10 research outputs found
Structural Disorder Provides Increased Adaptability for Vesicle Trafficking Pathways
Vesicle trafficking systems play essential roles in the communication between the organelles of eukaryotic cells and also
between cells and their environment. Endocytosis and the late secretory route are mediated by clathrin-coated vesicles,
while the COat Protein I and II (COPI and COPII) routes stand for the bidirectional traffic between the ER and the Golgi
apparatus. Despite similar fundamental organizations, the molecular machinery, functions, and evolutionary characteristics
of the three systems are very different. In this work, we compiled the basic functional protein groups of the three main
routes for human and yeast and analyzed them from the structural disorder perspective. We found similar overall disorder
content in yeast and human proteins, confirming the well-conserved nature of these systems. Most functional groups
contain highly disordered proteins, supporting the general importance of structural disorder in these routes, although some
of them seem to heavily rely on disorder, while others do not. Interestingly, the clathrin system is significantly more
disordered (,23%) than the other two, COPI (,9%) and COPII (,8%). We show that this structural phenomenon enhances
the inherent plasticity and increased evolutionary adaptability of the clathrin system, which distinguishes it from the other
two routes. Since multi-functionality (moonlighting) is indicative of both plasticity and adaptability, we studied its
prevalence in vesicle trafficking proteins and correlated it with structural disorder. Clathrin adaptors have the highest
capability for moonlighting while also comprising the most highly disordered members. The ability to acquire tissue specific
functions was also used to approach adaptability: clathrin route genes have the most tissue specific exons encoding for
protein segments enriched in structural disorder and interaction sites. Overall, our results confirm the general importance of
structural disorder in vesicle trafficking and suggest major roles for this structural property in shaping the differences of
evolutionary adaptability in the three routes
Atypical birdsong and artificial languages provide insights into how communication systems are shaped by learning, use and transmission
In this article, I argue that a comparative approach focusing on the cognitive capacities and behavioral mechanisms that underlie vocal learning in songbirds and humans can provide valuable insights into the evolutionary origins of language. The experimental approaches I discuss use abnormal song and atypical linguistic input to study the processes of individual learning, social interaction, and cultural transmission. Atypical input places increased learning and communicative pressure on learners, so exploring how they respond to this type of input provides a particularly clear picture of the biases and constraints at work during learning and use. Furthermore, simulating the cultural transmission of these unnatural communication systems in the laboratory informs us about how learning and social biases influence the structure of communication systems in the long run. Findings based on these methods suggest fundamental similarities in the basic social–cognitive mechanisms underlying vocal learning in birds and humans, and continuing research promises insights into the uniquely human mechanisms and into how human cognition and social behavior interact, and ultimately impact on the evolution of language
Comparative analysis of adaptor-mediated clathrin assembly reveals general principles for adaptor clustering
Genetic counselling in hereditary osteo-onychodysplasia (HOOD, nail-patella syndrome) with nephropathy.
Loss of ARID1A expression and its relationship with PI3K-Akt pathway alterations, TP53 and microsatellite instability in endometrial cancer
Antitumor Effects of Combining Docetaxel (Taxotere) with the Antivascular Action of Ultrasound Stimulated Microbubbles
Knockout of the gamma subunit of the AP-1 adaptor complex in the human parasite Trypanosoma cruzi impairs infectivity and differentiation and prevents the maturation and targeting of the major protease cruzipain
Nuclear Equation of state for Compact Stars and Supernovae
International audienceThe equation of state (EoS) of hot and dense matter is a fundamental input to describe static and dynamical properties of neutron stars, core-collapse supernovae and binary compact-star mergers. We review the current status of the EoS for compact objects, that have been studied with both ab-initio many-body approaches and phenomenological models. We limit ourselves to the description of EoSs with purely nucleonic degrees of freedom, disregarding the appearance of strange baryonic matter and/or quark matter. We compare the theoretical predictions with different data coming from both nuclear physics experiments and astrophysical observations. Combining the complementary information thus obtained greatly enriches our insights into the dense nuclear matter properties. Current challenges in the description of the EoS are also discussed, mainly focusing on the model dependence of the constraints extracted from either experimental or observational data (specifically, concerning the symmetry energy), the lack of a consistent and rigorous many-body treatment at zero and finite temperature of the matter encountered in compact stars (e.g. problem of cluster formation and extension of the EoS to very high temperatures), the role of nucleonic three-body forces, and the dependence of the direct URCA processes on the EoS