Biochemistry and Cell Biology

Protein arginine methyltransferase 1 (PRMT1) is a major type I arginine methyltransferase that catalyzes the formation of monomethyl and asymmetric dimethylarginine in protein substrates. It was first identified to asymmetrically methylate histone H4 at the 3rd arginine residue forming the H4R3me2a active histone mark. However, several protein substrates are now identified as being methylated by PRMT1. As a result of its association with diverse classes of substrates, PRMT1 regulates several biological processes like chromatin dynamics, transcription, RNA processing, and signal transduction...

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is one of the hematological malignancies with a high recurrence rate. WW domain-containing E3 ubiquitin protein ligase 2 (WWP2) is identified as a pivotal regulator of tumor progression. This study aimed to assess the possible role of WWP2 in AML. Analysis of the GEPIA database indicated an elevated WWP2 expression in AML. We established stable WWP2-overexpressed or WWP2-silenced cells using lentivirus loaded with cDNA encoding WWP2 mRNA or shRNA targeting WWP2. Notably, WWP2 overexpression facilitated cell proliferation and cell cycle progression, which was manifested as the increase of colony formation number, S-phase percentage and cell cycle related protein levels...

Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) is a common malignancy with high morbidity and mortality. Insulin-like growth factor 2 mRNA-binding protein 2 (IGF2BP2) serves as a reader of RNA m6A (N6 methyladenosine) modification to regulate gene expression at the post-transcriptional level. Emerging evidence suggests that IGF2BP2 plays critical roles in tumorigenesis and malignant development. However, the biological function and molecular mechanism of IGF2BP2 in ESCC are not well understood. Here, we found that IGF2BP2 expression was upregulated in esophageal cancer tissues and ESCC cells, and IGF2BP2 overexpression enhanced proliferation, migration, invasion, and stem cell-like properties of ESCC cells...

Globally, retinal disorders impact thousands of individuals. Early diagnosis and treatment of these anomalies might halt their development and prevent many people from developing preventable blindness. Iris spot segmentation is critical due to acquiring iris cellular images that suffer from the off-angle iris, noise, and specular reflection. Most currently used iris segmentation techniques are based on edge data and non-cellular images. The size of pigment patches on the surface of iris increases with eye syndrome...

From 19 to 21 November 2022, BioCanRx held its first post-pandemic in-person Summit for Cancer Immunotherapy in Montreal, Canada. The meeting was well attended by patients, trainees, researchers, clinicians, and industry professionals, who came together to discuss the current state and future of biotherapeutics for cancer in Canada and beyond. Three plenaries, three keynote speakers, a lively debate, and panel discussions, together with poster sessions and a social event, made the event memorable and productive...

Acute T-lymphocyte leukemia (T-ALL) is a malignant tumor disease. RNA-binding protein Neotumor ventral antigen-1 (NOVA1) is highly expressed in bone marrow mononuclear cells of T-ALL patients, while its role in T-ALL progression remains unknown. Here, the gain- and loss-of-function studies for NOVA1 were performed using lentivirus-mediated NOVA1 overexpression/knockdown in Jurkat and CCRF-CEM cells. NOVA1 overexpression promoted cell proliferation and cell cycle progression. NOVA1 knockdown increased the apoptosis rate of T-ALL cells...

Zika virus (ZIKV) infection remains a worldwide concern, and currently, no effective treatments or vaccines are available. Novel therapeutics are an avenue of interest that could probe viral RNA-human protein communication to stop viral replication. One specific RNA structure, G-quadruplexes (G4s), possess various roles in viruses and all domains of life, including transcription and translation regulation, genome stability, and serving as nucleation points for RNA liquid-liquid phase separation. Previous G4 studies on ZIKV using a Quadruplex forming G-Rich Sequences (QGRS) Mapper located a potential G-quadruplex sequence (PQS) in the 3' terminal region (TR) and was validated structurally using a 25-mer oligo...

Human MURFs (muscle-specific RING finger) are members of the TRIM (tripartite motif) family of proteins characterized by their COS (C-terminal subgroup one signature) domain. MURFs play a role in sarcomere formation and microtubule dynamics. It was previously established that some TRIMs undergo post-translational modification by SUMO. In this study, we explored the putative SUMOylation of MURF proteins as well as their interactions with SUMO. MURF proteins (TRIM54, TRIM55 and TRIM63) were not found to be SUMOylated...

The International Asilomar Chromatin, Chromosomes, and Epigenetics Conference was held online from December 8 - 10, 2022. Topics of this year's conference included chromosome dysregulation, genome integrity, nuclear organization, regulation of chromatin, epigenetics, transcription, and gene regulation in cell differentiation and disease. The meeting featured four keynote speakers including Yamini Dalal (National Cancer Institute, USA), Meaghan Jones (University of Manitoba, Canada), Pedro Rocha (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, USA), and Vincent Pasque (University of Leuven, Belgium)...

