches and is currently being tested in a...Published: Wednesday, February 28, 2024 Inflammation in Development and Aging: Insights from the Zebrafish ModelDescription: Zebrafish are an emergent animal model to study human diseases due to their significant genetic similarity to humans, swift development, and genetic manipulability. Their utility extends to the exploration of the involvement of inflammation in host defense, immune responses, and tissue regeneration. Additionally, the zebrafish model system facilitates prompt screening of chemical compounds that affect inflammation. This study explored the diverse roles of inflammatory pathways in zebrafish...Published: Saturday, February 24, 2024 Loss of the endoplasmic reticulum protein Tmem208 affects cell polarity, development, and viabilityDescription: Nascent proteins destined for the cell membrane and the secretory pathway are targeted to the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) either posttranslationally or cotranslationally. The signal-independent pathway, containing the protein TMEM208, is one of three pathways that facilitates the translocation of nascent proteins into the ER. The in vivo function of this protein is ill characterized in multicellular organisms. Here, we generated a CRISPR-induced null allele of the fruit fly ortholog...Published: Wednesday, February 21, 2024 Immunotherapy-resistant acute lymphoblastic leukemia cells exhibit reduced CD19 and CD22 expression and BTK pathway dependencyDescription: While therapies targeting CD19 by antibodies, chimeric antigen receptor T cells (CAR-T), and T cell engagers have improved the response rates in B cell malignancies, the emergence of resistant cell populations with low CD19 expression can lead to relapsed disease. We developed an in vitro model of adaptive resistance facilitated by chronic exposure of leukemia cells to a CD19 immunotoxin. Single-cell RNA-Seq (scRNA-Seq) showed an increase in transcriptionally distinct CD19lo populations among...Published: Tuesday, February 20, 2024 Broad de-regulated U2AF1 splicing is prognostic and augments leukemic transformation via protein arginine methyltransferase activationDescription: The role of splicing dysregulation in cancer is underscored by splicing factor mutations; however, its impact in the absence of such rare mutations is poorly understood. To reveal complex patient subtypes and putative regulators of pathogenic splicing in Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML), we developed a new approach called OncoSplice. Among diverse new subtypes, OncoSplice identified a biphasic poor prognosis signature that partially phenocopies U2AF1-mutant splicing, impacting thousands of genes in...Published: Monday, February 19, 2024 RNA helicase DDX3 regulates RAD51 localization and DNA damage repair in Ewing sarcomaDescription: We previously demonstrated that RNA helicase DDX3X (DDX3) can be a therapeutic target in Ewing sarcoma (EWS), but its role in EWS biology remains unclear. The present work demonstrates that DDX3 plays a unique role in DNA damage repair (DDR). We show that DDX3 interacts with several proteins involved in homologous recombination, including RAD51, RECQL1, RPA32, and XRCC2. In particular, DDX3 colocalizes with RAD51 and RNA:DNA hybrid structures in the cytoplasm of EWS cells. Inhibition of DDX3 RNA...Published: Wednesday, February 7, 2024 Treatment decision for recurrences in non-small cell lung cancer during or after adjuvant osimertinib: an international Delphi consensus reportDescription: INTRODUCTION: Osimertinib is recommended by major guidelines for use in the adjuvant setting in patients with EGFR mutation-positive NSCLC following the significant improvement in disease-free survival observed in the Phase III ADAURA trials. Due to limited real-world data in the adjuvant setting, little guidance exists on how to approach potential recurrences either during or after the completion of the treatment. This study aimed to reach a broad consensus on key treatment decision criteria in...Published: Wednesday, February 7, 2024 Cell surface RNAs control neutrophil recruitmentDescription: RNAs localizing to the outer cell surface have been recently identified in mammalian cells, including RNAs with glycan modifications known as glycoRNAs. However, the functional significance of cell surface RNAs and their production are poorly known. We report that cell surface RNAs are critical for neutrophil recruitment and that the mammalian homologs of the sid-1 RNA transporter are required for glycoRNA expression. Cell surface RNAs can be readily detected in murine neutrophils, the...Published: Tuesday, January 23, 2024 Signaling events at TMEM doorways provide potential targets for inhibiting breast cancer disseminationDescription: Tumor cell intravasation is essential for metastatic dissemination, but its exact mechanism is incompletely understood. We have previously shown that in breast cancer, the direct and stable association of a tumor cell