Defeating Cytoplasmic Sequestration of p53 in Human Breast Cancer Cells; Is Mortalin Involved?

Cytoplasmic sequestration of p53, possibly caused by p53 interacting with mortalin, can prevent p53 from functioning in DNA repair and apoptosis, causing aberrant growth. This project treated SKBR3 breast cancer cells with MKT-077, a dye that is a competitive binder to mortalin to see if it would result in the release of p53 from the cytoplasm and restoration of p53 function. Treatment resulted in partial translocation of a protein suspected to be p53 to the nucleus and apoptosis initiated at the mitochondria

Musings on Lorentz Violation Given the Recent Gravitational-Wave Observations of Coalescing Binary Black Holes

The recent observation of gravitational waves by the LIGO/Virgo collaboration provides a unique opportunity to probe the extreme gravity of coalescing binary black holes. In this regime, the gravitational interaction is not only strong, but the spacetime curvature is large, characteristic velocities are a non-negligible fraction of the speed of light, and the time scale on which the curvature and gravity change is small. This contribution discusses some consequences of these observations on modifications to General Relativity, with a special emphasis on Lorentz-violating theories.Comment: Presented at the Seventh Meeting on CPT and Lorentz Symmetry, Bloomington, Indiana, June 20-24, 201