Modeling the Basal Dynamics of P53 System

The tumor suppressor p53 has become one of most investigated genes. Once activated by stress, p53 leads to cellular responses such as cell cycle arrest and apoptosis.Most previous models have ignored the basal dynamics of p53 under nonstressed conditions. To explore the basal dynamics of p53, we constructed a stochastic delay model by incorporating two negative feedback loops. We found that protein distribution of p53 under nonstressed condition is highly skewed with a fraction of cells showing high p53 levels comparable to those observed under stressed conditions. Under nonstressed conditions, asynchronous and spontaneous p53 pulses are triggered by basal DNA double strand breaks produced during normal cell cycle progression. The first peaking times show a predominant G1 distribution while the second ones are more widely distributed. The spontaneous pulses are triggered by an excitable mechanism. Once initiated, the amplitude and duration of pulses remain unchanged. Furthermore, the spontaneous pulses are filtered by ataxia telangiectasia mutated protein mediated posttranslational modifications and do not result in substantial p21 transcription. If challenged by externally severe DNA damage, cells generate synchronous p53 pulses and induce significantly high levels of p21. The high expression of p21 can also be partially induced by lowering the deacetylation rate.Our results demonstrated that the dynamics of p53 under nonstressed conditions is initiated by an excitable mechanism and cells become fully responsive only when cells are confronted with severe damage. These findings advance our understanding of the mechanism of p53 pulses and unlock many opportunities to p53-based therapy

Import Substitution Industrialization [ISI]: An approach to Global Economic Sustainability

Globalisation has over the years brought about openness, thus creating an inextricable link among countries through various channels, including trade and investment. Consequently, there has been a substantial expansion in trade in goods and services and the flow of foreign direct investment between developed and developing countries. Even though, both have benefitted from this global openness, the balance of benefits is mainly tilted to developed countries, reinforced by the fact that developing countries have been importing more and exporting less to these countries – a reflection of the under-developed state of their industrial sector, which is evident in their export of mainly unrefined or primary products, with little or no value addition taking place. This gives attestation to the presence of an insignificant import substitution-oriented manufacturing activity in such countries, which have rendered them heavily reliant on imports for their survival – by extension making them highly susceptible to external risks and shocks. This brought about the inception of ISI, which originated from as early as in the 1930s through into the 1960s in Latin America and some parts of Asia and Africa – a notion that was meant to incorporate three stages, namely ‘domestic production of previously imported non-durable consumer goods, extension of production to a wide-range of consumer durables and complex manufactured items and finally, exporting of manufactured goods, with the vision of diversifying to multiple range of items’ (Bussell,, n/d)

How Important are Exports and Foreign Direct Investment for Economic Growth in the People's Republic of China?

The global financial crisis and the recent growth slowdown in the People's Republic of China (PRC) have led to questions about the sustainability of the PRC's growth. The commonly used argument is that the PRC is too dependent on external demand and that it needs to rebalance its economy toward domestic consumption. However, conventional measures of external demand - share of net exports and exports as a share of gross domestic product (GDP) - are biased and do not accurately measure the contribution of external demand to GDP growth. In this paper, the authors propose two measures that provide a more accurate estimate of the vulnerability of the PRC economy to external shocks, in the form of sudden drops in exports and foreign direct investment (FDI). Based on their findings, the authors conclude that the PRC economy remains highly dependent on external demand in the form of exports and FDI, and rebalancing the economy toward domestic demand has not yet been achieved

EMSY overexpression disrupts the BRCA2/RAD51 pathway in the DNA-damage response: implications for chromosomal instability/recombination syndromes as checkpoint diseases

EMSY links the BRCA2 pathway to sporadic breast/ovarian cancer. It encodes a nuclear protein that binds to the BRCA2 N-terminal domain implicated in chromatin/transcription regulation, but when sporadically amplified/overexpressed, increased EMSY level represses BRCA2 transactivation potential and induces chromosomal instability, mimicking the activity of BRCA2 mutations in the development of hereditary breast/ovarian cancer. In addition to chromatin/transcription regulation, EMSY may also play a role in the DNA-damage response, suggested by its ability to localize at chromatin sites of DNA damage/repair. This implies that EMSY overexpression may also repress BRCA2 in DNA-damage replication/checkpoint and recombination/repair, coordinated processes that also require its interacting proteins: PALB2, the partner and localizer of BRCA2; RPA, replication/checkpoint protein A; and RAD51, the inseparable recombination/repair enzyme. Here, using a well-characterized recombination/repair assay system, we demonstrate that a slight increase in EMSY level can indeed repress these two processes independently of transcriptional interference/repression. Since EMSY, RPA and PALB2 all bind to the same BRCA2 region, these findings further support a scenario wherein: (a) EMSY amplification may mimic BRCA2 deficiency, at least by overriding RPA and PALB2, crippling the BRCA2/RAD51 complex at DNA-damage and replication/transcription sites; and (b) BRCA2/RAD51 may coordinate these processes by employing at least EMSY, PALB2 and RPA. We extensively discuss the molecular details of how this can happen to ascertain its implications for a novel recombination mechanism apparently conceived as checkpoint rather than a DNA repair system for cell division, survival, death, and human diseases, including the tissue specificity of cancer predisposition, which may renew our thinking about targeted therapy and prevention