expressing Mena, a Tie2^(hi)/VEGF^(hi) macrophage, and a vascular endothelial cell, creates an intravasation portal, called a "tumor microenvironment of metastasis" (TMEM) doorway, for tumor cell intravasation, leading to dissemination to distant sites. The density of TMEM...Published: Tuesday, January 23, 2024 Founding the Wnt gene family: How wingless was found to be a positional signal and oncogene homologDescription: The Wnt family of developmental regulators were named after the Drosophila segmentation gene wingless and the murine proto-oncogene int-1. Homology between these two genes connected oncogenesis to cell-cell signals in development. I review how wingless was initially characterized, and cloned, as part of the quest to identify developmental cell-to-cell signals, based on predictions of the Positional Information Model, and on the properties of homeotic and segmentation gene mutants. The...Published: Friday, January 12, 2024 Iron chelation improves ineffective erythropoiesis and iron overload in myelodysplastic syndrome miceDescription: Myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) is a heterogeneous group of bone marrow stem cell disorders characterized by ineffective hematopoiesis and cytopenias, most commonly anemia. Red cell transfusion therapy for anemia in MDS results in iron overload, correlating with reduced overall survival. Whether the treatment of iron overload benefits MDS patients remains controversial. We evaluate underlying iron-related pathophysiology and the effect of iron chelation using deferiprone on erythropoiesis in...Published: Thursday, December 28, 2023 Nucleic acid-induced inflammation on hematopoietic stem cellsDescription: Hematopoiesis, the process of generating blood cells, starts during development with the primitive, pro-definitive, and definitive hematopoietic waves. The first two waves will generate erythrocytes and myeloid cells, although the definitive wave will give rise to hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) that are multipotent and can produce most of the blood cells in an adult. Although HSCs are highly proliferative during development, during adulthood they remain quiescent in the bone marrow....Published: Wednesday, December 27, 2023 Molecular determinants of the crosstalk between endosomal microautophagy and chaperone-mediated autophagyDescription: Chaperone-mediated autophagy (CMA) and endosomal microautophagy (eMI) are pathways for selective degradation of cytosolic proteins in lysosomes and late endosomes, respectively. These autophagic processes share as a first step the recognition of the same five-amino-acid motif in substrate proteins by the Hsc70 chaperone, raising the possibility of coordinated activity of both pathways. In this work, we show the existence of a compensatory relationship between CMA and eMI and identify a role for...Published: Thursday, December 7, 2023 NGLY1 mutations cause protein aggregation in human neuronsDescription: Biallelic mutations in the gene that encodes the enzyme N-glycanase 1 (NGLY1) cause a rare disease with multi-symptomatic features including developmental delay, intellectual disability, neuropathy, and seizures. NGLY1's activity in human neural cells is currently not well understood. To understand how NGLY1 gene loss leads to the specific phenotypes of NGLY1 deficiency, we employed direct conversion of NGLY1 patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) to functional cortical neurons....Published: Friday, December 1, 2023 Autophagy gene expression in skeletal muscle of older individuals is associated with physical performance, muscle volume and mitochondrial function in the Study of Muscle, Mobility and Aging (SOMMA)Description: Autophagy is an essential component of proteostasis and a key pathway in aging. Identifying associations between autophagy gene expression patterns in skeletal muscle and physical performance outcomes would further our knowledge of mechanisms related with proteostasis and healthy aging. Muscle biopsies were obtained from participants in the Study of Muscle, Mobility and Aging (SOMMA). For 575 participants, RNA was sequenced and expression of 281 genes related to autophagy regulation, mitophagy...Published: Tuesday, November 14, 2023 Ups and downs of lysosomal pH: conflicting roles of LAMP proteins?Description: The acidic pH of lysosomes is critical for catabolism in eukaryotic cells and is altered in neurodegenerative disease including Alzheimer and Parkinson. Recent reports using Drosophila and mammalian cell culture systems have identified novel and, at first sight, conflicting roles for the lysosomal associated membrane proteins (LAMPs) in the regulation of the endolysosomal system.Abbreviation: AD: Alzheimer disease; LAMP: lysosomal associated membrane protein; LTR: LysoTracker; PD: Parkinson...Published: Tuesday, November 14, 2023 Impact of race and ethnicity on early mortality in multiple myeloma: a SEER analysisDescription: Over the past two decades, there have been