The cGAS-STING axis integrates DNA damage and cellular stress with type I interferon (IFN) signalling to facilitate transcriptional changes underlying inflammatory stress responses. The cGAS-STING pathway responds to cytosolic DNA in the form of dsDNA, micronuclei, and LINE-1 (L1) retroelements. L1 retroelements are a class of self-propagating non-LTR transposons that have remained highly active in our genomes. L1 retroelements are emerging as important inducers of cGAS-STING and interferon signalling, which are often dysregulated in several diseases including cancer...

Cerebral Microbleeds (CMBs) in the brain are the essential indicators of critical brain disorders such as dementia and ischemic stroke. Generally, CMBs are detected manually by experts which is an exhaustive task with limited productivity. Since, CMBs have complex morphological nature, so manual detection is prone to errors. This paper presents a machine learning-based automated Cerebral Microbleeds detection technique in the brain SWI scans based on statistical feature extraction and classification. The proposed method consists of three steps: 1...

NDUFA4 is a component of respiratory chain-oxidative phosphorylation pathway. NDUFA4 is highly expressed in tumor tissues, but little is known about the function of NDUFA4 in head and neck paraganglioma (HNPGL). We examined NDUFA4 expression in tissues from 10 HNPGL patients and 6 controls using qRT-PCR and Western blotting. NDUFA4 knockdown PGL-626 cells were established by using lentivirus infection and puromycin screening. Cell viability, ATP production, lipid reactive oxygen species, and mitochondrial membrane potential assays were performed to investigate the ferroptotic effects in NDUFA4 deficiency HNPGL cancer cells...

Here, a machine learning tool (YOLOv5) enables the detection of Cryptosporidium microorganisms using optical and phase contrast microscope images. The two databases were processed using 520 images (optical microscopy) and 1200 images (phase contrast microscopy). It used Python libraries to label, standardize the size, and crop the images to generate the input tensors to the YOLOv5 network (s, m, and l). It implemented two experiments using randomly initialized weights in optical and phase contrast microscope images...

Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are significant contributors in maintaining genomic integrity through epigenetic regulation. LncRNAs can interact with chromatin-modifying complexes in both cis and trans pathways, drawing them to specific genomic loci and influencing gene expression via DNA methylation, histone modifications, and chromatin remodeling. They can also operate as building blocks to assemble different chromatin-modifying components, facilitating their interactions and gene regulatory functions. Deregulation of these molecules has been associated with various human diseases, including cancer, cardiovascular disease, and neurological disorders...

Modulating the immune system to treat diseases, including myeloid malignancies, has resulted in the development of a multitude of novel therapeutics in recent years. Myelodysplastic syndromes or neoplasms (MDS) and acute myeloid leukemia (AML) are hematologic malignancies that arise from defects in hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs). Dysregulated immune responses, especially in innate immune and inflammatory pathways, are highly associated with the acquisition of HSPC defects in MDS and AML pathogenesis...

Lysosomal acid lipase deficiency (LALD) is an inborn error of metabolism that lacks satisfactory treatment, which leads to the development of severe hepatic and cardiac complications and may even lead to death. In this sense, knowledge of the mechanisms involved in the pathophysiology of this disorder becomes essential to allow the search for new therapeutic strategies. There are no studies in the literature investigating the role of reactive species and inflammatory processes in the pathophysiology of this disorder...

A medical disorder known as diabetic retinopathy (DR) affects people who suffer from diabetes. Globally many people visually impaired and blind due to diabetic retinopathy. The primary cause of DR in diabetic patients is high blood sugar and it affects blood vessels available in the retinal cell. The recent advancement in deep learning and computer vision methods, and its automation applications able to recognize present of DR in retinal cells and vessel images. Authors have proposed Attention-based hybrid model to extract features...

GPRC5A is the first member of a new class of orphan receptors coupled to G proteins, which also includes GPRC5B, GPRC5C, and GPRC5D. Since its cloning and identification in the 90s, substantial progress has been made in understanding the possible functions of this receptor. GPRC5A has been implicated in a variety of cellular events, such as cytoskeleton reorganization, cell proliferation, cell cycle regulation, migration, and survival. It appears to be a central player in different pathological processes, including tumorigenesis, inflammation, immune response, and tissue damage...

Nootkatone (NKT) exhibits potential pharmacological activities including anti-oxidation and anti-inflammation. Nevertheless, little is known about the roles of NKT in asthmatic airway inflammation. In the study, mice were sensitized and challenged with ovalbumin (OVA) to establish experimental allergic asthma model. After treatment with NKT, lung tissues, peripheral blood, and bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) were collected to assess inflammatory cytokines, oxidative stress, and pathological alternations...

Hypoxia, low, non-physiological oxygen tension is a key regulator of tumor microenvironment, determining the pathological tumor vascularization. Alleviation of hypoxia through vessel normalization may be a promising therapeutic approach. We aimed to assess the role of low oxygen tension in PTEN related pathways and proangiogenic response, in vitro, in two different tumor cell lines, focusing on potential therapeutic targets for tumor vessels normalization. Down-regulation of PTEN in hypoxia mediates the activation of distinct mechanisms: cytoplasmic pAKT activation in melanoma and pMDM2 modulation in kidney cancer...