Ryanodine receptors are part of the myospryn complex in cardiac muscle

The Cardiomyopathy–associated gene 5 (Cmya5) encodes myospryn, a large tripartite motif (TRIM)-related protein found predominantly in cardiac and skeletal muscle. Cmya5 is an expression biomarker for a number of diseases affecting striated muscle and may also be a schizophrenia risk gene. To further understand the function of myospryn in striated muscle, we searched for additional myospryn paralogs. Here we identify a novel muscle-expressed TRIM-related protein minispryn, encoded by Fsd2, that has extensive sequence similarity with the C-terminus of myospryn. Cmya5 and Fsd2 appear to have originated by a chromosomal duplication and are found within evolutionarily-conserved gene clusters on different chromosomes. Using immunoaffinity purification and mass spectrometry we show that minispryn co-purifies with myospryn and the major cardiac ryanodine receptor (RyR2) from heart. Accordingly, myospryn, minispryn and RyR2 co-localise at the junctional sarcoplasmic reticulum of isolated cardiomyocytes. Myospryn redistributes RyR2 into clusters when co-expressed in heterologous cells whereas minispryn lacks this activity. Together these data suggest a novel role for the myospryn complex in the assembly of ryanodine receptor clusters in striated muscle

Atypical miRNA expression in temporal cortex associated with dysregulation of immune, cell cycle, and other pathways in autism spectrum disorders

BACKGROUND: Autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) likely involve dysregulation of multiple genes related to brain function and development. Abnormalities in individual regulatory small non-coding RNA (sncRNA), including microRNA (miRNA), could have profound effects upon multiple functional pathways. We assessed whether a brain region associated with core social impairments in ASD, the superior temporal sulcus (STS), would evidence greater transcriptional dysregulation of sncRNA than adjacent, yet functionally distinct, primary auditory cortex (PAC). METHODS: We measured sncRNA expression levels in 34 samples of postmortem brain from STS and PAC to find differentially expressed sncRNA in ASD compared with control cases. For differentially expressed miRNA, we further analyzed their predicted mRNA targets and carried out functional over-representation analysis of KEGG pathways to examine their functional significance and to compare our findings to reported alterations in ASD gene expression. RESULTS: Two mature miRNAs (miR-4753-5p and miR-1) were differentially expressed in ASD relative to control in STS and four (miR-664-3p, miR-4709-3p, miR-4742-3p, and miR-297) in PAC. In both regions, miRNA were functionally related to various nervous system, cell cycle, and canonical signaling pathways, including PI3K-Akt signaling, previously implicated in ASD. Immune pathways were only disrupted in STS. snoRNA and pre-miRNA were also differentially expressed in ASD brain. CONCLUSIONS: Alterations in sncRNA may underlie dysregulation of molecular pathways implicated in autism. sncRNA transcriptional abnormalities in ASD were apparent in STS and in PAC, a brain region not directly associated with core behavioral impairments. Disruption of miRNA in immune pathways, frequently implicated in ASD, was unique to STS. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13229-015-0029-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users

P2RX7 Purinoceptor: A Therapeutic Target for Ameliorating the Symptoms of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy

open access articleDuchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is the most common inherited muscle disease, leading to severe disability and death in young men. Death is caused by the progressive degeneration of striated muscles aggravated by sterile inflammation. The pleiotropic effects of the mutant gene also include cognitive and behavioral impairments and low bone density. Current interventions in DMD are palliative only as no treatment improves the long-term outcome. Therefore, approaches with a translational potential should be investigated, and key abnormalities downstream from the absence of the DMD product, dystrophin, appear to be strong therapeutic targets. We and others have demonstrated that DMD mutations alter ATP signaling and have identified P2RX7 purinoceptor up-regulation as being responsible for the death of muscles in the mdx mouse model of DMD and human DMD lymphoblasts. Moreover, the ATP–P2RX7 axis, being a crucial activator of innate immune responses, can contribute to DMD pathology by stimulating chronic inflammation. We investigated whether ablation of P2RX7 attenuates the DMD model mouse phenotype to assess receptor suitability as a therapeutic target

Comparison of GAS5 Long non-coding RNA Expression and NEAT1 in Breast Cancer Patients and Healthy People

