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Caenorhabditis elegans is a powerful in vivo model in which transgenesis is highly developed. However, while the analysis of biological phenomena often require the expression of more than one protein of interest, no reliable tool exists to ensure efficient concomitant and equivalent expression of more than two polypeptides from a single promoter. We report the use of viral 2A peptides, which trigger a "ribosomal-skip" or "STOP&GO" mechanism during translation, to express multiple proteins from a single vector in C. elegans. Although none of the viruses known to infect C. elegans contain 2A-like sequences, our results show that 2A peptides allow the production of separate functional proteins in all cell types and at all developmental stages tested in the worm. In addition, we constructed a toolkit including a 2A-based polycistronic plasmid and reagents to generate 2A-tagged fosmids. 2A peptides constitute an important tool to ensure the delivery of multiple polypeptides in specific cells, enabling several novel applications such as the reconstitution of multi-subunit complexes.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1534/genetics.113.160846 | DOI Listing |
Menopause
September 2025
Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine, Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University, Augusta, GA.
Objective: To evaluate depression in postmenopausal women and to explore the relationship between age at menopause, hormone therapy, and depression, while also identifying potential mediators that may explain these associations.
Methods: This cross-sectional study analyzed data from National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) (2005-2020) for women older than 60 years who completed the Patient Health Questionnaire 9 (PHQ-9) depression questionnaire (n=7,027). Exposures included age at menopause and self-reported hormone therapy; the outcome was depression severity (PHQ-9 ≥10).
Sci Signal
September 2025
Department of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology, New York Medical College, Valhalla, NY, USA.
Replication of HIV-1 requires the coordinated action of host and viral transcription factors, most critically the viral transactivator Tat and the host nuclear factor κB (NF-κB). This activity is disrupted in infected cells that are cultured with extracellular vesicles (EVs) present in human semen, suggesting that they contain factors that could inform the development of new therapeutics. Here, we explored the contents of semen-derived EVs (SEVs) from uninfected donors and individuals with HIV-1 and identified host proteins that interacted with HIV Tat and the NF-κB subunit p65.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPLoS One
September 2025
Department of Urology, Kanazawa Medical University, Kahoku, Ishikawa, Japan.
Calcium oxalate (CaOx) stones are prevalent in urinary tract stone disease. While their formation can be induced in rats by administering ethylene glycol and vitamin D, the initial nucleation and formation processes are unclear. Here, we aimed to determine where CaOx crystals initially form, examine the associated histological and morphological changes, and clarify the genes whose expression varies at those sites and their function.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPLoS One
September 2025
Department of Hepatobiliary Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Kunming Medical University, Kunming, Yunnan, China.
Objective: This study employs integrated network toxicology and molecular docking to investigate the molecular basis underlying 4-nonylphenol (4-NP)-mediated enhancement of breast cancer susceptibility.
Methods: We integrated data from multiple databases, including ChEMBL, STITCH, Swiss Target Prediction, GeneCards, OMIM and TTD. Core compound-disease-associated target genes were identified through Protein-Protein Interaction (PPI) network analysis.
ChemMedChem
September 2025
Institute of Organic Chemistry, Leipzig University, Johannisallee 29, 04103, Leipzig, Germany.
The transcription factor signal transducer and activator of transcription (STAT)4 is a potential target for autoimmune diseases, such as inflammatory bowel disease, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, and diabetes mellitus. p-Biphenyl phosphate is reported as an inhibitor of the STAT4 Src homology 2 domain, and it is developed to the phosphonate-based inhibitor Stafori-1. Herein, structure-activity relationships of p-biaryl phosphates against STAT4 and their selectivity profiles against other STAT proteins are reported.
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