significant advances in the treatment of multiple myeloma which has led to an improvement in overall survival (OS) (1,2). However, a notable proportion of patients continue to experience early mortality (EM), defined as two years from the time of diagnosis. This raises the possibility that improvements in myeloma survival have not extended equally to all groups. Using the latest data drawn from the Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results (SEER)...Published: Thursday, October 26, 2023 Delayed Solid Tumor Presentations in Adolescent and Young Adults Patients in the BronxDescription: Adolescent and young adults (AYAs) require support from their parents and caregivers. While there are formal programs available for patients with complex medical problems, <20% of pediatric practices are performing transition readiness processes in patients aged 12-17 years to effective transition. Although cancer is the most common cause of disease-related death in AYAs in high-income countries, AYA oncology patients have not attained the same clinical improvements as pediatric patients, and...Published: Monday, October 23, 2023 Protocol for assessing translation in living Drosophila imaginal discs by O-propargyl-puromycin incorporationDescription: Translation is a fundamental process of cellular behavior. Here, we present a protocol for measuring translation in Drosophila epithelial tissues using O-propargyl-puromycin (OPP), a puromycin derivative. We detail steps for larval dissection, OPP incorporation, fixation, OPP labeling, immunostaining, and imaging. We also provide details of quantification analysis. Significantly, OPP addition to methionine-containing media enables polypeptide labeling in living cells. Here, we study wing...Published: Friday, October 20, 2023 A noncanonical function of SKP1 regulates the switch between autophagy and unconventional secretionDescription: Intracellular degradation of proteins and organelles by the autophagy-lysosome system is essential for cellular quality control and energy homeostasis. Besides degradation, endolysosomal organelles can fuse with the plasma membrane and contribute to unconventional secretion. Here, we identify a function for mammalian SKP1 in endolysosomes that is independent of its established role as an essential component of the family of SCF/CRL1 ubiquitin ligases. We found that, under nutrient-poor...Published: Friday, October 13, 2023 Unanticipated domain requirements for Drosophila Wnk kinase in vivoDescription: WNK (With no Lysine [K]) kinases have critical roles in the maintenance of ion homeostasis and the regulation of cell volume. Their overactivation leads to pseudohypoaldosteronism type II (Gordon syndrome) characterized by hyperkalemia and high blood pressure. More recently, WNK family members have been shown to be required for the development of the nervous system in mice, zebrafish, and flies, and the cardiovascular system of mice and fish. Furthermore, human WNK2 and Drosophila Wnk modulate...Published: Wednesday, October 11, 2023 Phosphoproteome analysis of the crosstalk between sumoylation and phosphorylation in mouse spermatocytesDescription: Spermatogenesis is supported by various posttranslational modifications. There is growing evidence supporting a crosstalk between sumoylation and phosphorylation in different cell types. We have recently shown that inhibition of global sumoylation with a sumoylation inhibitor (Ginkgolic acid, GA) arrested purified mouse spermatocytes in vitro; the spermatocytes could not condense chromatin and disassemble the synaptonemal complex. Our data have also revealed that some kinases regulating the...Published: Monday, October 2, 2023 Complement C3 Reduces Apoptosis via Interaction with the Intrinsic Apoptotic PathwayDescription: Myocardial ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) elicits an acute inflammatory response involving complement factors. Recently, we reported that myocardial necrosis was decreased in complement C3^(-/-) mice after heart I/R. The current study used the same heart model to test the effect of C3 on myocardial apoptosis and investigated if C3 regulation of apoptosis occurred in human cardiomyocytes. Comparative proteomics analyses found that cytochrome c was present in the myocardial C3 complex of WT mice...Published: Thursday, September 28, 2023 Interplay between diet, circulating indolepropionate concentrations and cardiometabolic health in US populationsDescription: CONCLUSIONS: Specific microbial species and dietary fibre jointly predicted significantly higher circulating IPA concentrations at higher tryptophan intake. Dietary and plasma tryptophan, as well as its kynurenine pathway metabolites, demonstrated divergent associations from those for IPA, which was significantly predictive of lower risk of T2D.Published: Friday, September 22, 2023 Primary central nervous system lymphoma: treatment access and outcomes in HIV positive patients in a minority rich cohortDescription: No