Cooperative nutrient scavenging is an evolutionary advantage in cancer.

The survival of malignant cells within tumours is often seen as depending on ruthless competition for nutrients and other resources. Although competition is certainly critical for tumour evolution and cancer progression, cooperative interactions within tumours are also important, albeit poorly understood. Cooperative populations at all levels of biological organization risk extinction if their population size falls below a critical tipping point.

The MEMIC is an ex vivo system to model the complexity of the tumor microenvironment.

There is an urgent need for accurate, scalable and cost-efficient models of the tumor microenvironment. Here, we detail how to fabricate and use the metabolic microenvironment chamber (MEMIC) - a 3D-printed ex vivo model of intratumoral heterogeneity. A major driver of the cellular and molecular diversity in tumors is accessibility to the blood stream.

Terminal neuron localization to the upper cortical plate is controlled by the transcription factor NEUROD2.

Excitatory neurons of the mammalian cerebral cortex are organized into six functional layers characterized by unique patterns of connectivity, as well as distinctive physiological and morphological properties. Cortical layers appear after a highly regulated migration process in which cells move from the deeper, proliferative zone toward the superficial layers. Importantly, defects in this radial migration process have been implicated in neurodevelopmental and psychiatric diseases.

NEUROD2 Regulates Expression and Store-Operated Calcium Entry in Cortical Neurons.

Calcium signaling controls many key processes in neurons, including gene expression, axon guidance, and synaptic plasticity. In contrast to calcium influx through voltage- or neurotransmitter-gated channels, regulatory pathways that control store-operated calcium entry (SOCE) in neurons are poorly understood. Here, we report a transcriptional control of (stromal interaction molecule 1) gene, which is a major sensor of endoplasmic reticulum (ER) calcium levels and a regulator of SOCE.

Genome-wide target analysis of NEUROD2 provides new insights into regulation of cortical projection neuron migration and differentiation.

Background: Cellular differentiation programs are controlled, to a large extent, by the combinatorial functioning of specific transcription factors. Cortical projection neurons constitute the major excitatory neuron population within the cortex and mediate long distance communication between the cortex and other brain regions. Our understanding of effector transcription factors and their downstream transcriptional programs that direct the differentiation process of cortical projection neurons is far from complete.