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No link between population isolation and speciation rate in squamate reptiles.

Published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

Rates of species formation vary widely across the tree of life and contribute to massive disparities in species richness among clades. This variation can emerge from differences in metapopulation-level processes that affect the rates at which lineages diverge, persist, and evolve reproductive barriers and ecological differentiation. For example, po...

When kinetics plays strange tricks.

Published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

Cell-free DNA profiling informs all major complications of hematopoietic cell transplantation.

Published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

Allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) provides effective treatment for hematologic malignancies and immune disorders. Monitoring of posttransplant complications is critical, yet current diagnostic options are limited. Here, we show that cell-free DNA (cfDNA) in blood is a versatile analyte for monitoring of the most important complica...

QnAs with Nenad Ban.

Published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

Occasional paternal inheritance of the germline-restricted chromosome in songbirds.

Published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

Songbirds have one special accessory chromosome, the so-called germline-restricted chromosome (GRC), which is only present in germline cells and absent from all somatic tissues. Earlier work on the zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata castanotis) showed that the GRC is inherited only through the female line-like the mitochondria-and is eliminated from ...

Recurrent mutations in topoisomerase IIα cause a previously undescribed mutator phenotype in human cancers.

Published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

Topoisomerases nick and reseal DNA to relieve torsional stress associated with transcription and replication and to resolve structures such as knots and catenanes. Stabilization of the yeast Top2 cleavage intermediates is mutagenic in yeast, but whether this extends to higher eukaryotes is less clear. Chemotherapeutic topoisomerase poisons also ele...

Atomic-resolution chemical characterization of (2x)72-kDa tryptophan synthase via four- and five-dimensional 1H-detected...

Published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

NMR chemical shifts provide detailed information on the chemical properties of molecules, thereby complementing structural data from techniques like X-ray crystallography and electron microscopy. Detailed analysis of protein NMR data, however, often hinges on comprehensive, site-specific assignment of backbone resonances, which becomes a bottleneck...

Pseudouridine synthase 7 is an opportunistic enzyme that binds and modifies substrates with diverse sequences and struct...

Published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

Pseudouridine (Ψ) is a ubiquitous RNA modification incorporated by pseudouridine synthase (Pus) enzymes into hundreds of noncoding and protein-coding RNA substrates. Here, we determined the contributions of substrate structure and protein sequence to binding and catalysis by pseudouridine synthase 7 (Pus7), one of the principal messenger RNA (mRNA)...

A compensatory link between cleavage/polyadenylation and mRNA turnover regulates steady-state mRNA levels in yeast.

Published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

Cells have compensatory mechanisms to coordinate the rates of major biological processes, thereby permitting growth in a wide variety of conditions. Here, we uncover a compensatory link between cleavage/polyadenylation in the nucleus and messenger RNA (mRNA) turnover in the cytoplasm. On a global basis, same-gene 3' mRNA isoforms with twofold or gr...

Remodeling of lateral geniculate nucleus projections to extrastriate area MT following long-term lesions of striate cort...

Published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

Here, we report on a previously unknown form of thalamocortical plasticity observed following lesions of the primary visual area (V1) in marmoset monkeys. In primates, lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) neurons form parallel pathways to the cortex, which are characterized by the expression of different calcium-binding proteins. LGN projections to the...