abstractPublished: Monday, September 4, 2023 Ferroptosis in cancer immunity and immunotherapy: Multifaceted interplay and clinical implicationsDescription: Ferroptosis is a type of cell death characterized by iron-dependent phospholipid peroxidation and reactive oxygen species overproduction. Ferroptosis induces immunogenic cell death and elicits anti-tumor immune responses, playing an important role in cancer immunotherapy. Ferroptosis suppression in cancer cells impairs its immunotherapeutic efficacy. To overcome this issue, ferroptosis inducers (FINs) have been combined with other cancer therapies to create an anti-tumor immune microenvironment....Published: Friday, September 1, 2023 Next-generation sequencing of baseline genetic mutations and outcomes of eltrombopag and azacitidine therapy in patients with myelodysplastic syndromes and thrombocytopenia: Data from the SUPPORT clinical trialDescription: Eltrombopag has been previously shown to be effective in reversing azacitidine-mediated thrombocytopenia. This was further investigated in the SUPPORT trial, a phase III study assessing the efficacy/safety of eltrombopag plus azacitidine in patients with intermediate- to high-risk myelodysplastic syndromes and thrombocytopenia. The results did not support a clinical benefit for the addition of eltrombopag to azacitidine. We investigated if the somatic mutational profiles in the patient cohort...Published: Monday, August 21, 2023 Association of HIV and viral suppression status with hospital acute kidney injury in the era of antiretroviral therapyDescription: In the modern era, it is unknown if people that are virally suppressed with HIV (PWH) are at increased risk for acute kidney injury (AKI) compared to people without HIV and no studies have compared the risk of AKI by viral suppression status. Here, we determined the associations of HIV status and AKI among PWH with and without viral suppression compared to people without HIV. An observational cohort study of PWH and people without HIV hospitalized in a large New York City health system between...Published: Sunday, August 20, 2023 Drivers of Differential Time to Diagnosis in Pediatric ALL Tied to Race and EthnicityDescription: Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is the most common childhood malignancy, with diagnosis preceded by symptoms that may include fever, weight loss, fatigue, bleeding, and bruising. Timely diagnosis and treatment of ALL may lead to improved outcomes and reduced morbidity from associated complications, including tumor lysis syndrome, hyperviscosity, and stroke. We performed a retrospective cohort analysis of 274 pediatric pre-B cell ALL and acute lymphoblastic lymphoma patients within Montefiore...Published: Tuesday, August 1, 2023 Role of IL8 in myeloid malignanciesDescription: Aberrant overexpression of Interleukin-8 (IL8) has been reported in Myelodysplastic Syndromes (MDS), Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML), Myeloproliferative Neoplasms (MPNs) and other myeloid malignancies. IL8 (CXCL8) is a CXC chemokine that is secreted by aberrant hematopoietic stem and progenitors as well as other cells in the tumor microenvironment. IL8 can bind to CXCR1/CXCR2 receptors and activate oncogenic signaling pathways, and also increase the recruitment of myeloid derived suppressor cells...Published: Wednesday, July 19, 2023 SF3B1 mutation and ATM deletion codrive leukemogenesis via centromeric R-loop dysregulationDescription: RNA splicing factor SF3B1 is recurrently mutated in various cancers, particularly in hematologic malignancies. We previously reported that coexpression of Sf3b1 mutation and Atm deletion in B cells, but not either lesion alone, leads to the onset of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) with CLL cells harboring chromosome amplification. However, the exact role of Sf3b1 mutation and Atm deletion in chromosomal instability (CIN) remains unclear. Here, we demonstrated that SF3B1 mutation promotes...Published: Tuesday, July 18, 2023 Acute myeloid leukemias with JAK2/STAT mutations are associated with PD-L1 upregulationDescription: Even though overexpression of the immune checkpoint protein, programmed cell death ligand-1 (PD-L1), is observed in solid tumors, its expression patterns in acute myeloid leukemia remain understudied. As activation of the JAK/STAT pathway has been shown to enhance PD-L1 expression in preclinical models, we evaluated biopsies from AML patients with activating mutations in JAK2/STATs. PD-L1 expression was significantly upregulated in JAK2/STAT mutant cases when compared to JAK2 wildtype controls...Published: Monday, July 10, 2023 Role of innate immunological/inflammatory pathways in myelodysplastic syndromes and AML: a narrative reviewDescription: Dysregulation of the innate immune system and inflammatory-related pathways has been implicated in hematopoietic defects in the bone marrow microenvironment and associated with aging, clonal hematopoiesis, myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS), and