The Mediator Complex plays key roles in activating gene transcription in eukaryotes. Mediator of RNA polymerase II transcription subunit 12 homolog (MED12) is a subunit of the Mediator Complex and regulates the activity of the complex. MED12 is involved in a variety of cellular activities, and mutations in
Stem cell niche is a specialized microenvironment crucial to self-renewal. The testis in
Heterochromatic siRNAs regulate transcriptional gene silencing by inducing DNA methylation and histone H3K9 dimethylation. Recent advances have revealed the distinct phases involved in siRNA mediated silencing pathway, although the precise functions of a number of factors remain undesignated, putative mechanisms for the connection between DNA and histone methylation have been investigated, and much effort has been invested to understand the biological functions of siRNA-mediated epigenetic modification. In this review, we summarize the mechanism of siRNA-mediated epigenetic modification, which involves the production of siRNA and the recruitments of DNA and histone methytransferases to the target sequences assisted by complementary pairing between 24-nt siRNAs and nascent scaffold RNAs, the roles of siRNAmediated epigenetic modification in maintaining genome stability and regulating gene expression have been discussed, newly identified players of the siRNA mediated silencing pathway have also been introduced.
Cladistics is a biological philosophy that uses genealogical relationship among species and an inferred sequence of divergence as the basis of classification. This review critically surveys the chronological development of biological classification from Aristotle through our postgenomic era with a central focus on cladistics. In 1957, Julian Huxley coined cladogenesis to denote splitting from subspeciation. In 1960, the English translation of Willi Hennig’s 1950 work,
Prostate cancer (PCa) is the second most frequently diagnosed malignancy in men. Ge nome-wide association st udies (GWAS) has been highly successful in discovering susceptibility loci for prostate cancer. Currently, more than twenty GWAS have identified more than fifty common variants associated with susceptibility with PCa. Yet with the increase in loci, voices from the scientific society are calling for more. In this review, we summarize current findings, discuss the common problems troubling current studies and shed light upon possible breakthroughs in the future. GWAS is the beginning of something wonderful. Although we are quite near the end of the beginning, post-GWAS studies are just taking off and future studies are needed extensively. It is believed that in the future GWAS information will be helpful to build a comprehensive system intergraded with PCa prevention, diagnosis, molecular classification, personalized therapy.
TRAF4 is a unique member of TRAF family, which is essential for innate immune response, nervous system and other systems. In addition to being an adaptor protein, TRAF4 was identifi ed as a regulator protein in recent studies. We have determined the crystal structure of TRAF domain of TRAF4 (residues 292-466) at 2.60 ? resolution by X-ray crystallography method. The trimericly assembled TRAF4 resembles a mushroom shape, containing a super helical “stalk” which is made of three right-handed intertwined α helixes and a C-terminal “cap”, which is divided at residue L302 as a boundary. Similar to other TRAFs, both intermolecular hydrophobic interaction in super helical “stalk” and hydrogen bonds in “cap” regions contribute directly to the formation of TRAF4 trimer. However, differing from other TRAFs, there is an additional flexible loop (residues 421-426), which contains a previously identified phosphorylated site S426 exposing on the surface. This S426 was reported to be phosphorylated by IKKα which is the pre-requisite for TRAF4-NOD2 complex formation and thus to inhibit NOD2-induced NF-κB activation. Therefore, the crystal structure of TRAF4-TRAF is valuable for understanding its molecular basis for its special function and provides structural information for further studies.
The F-BAR domain containing proteins PACSINs are cytoplasmic phosphoproteins involved in various membrane deformations, such as actin reorganization, vesicle transport and microtubule movement. Our previous study shows that all PACSINs are composed of crescent shaped dimers with two wedge loops, and the wedge loopmediated lateral interaction between neighboring dimmers is important for protein packing and tubulation activity. Here, from the crystal packing of PACSIN 2, we observed a tight tip-to-tip interaction, in addition to the wedge loopmediated lateral interaction. With this tip-to-tip interaction, the whole packing of PACSIN 2 shows a spiral-like assembly with a central hole from the top view. Elimination of this tip-to-tip connection inhibited the tubulation function of PACSIN 2, indicating that tip-to-tip interaction plays an important role in membrane deformation activity. Together with our previous study, we proposed a packing model for the assembly of PACSIN 2 on membrane, where the proteins are connected by tip-to-tip and wedge loop-mediated lateral interactions on the surface of membrane to generate various diameter tubules.
SI RT6 is an important histone modifying protein that regulates DNA repair, telomere maintenance, energy metabolism, and target gene expression. Recently SIRT6 has been identifi ed as a tumor suppressor and is downregulated in certain cancer types, but not in other cancers. From deposited gene profi ling studies we found that SIRT6 was overexpressed in prostate tumors, compared with normal or paratumor prostate tissues. Tissue microarray studies confi rmed the higher levels of SIRT6 in both prostate tumor tissues and prostate cancer cells than in their normal counterparts. Knockdown of SIRT6 in human prostate cancer cells led to sub-G1 phase arrest of cell cycle, increased apoptosis, elevated DNA damage level and decrease in BCL2 gene expression. Moreover, SIRT6-deficiency reduced cell viability and enhanced chemotherapeutics sensitivity. Taken together, this study provides the fi rst evidence of SIRT6 overexpression in human prostate cancer, and SIRT6 regulation could be exploited for prostate cancer therapy.
Mutations in