Background & aim: Breast cancer entails 10% of all cancers in the world.  Among all types of cancers, 30 percent of women are infected with breast cancer. Non-coding of long RNA (lncRNA) is a new group of known genes in the human genome transcribed from large parts of the genome of eukaryotes and play an important role in the regulation of different biological processes. The aim of the present study was to compare the expression level of GAS5 lncRNA and NEAT1  in normal and neoplastic samples from breast cancer patients by RT-qPCR. Methods: In the present case-control study, 40 samples from patients with breast cancer tumor and 40 patients from non-tumor under the direct supervision of a pathologist specialist due to clinical presentation and laboratory findings were collected. After extracting DNA from normal and tumor tissues, cDNA synthesis method according to the protocol and RT-qPCR was performed by SYBR®Premix Ex TaqTM II kit.  LncRNA expression levels of genes GAS5 and NEAT1 was calculated using ΔΔCT. Data were analyzed using t-test. Results: The results of Real Time Reverse transcription-PCR indicated that partial expression levels of GAS5 lncRNA gene in tumor samples compared to normal GAS5 lncRNA of the gene, decreasing the expression, and the mean relative expression levels of lncRNA and NEAT1 gene in tumor samples compared to normal was overexpressed. These variation gene expression of LncRNA related to GAS5 about 1.5 times and 2 times to  lncRNA from  NEAT1 gene was observed respectively. Conclusion: Due to the previous reports, these lncRNAs act as tumor suppressor in breast cancer and had differential expression in tumor and normal tissues, which could be used as biomarker for cancer diagnosis. Moreover, expression of these lncRNAs in different breast cancer subtypes and patient with other blood raises the importance of this molecules as a biomarker for cancer diagnosis and prognosis

AKAPs integrate genetic findings for autism spectrum disorders

Contains fulltext : 115371.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)Autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) are highly heritable, and six genome-wide association studies (GWASs) of ASDs have been published to date. In this study, we have integrated the findings from these GWASs with other genetic data to identify enriched genetic networks that are associated with ASDs. We conducted bioinformatics and systematic literature analyses of 200 top-ranked ASD candidate genes from five published GWASs. The sixth GWAS was used for replication and validation of our findings. Further corroborating evidence was obtained through rare genetic variant studies, that is, exome sequencing and copy number variation (CNV) studies, and/or other genetic evidence, including candidate gene association, microRNA and gene expression, gene function and genetic animal studies. We found three signaling networks regulating steroidogenesis, neurite outgrowth and (glutamatergic) synaptic function to be enriched in the data. Most genes from the five GWASs were also implicated-independent of gene size-in ASDs by at least one other line of genomic evidence. Importantly, A-kinase anchor proteins (AKAPs) functionally integrate signaling cascades within and between these networks. The three identified protein networks provide an important contribution to increasing our understanding of the molecular basis of ASDs. In addition, our results point towards the AKAPs as promising targets for developing novel ASD treatments

Novel genetic risk factors for asthma in African American children: Precision Medicine and the SAGE II Study

BACKGROUND: Asthma, an inflammatory disorder of the airways, is the most common chronic disease of children worldwide. There are significant racial/ethnic disparities in asthma prevalence, morbidity and mortality among U.S. children. This trend is mirrored in obesity, which may share genetic and environmental risk factors with asthma. The majority of asthma biomedical research has been performed in populations of European decent. OBJECTIVE: We sought to identify genetic risk factors for asthma in African American children. We also assessed the generalizability of genetic variants associated with asthma in European and Asian populations to African American children. METHODS: Our study population consisted of 1227 (812 asthma cases, 415 controls) African American children with genome-wide single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) data. Logistic regression was used to identify associations between SNP genotype and asthma status. RESULTS: We identified a novel variant in the PTCHD3 gene that is significantly associated with asthma (rs660498, p = 2.2 ×10(−7)) independent of obesity status. Approximately 5% of previously reported asthma genetic associations identified in European populations replicated in African Americans. CONCLUSIONS: Our identification of novel variants associated with asthma in African American children, coupled with our inability to replicate the majority of findings reported in European Americans, underscores the necessity for including diverse populations in biomedical studies of asthma