acute myeloid leukemia (AML). As the innate immune system and its pathway regulators have been implicated in the pathogenesis of MDS/AML, novel approaches targeting these pathways have shown promising results. Variability in expression of Toll like...Published: Saturday, July 8, 2023 Anaplastic thyroid cancer cells upregulate mitochondrial one-carbon metabolism to meet purine demand, eliciting a critical targetable vulnerabilityDescription: Anaplastic thyroid cancer (ATC) is one of the most aggressive and lethal tumor types, characterized by loss of differentiation, epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition, extremely high proliferation rate, and generalized resistance to therapy. To identify novel relevant, targetable molecular alterations, we analyzed gene expression profiles from a genetically engineered ATC mouse model and from human patient datasets, and found consistent upregulation of genes encoding enzymes involved in the...Published: Saturday, July 8, 2023 A zebrafish xenotransplant model of anaplastic thyroid cancer to study the tumor microenvironment and innate immune cell interactions in vivoDescription: Anaplastic thyroid cancer (ATC) is a rare malignant subtype of thyroid cancer. While ATC is rare it accounts for a disproportionately high number of thyroid cancer-related deaths. Here we developed an ATC xenotransplant model in zebrafish larvae, where we can study tumorigenesis and therapeutic response in vivo. Using both mouse (T4888M) and human (C643) derived fluorescently labeled ATC cell lines we show these cell lines display different engraftment rates, mass volume, proliferation, and...Published: Monday, July 3, 2023 The FAT1 Cadherin Drives Vascular Smooth Muscle Cell MigrationDescription: Vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) are normally quiescent and non-migratory, regulating the contraction and relaxation of blood vessels to control the vascular tone. In response to arterial injury, these cells become active; they proliferate, secrete matrix proteins, and migrate, and thereby contribute importantly to the progression of several cardiovascular diseases. VSMC migration specifically supports atherosclerosis, restenosis after catheter-based intervention, transplant vasculopathy,...Published: Wednesday, June 28, 2023 Association of marijuana, tobacco and alcohol use with estimated glomerular filtration rate in women living with HIV and women without HIVDescription: CONCLUSION: Among a large cohort of WWH and women without HIV, marijuana use was associated with a lower eGFR while alcohol use was associated with a higher eGFR.Published: Friday, June 23, 2023 A Metabolically Optimized, Noncytotoxic Low-Dose Weekly Decitabine/Venetoclax in MDS and AMLDescription: CONCLUSIONS: This preliminary clinical experience, although retrospective, provides proof-of-activity of noncytotoxic DNA methyltransferase 1-targeting by allowing frequent, sustained drug exposure often not possible with standard HMA/VEN regimens.Published: Wednesday, June 21, 2023 RNA Helicase DDX3 Regulates RAD51 Localization and DNA Damage Repair in Ewing SarcomaDescription: We previously demonstrated that RNA helicase DDX3X (DDX3) can be a therapeutic target in Ewing sarcoma (EWS), but its role in EWS biology remains unclear. The present work demonstrates that DDX3 plays a unique role in DNA damage repair (DDR). We show that DDX3 interacts with several proteins involved in homologous recombination, including RAD51, RECQL1, RPA32, and XRCC2. In particular, DDX3 colocalizes with RAD51 and RNA:DNA hybrid structures in the cytoplasm of EWS cells. Inhibition of DDX3 RNA...Published: Monday, June 19, 2023 Haploinsufficiency of the essential gene Rps12 causes defects in erythropoiesis and hematopoietic stem cell maintenanceDescription: Ribosomal protein (Rp) gene haploinsufficiency can result in Diamond-Blackfan Anemia (DBA), characterized by defective erythropoiesis and skeletal defects. Some mouse Rp mutations recapitulate DBA phenotypes, although others lack erythropoietic or skeletal defects. We generated a conditional knockout mouse to partially delete Rps12. Homozygous Rps12 deletion resulted in embryonic lethality. Mice inheriting the Rps12^(KO/+) genotype had growth and morphological defects, pancytopenia, and impaired...Published: Monday, June 5, 2023 Ribosomal protein mutations and cell competition: autonomous and nonautonomous effects on a stress responseDescription: Ribosomal proteins (Rps) are essential for viability. Genetic mutations affecting Rp genes were first discovered in Drosophila, where they represent a major class of haploinsufficient mutations. One mutant copy gives rise to the dominant "Minute" phenotype, characterized by slow growth and small, thin bristles. Wild-type (WT) and Minute cells compete in mosaics, that is, Rp+/- are preferentially lost when their neighbors are of the wild-type genotype. Many features of Rp gene haploinsufficiency...Published: Friday, June 2, 2023