Boundaries and Prototypes in Categorizing Direction

Projective terms such as left, right, front, back are conceptually interesting due to their flexibility of contextual usage and their central relevance to human spatial cognition. Their default acceptability areas are well known, with prototypical axes representing their most central usage and decreasing acceptability away from the axes. Previous research has shown these axes to be boundaries in certain non-linguistic tasks, indicating an inverse relationship between linguistic and non-linguistic direction concepts under specific circumstances. Given this striking mismatch, our study asks how such inverse non-linguistic concepts are represented in language, as well as how people describe their categorization. Our findings highlight two distinct grouping strategies reminiscent of theories of human categorization: prototype based or boundary based. These lead to different linguistic as well as non-linguistic patterns

Loss of DPP6 in neurodegenerative dementia: a genetic player in the dysfunction of neuronal excitability

Emerging evidence suggested a converging mechanism in neurodegenerative brain diseases (NBD) involving early neuronal network dysfunctions and alterations in the homeostasis of neuronal fring as culprits of neurodegeneration. In this study, we used paired-end short-read and direct long-read whole genome sequencing to investigate an unresolved autosomal dominant dementia family signifcantly linked to 7q36. We identifed and validated a chromosomal inversion of ca. 4 Mb, segregating on the disease haplotype and disrupting the coding sequence of dipeptidyl-peptidase 6 gene (DPP6). DPP6 resequencing identifed signifcantly more rare variants—nonsense, frameshift, and missense—in early-onset Alzheimer’s disease (EOAD, p value=0.03, OR=2.21 95% CI 1.05–4.82) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD, p=0.006, OR=2.59, 95% CI 1.28–5.49) patient cohorts. DPP6 is a type II transmembrane protein with a highly structured extracellular domain and is mainly expressed in brain, where it binds to the potassium channel Kv4.2 enhancing its expression, regulating its gating properties and controlling the dendritic excitability of hippocampal neurons. Using in vitro modeling, we showed that the missense variants found in patients destabilize DPP6 and reduce its membrane expression (p<0.001 and p<0.0001) leading to a loss of protein. Reduced DPP6 and/or Kv4.2 expression was also detected in brain tissue of missense variant carriers. Loss of DPP6 is known to caus

IKKα Regulates Mitogenic Signaling through Transcriptional Induction of Cyclin D1 via Tcf

The Wnt/β-catenin/Tcf and IκB/NF-κB cascades are independent pathways involved in cell cycle control, cellular differentiation, and inflammation. Constitutive Wnt/β-catenin signaling occurs in certain cancers from mutation of components of the pathway and from activating growth factor receptors, including RON and MET. The resulting accumulation of cytoplasmic and nuclear β-catenin interacts with the Tcf/LEF transcription factors to induce target genes. The IκB kinase complex (IKK) that phosphorylates IκB contains IKKα, IKKβ, and IKKγ. Here we show that the cyclin D1 gene functions as a point of convergence between the Wnt/β-catenin and IκB pathways in mitogenic signaling. Mitogenic induction of G(1)-S phase progression and cyclin D1 expression was PI3K dependent, and cyclin D1(−/−) cells showed reduced PI3K-dependent S-phase entry. PI3K-dependent induction of cyclin D1 was blocked by inhibitors of PI3K/Akt/IκB/IKKα or β-catenin signaling. A single Tcf site in the cyclin D1 promoter was required for induction by PI3K or IKKα. In IKKα(−/−) cells, mitogen-induced DNA synthesis, and expression of Tcf-responsive genes was reduced. Reintroduction of IKKα restored normal mitogen induction of cyclin D1 through a Tcf site. In IKKα(−/−) cells, β-catenin phosphorylation was decreased and purified IKKα was sufficient for phosphorylation of β-catenin through its N-terminus in vitro. Because IKKα but not IKKβ induced cyclin D1 expression through Tcf activity, these studies indicate that the relative levels of IKKα and IKKβ may alter their substrate and signaling specificities to regulate mitogen-induced DNA synthesis through distinct mechanisms