Background: Autologous tissues such as buccal mucosa (BM) are widely used for reconstruction of urethral strictures; however, limitations such as donor site morbidity and scarce tissue supply require the development of alternative biomaterials for urethral repair. The goals of this study were to determine the safety and efficacy of bi-layer silk fi...
Synthetic biology enables the reprogramming of cellular functions for various applications. However, challenges in scalability and predictability persist due to context-dependent performance and complex circuit-host interactions. This study introduces an iModulon-based engineering approach, utilizing machine learning-defined co-regulated gene group...
Research directly on human embryos has gone through cycles of interest and neglect. The recent revitalization, including the making of 'human developmental biology', depended on fresh supplies of material and demand for medically relevant work. Human studies relied on mice but rejected simple extrapolation from this model mammal. Now, it is time to...
Worldwide trends to delay childbearing have increased parental ages at birth. Older parental age may harm offspring health, but mechanisms remain unclear. Alterations in offspring DNA methylation (DNAm) patterns could play a role as aging has been associated with methylation changes in gametes of older individuals. We meta-analyzed epigenome-wide a...
Innate immune responses to microbial pathogens are regulated by intracellular receptors known as nucleotide-binding leucine-rich repeat receptors (NLRs) in both the plant and animal kingdoms. Across plant innate immune systems, "helper" NLRs (hNLRs) work in coordination with "sensor" NLRs (sNLRs) to modulate disease resistance signaling pathways. A...
The contrast between the disruption of genome topology after cohesin loss and the lack of downstream gene expression changes instigates intense debates regarding the structure-function relationship between genome and gene regulation. Here, by analyzing transcriptome and chromatin accessibility at the single-cell level, we discover that, instead of ...
DDX3X regulates the translation of a subset of human transcripts containing complex 5' untranslated regions (5' UTRs). In this study, we developed the helicase activity reporter for translation (HART), which uses DDX3X-sensitive 5' UTRs to measure DDX3X-mediated translational activity in cells. To directly measure RNA structure in DDX3X-dependent m...
While all eukaryotic cells are dependent on mitochondria for function, in a complex tissue, which cell type and which cell behavior are more sensitive to mitochondrial deficiency remain unpredictable. Here, we show that in the mouse airway, compromising mitochondrial function by inactivating mitochondrial protease gene Lonp1 led to reduced progenit...
The nuclear pore complex (NPC) is the sole mediator of nucleocytoplasmic transport. Despite great advances in understanding its conserved core architecture, the peripheral regions can exhibit considerable variation within and between species. One such structure is the cage-like nuclear basket. Despite its crucial roles in mRNA surveillance and chro...
Capture of a photon by an opsin visual pigment isomerizes its 11-cis-retinaldehyde (11cRAL) chromophore to all-trans-retinaldehyde (atRAL), which subsequently dissociates. To restore light sensitivity, the unliganded apo-opsin combines with another 11cRAL to make a new visual pigment. Two enzyme pathways supply chromophore to photoreceptors. The ca...