Millisecond dynamics of an unlabeled amino acid transporter

Excitatory amino acid transporters (EAATs) are important in many physiological processes and crucial for the removal of excitatory amino acids from the synaptic cleft. Here, we develop and apply high-speed atomic force microscopy line-scanning (HS-AFM-LS) combined with automated state assignment and transition analysis for the determination of transport dynamics of unlabeled membrane-reconstituted GltPh, a prokaryotic EAAT homologue, with millisecond temporal resolution. We find that GltPh transporters can operate much faster than previously reported, with state dwell-times in the 50 ms range, and report the kinetics of an intermediate transport state with height between the outward- and inward-facing states. Transport domains stochastically probe transmembrane motion, and reversible unsuccessful excursions to the intermediate state occur. The presented approach and analysis methodology are generally applicable to study transporter kinetics at system-relevant temporal resolution

Immunoglobulin, glucocorticoid, or combination therapy for multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children: a propensity-weighted cohort study

Background: Multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C), a hyperinflammatory condition associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection, has emerged as a serious illness in children worldwide. Immunoglobulin or glucocorticoids, or both, are currently recommended treatments. Methods: The Best Available Treatment Study evaluated immunomodulatory treatments for MIS-C in an international observational cohort. Analysis of the first 614 patients was previously reported. In this propensity-weighted cohort study, clinical and outcome data from children with suspected or proven MIS-C were collected onto a web-based Research Electronic Data Capture database. After excluding neonates and incomplete or duplicate records, inverse probability weighting was used to compare primary treatments with intravenous immunoglobulin, intravenous immunoglobulin plus glucocorticoids, or glucocorticoids alone, using intravenous immunoglobulin as the reference treatment. Primary outcomes were a composite of inotropic or ventilator support from the second day after treatment initiation, or death, and time to improvement on an ordinal clinical severity scale. Secondary outcomes included treatment escalation, clinical deterioration, fever, and coronary artery aneurysm occurrence and resolution. This study is registered with the ISRCTN registry, ISRCTN69546370. Findings: We enrolled 2101 children (aged 0 months to 19 years) with clinically diagnosed MIS-C from 39 countries between June 14, 2020, and April 25, 2022, and, following exclusions, 2009 patients were included for analysis (median age 8·0 years [IQR 4·2–11·4], 1191 [59·3%] male and 818 [40·7%] female, and 825 [41·1%] White). 680 (33·8%) patients received primary treatment with intravenous immunoglobulin, 698 (34·7%) with intravenous immunoglobulin plus glucocorticoids, 487 (24·2%) with glucocorticoids alone; 59 (2·9%) patients received other combinations, including biologicals, and 85 (4·2%) patients received no immunomodulators. There were no significant differences between treatments for primary outcomes for the 1586 patients with complete baseline and outcome data that were considered for primary analysis. Adjusted odds ratios for ventilation, inotropic support, or death were 1·09 (95% CI 0·75–1·58; corrected p value=1·00) for intravenous immunoglobulin plus glucocorticoids and 0·93 (0·58–1·47; corrected p value=1·00) for glucocorticoids alone, versus intravenous immunoglobulin alone. Adjusted average hazard ratios for time to improvement were 1·04 (95% CI 0·91–1·20; corrected p value=1·00) for intravenous immunoglobulin plus glucocorticoids, and 0·84 (0·70–1·00; corrected p value=0·22) for glucocorticoids alone, versus intravenous immunoglobulin alone. Treatment escalation was less frequent for intravenous immunoglobulin plus glucocorticoids (OR 0·15 [95% CI 0·11–0·20]; p<0·0001) and glucocorticoids alone (0·68 [0·50–0·93]; p=0·014) versus intravenous immunoglobulin alone. Persistent fever (from day 2 onward) was less common with intravenous immunoglobulin plus glucocorticoids compared with either intravenous immunoglobulin alone (OR 0·50 [95% CI 0·38–0·67]; p<0·0001) or glucocorticoids alone (0·63 [0·45–0·88]; p=0·0058). Coronary artery aneurysm occurrence and resolution did not differ significantly between treatment groups. Interpretation: Recovery rates, including occurrence and resolution of coronary artery aneurysms, were similar for primary treatment with intravenous immunoglobulin when compared to glucocorticoids or intravenous immunoglobulin plus glucocorticoids. Initial treatment with glucocorticoids appears to be a safe alternative to immunoglobulin or combined therapy, and might be advantageous in view of the cost and limited availability of intravenous immunoglobulin in many countries. Funding: Imperial College London, the European Union's Horizon 2020, Wellcome Trust, the Medical Research Foundation, UK National Institute for Health and Care Research, and National Institutes of Health