Library Reader Issue 02: Source Of Clarification

Library resource awareness poster covering the difference between primary, secondary, and tertiary sources, along with UNE Library resources which carry each.https://dune.une.edu/libraryreader/1001/thumbnail.jp

Bento: a toolkit for subcellular analysis of spatial transcriptomics data

The spatial organization of molecules in a cell is essential for their functions. While current methods focus on discerning tissue architecture, cell-cell interactions, and spatial expression patterns, they are limited to the multicellular scale. We present Bento, a Python toolkit that takes advantage of single-molecule information to enable spatial analysis at the subcellular scale. Bento ingests molecular coordinates and segmentation boundaries to perform three analyses: defining subcellular domains, annotating localization patterns, and quantifying gene-gene colocalization. We demonstrate MERFISH, seqFISH + , Molecular Cartography, and Xenium datasets. Bento is part of the open-source Scverse ecosystem, enabling integration with other single-cell analysis tools

Electrochemical Synthesis of Binary and Ternary Niobium-Containing Oxide Electrodes Using the <i>p</i>‑Benzoquinone/Hydroquinone Redox Couple

New electrochemical synthesis methods have been developed to obtain layered potassium niobates, KNb₃O₈ and K₄Nb₆O₁₇, and perovskite-type KNbO₃ as film-type electrodes. The electrodes were synthesized from aqueous solutions using the redox chemistry of <i>p</i>-benzoquinone and hydroquinone to change the local pH at the working electrode to trigger deposition of desired phases. In particular, the utilization of electrochemically generated acid via the oxidation of hydroquinone for inorganic film deposition was first demonstrated in this study. The layered potassium niobates could be converted to (H₃O)­Nb₃O₈ and (H₃O)₄Nb₆O₁₇ by cationic exchange, which, in turn, could be converted to Nb₂O₅ by heat treatment. The versatility of the new deposition method was further demonstrated for the formation of CuNb₂O₆ and AgNbO₃, which were prepared by the deposition of KNb₃O₈ and transition metal oxides, followed by thermal and chemical treatments. Considering the lack of solution-based synthesis methods for Nb-based oxide films, the methods reported in this study will contribute greatly to studies involving the synthesis and applications of Nb-based oxide electrodes

Mapping the nucleolar proteome reveals a spatiotemporal organization related to intrinsic protein disorder

Abstract The nucleolus is essential for ribosome biogenesis and is involved in many other cellular functions. We performed a systematic spatiotemporal dissection of the human nucleolar proteome using confocal microscopy. In total, 1,318 nucleolar proteins were identified; 287 were localized to fibrillar components, and 157 were enriched along the nucleoplasmic border, indicating a potential fourth nucleolar subcompartment: the nucleoli rim. We found 65 nucleolar proteins (36 uncharacterized) to relocate to the chromosomal periphery during mitosis. Interestingly, we observed temporal partitioning into two recruitment phenotypes: early (prometaphase) and late (after metaphase), suggesting phase‐specific functions. We further show that the expression of MKI67 is critical for this temporal partitioning. We provide the first proteome‐wide analysis of intrinsic protein disorder for the human nucleolus and show that nucleolar proteins in general, and mitotic chromosome proteins in particular, have significantly higher intrinsic disorder level compared to cytosolic proteins. In summary, this study provides a comprehensive and essential resource of spatiotemporal expression data for the nucleolar proteome as part of the Human Protein Atlas

Human Proteomic Variation Revealed by Combining RNA-Seq Proteogenomics and Global Post-Translational Modification (G-PTM) Search Strategy

Mass-spectrometry-based proteomic analysis underestimates proteomic variation due to the absence of variant peptides and posttranslational modifications (PTMs) from standard protein databases. Each individual carries thousands of missense mutations that lead to single amino acid variants, but these are missed because they are absent from generic proteomic search databases. Myriad types of protein PTMs play essential roles in biological processes but remain undetected because of increased false discovery rates in variable modification searches. We address these two fundamental shortcomings of bottom-up proteomics with two recently developed software tools. The first consists of workflows in Galaxy that mine RNA sequencing data to generate sample-specific databases containing variant peptides and products of alternative splicing events. The second tool applies a new strategy that alters the variable modification approach to consider only curated PTMs at specific positions, thereby avoiding the combinatorial explosion that traditionally leads to high false discovery rates. Using RNA-sequencing-derived databases with this Global Post-Translational Modification (G-PTM) search strategy revealed hundreds of single amino acid variant peptides, tens of novel splice junction peptides, and several hundred posttranslationally modified peptides in each of ten human cell lines

Elucidating Proteoform Families from Proteoform Intact-Mass and Lysine-Count Measurements

Proteomics is presently dominated by the “bottom-up” strategy, in which proteins are enzymatically digested into peptides for mass spectrometric identification. Although this approach is highly effective at identifying large numbers of proteins present in complex samples, the digestion into peptides renders it impossible to identify the proteoforms from which they were derived. We present here a powerful new strategy for the identification of proteoforms and the elucidation of proteoform families (groups of related proteoforms) from the experimental determination of the accurate proteoform mass and number of lysine residues contained. Accurate proteoform masses are determined by standard LC–MS analysis of undigested protein mixtures in an Orbitrap mass spectrometer, and the lysine count is determined using the NeuCode isotopic tagging method. We demonstrate the approach in analysis of the yeast proteome, revealing 8637 unique proteoforms and 1178 proteoform families. The elucidation of proteoforms and proteoform families afforded here provides an unprecedented new perspective upon proteome complexity and dynamics

Long Noncoding RNAs AC009014.3 and Newly Discovered XPLAID Differentiate Aggressive and Indolent Prostate Cancers

INTRODUCTION: The molecular mechanisms underlying aggressive versus indolent disease are not fully understood. Recent research has implicated a class of molecules known as long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) in tumorigenesis and progression of cancer. Our objective was to discover lncRNAs that differentiate aggressive and indolent prostate cancers. METHODS: We analyzed paired tumor and normal tissues from six aggressive Gleason score (GS) 8-10 and six indolent GS 6 prostate cancers. Extracted RNA was split for poly(A)+ and ribosomal RNA depletion library preparations, followed byRNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) using an Illumina HiSeq 2000. We developed an RNA-Seq data analysis pipeline to discover and quantify these molecules. Candidate lncRNAs were validated using RT-qPCR on 87 tumor tissue samples: 28 (GS 6), 28 (GS 3+4), 6 (GS 4+3), and 25 (GS 8-10). Statistical correlations between lncRNAs and clinicopathologic variables were tested using ANOVA. RESULTS: The 43 differentially expressed (DE) lncRNAs between aggressive and indolent prostate cancers included 12 annotated and 31 novel lncRNAs. The top six DE lncRNAs were selected based on large, consistent fold-changes in the RNA-Seq results. Three of these candidates passed RT-qPCR validation, including AC009014.3 (P < .001 in tumor tissue) and a newly discovered X-linked lncRNA named XPLAID (P = .049 in tumor tissue and P = .048 in normal tissue). XPLAID and AC009014.3 show promise as prognostic biomarkers. CONCLUSIONS: We discovered several dozen lncRNAs that distinguish aggressive and indolent prostate cancers, of which four were validated using RT-qPCR. The investigation into their biology is ongoing