The N-Myc Down Regulated Gene1 (NDRG1) Is a Rab4a Effector Involved in Vesicular Recycling of E-Cadherin

Cell to cell adhesion is mediated by adhesion molecules present on the cell surface. Downregulation of molecules that form the adhesion complex is a characteristic of metastatic cancer cells. Downregulation of the N-myc down regulated gene1 (NDRG1) increases prostate and breast metastasis. The exact function of NDRG1 is not known. Here by using live cell confocal microscopy and in vitro reconstitution, we report that NDRG1 is involved in recycling the adhesion molecule E-cadherin thereby stabilizing it. Evidence is provided that NDRG1 recruits on recycling endosomes in the Trans Golgi network by binding to phosphotidylinositol 4-phosphate and interacts with membrane bound Rab4aGTPase. NDRG1 specifically interacts with constitutively active Rab4aQ67L mutant protein and not with GDP-bound Rab4aS22N mutant proving NDRG1 as a novel Rab4a effector. Transferrin recycling experiments reveals NDRG1 colocalizes with transferrin during the recycling phase. NDRG1 alters the kinetics of transferrin recycling in cells. NDRG1 knockdown cells show a delay in recycling transferrin, conversely NDRG1 overexpressing cells reveal an increase in rate of transferrin recycling. This novel finding of NDRG1 as a recycling protein involved with recycling of E-cadherin will aid in understanding NDRG1 role as a metastasis suppressor protein

Testing treatment effects in unconfounded studies under model misspecification: Logistic regression, discretization, and their combination

Logistic regression is commonly used to test for treatment effects in observational studies. If the distribution of a continuous covariate differs between treated and control populations, logistic regression yields an invalid hypothesis test even in an uncounfounded study if the link is not logistic. This flaw is not corrected by the commonly used technique of discretizing the covariate into intervals. A valid test can be obtained by discretization followed by regression adjustment within each interval.Statistic

Digenic DUOX1 and DUOX2 mutations in cases with congenital hypothyroidism

Context: The DUOX2 enzyme generates hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), a crucial electron acceptor for the TPO-catalyzed iodination and coupling reactions mediating thyroid hormone biosynthesis. DUOX2 mutations result in dyshormonogenetic Congenital Hypothyroidism (CH) which may be phenotypically heterogeneous, leading to the hypothesis that CH severity may be influenced by environmental factors (eg dietary iodine) and oligogenic modifiers (eg variants in the homologous NADPH-oxidase DUOX1). However, loss of function mutations in DUOX1 have not hitherto been described and its role in thyroid biology remains undefined. Case Description: We previously described a Proband and her brother (P1, P2) with unusually severe CH associated with a DUOX2 homozygous nonsense mutation (p.R434*); P1, P2: TSH >100 µU/mL (reference range, RR: 0.5-6.3), P1: Free T4 (FT4) C) resulting in aberrant splicing and a protein truncation (p.Val607Aspfs*43) which segregates with CH in this kindred. Conclusion: This is the first report of digenic mutations in DUOX1 and DUOX2 in association with CH and we hypothesize that the inability of DUOX1 to compensate for DUOX2 deficiency in this kindred may underlie the severe CH phenotype. Our studies provide evidence for a novel digenic basis for CH and support the notion that oligogenicity as well as environmental modulators may underlie phenotypic variability in genetically-ascertained CH

Novel TSHR mutations in consanguineous families with congenital nongoitrous hypothyroidism

Objective Nonsyndromic autosomal recessively inherited non-goitrous congenital hypothyroidism (CHNG) can be caused by mutations in TSHR, PAX8, TSHB and NKX2-5. We aimed to investigate mutational frequencies of these genes and genotype/phenotype correlations in consanguineous families with CHNG