Browsing by FAS Department "Medical Sciences"
Now showing items 1-20 of 256
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A general strategy to construct small molecule biosensors
(2017-05-10)Biosensors for small molecules can be used in applications that range from metabolic engineering to orthogonal control of transcription. Despite their broad utility, it remains a longstanding challenge to rapidly create ... -
A Global View of Translation in Vesicular Stomatitis Virus Infected Cells
(2018-01-19)Infection of mammalian cells with vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) results in the inhibition of cellular translation, while viral translation proceeds efficiently. This host “shutoff” is mediated by multiple mechanisms. ... -
A Variant Mode of Mammalian Olfaction
(2017-01-18)Olfaction – the sense of smell – informs animals about food, mates, threats, and other chemical signals. The odors most relevant to survival and reproduction vary across species and ecology; for this reason, olfactory ... -
Aberrant microRNA Expression in Spinal Muscular Atrophy Motor Neurons
(2015-05-18)Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) is a devastating autosomal-recessive pediatric neurodegenerative disease characterized by loss of spinal motor neurons. It is caused by mutation in the survival of motor neuron 1, SMN1, gene ... -
Activation and Antagonism of RIG-I-Mediated Innate Immune Signaling by Herpes Simplex Virus 1
(2018-01-16)The cytosolic innate immune receptor retinoic acid-inducible gene-I (RIG-I) recognizes double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) that emerges during viral infection and initiates an antiviral response comprised of interferon (IFN) and ... -
Adaptive Evolution of the SIV Envelope Protein During Early SIV Infection
(2016-03-08)Primate lentiviruses (PLVs), including human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1), HIV type 2 (HIV-2), and the simian immunodeficiency viruses (SIVs), cause persistent lifelong infections despite the presence of virus-specific ... -
Allosteric Integrase Inhibitors Reveal a Role for Integrase During HIV-1 Maturation
(2015-09-20)Integration of the DNA copy of the HIV-1 genome is an essential step for virus replication and is mediated by a homotetrameric complex of the viral protein integrase (IN) in association with the ends of linear viral DNA ... -
Analysis of Voluntary Behavior to Interrogate Neural Function
(2016-02-11)Mice and rats are critical to our understanding of human biology. They share most of our genome, are susceptible to most of the same diseases and usually benefit from clinical therapeutics, if only at very high doses. ... -
An Anatomical and Functional Dissection of the Role Pet1 Raphe Neurons Play in Neonatal Cardiorespiratory Homeostasis
(2016-08-26)Life-sustaining cardiorespiratory homeostasis requires the dynamic response of brainstem neural circuits. Apneas - the cessation of breathing often accompanied by bradycardia - can reflect defects in these circuits, and ... -
Antibody Responses Against HIV-1 Vaccine Candidates
(2018-09-16)The elicitation of protective antibody responses is likely to be important in developing a successful human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) vaccine. As HIV-1 infection in humans is predominantly transmitted via the ... -
Bacterial Virulence Regulation and Targets of CD8+ T Cell Immunity During Listeria monocytogenes Infection
(2017-09-08)Listeria monocytogenes (Lm) is an intracellular bacterial pathogen that causes a severe invasive disease in humans. Upon infection, Lm must sense its presence within a host and upregulate bacterial genes necessary for ... -
Base-Resolution and Single-Cell Analysis of Active DNA Demethylation Using Methylase-Assisted Bisulfite Sequencing
(2018-05-10)In mammals, DNA methylation in the form of 5-methylcytosine (5mC) can be actively reversed to unmodified cytosine through ten-eleven translocation (TET) dioxygenase-mediated oxidation of 5mC to 5-hydroxymethylcytosine ... -
A Behavioral and Molecular Approach for Understanding Angelman Syndrome
(2016-01-13)Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a set of human developmental disorders that affects ~1 in 68 children. The clinical features of ASD include deficits in social behavior and frequent co-morbidity of motor, emotional and ... -
Biochemical and Genomic Analysis of MeCP2 and Brain-Enriched DNA Methylation
(2016-04-14)Disruption of the MECP2 gene leads to Rett syndrome (RTT), a severe neurological disorder with features of autism. MECP2 encodes a methyl-CpG-binding protein that has been proposed to function as a transcriptional repressor, ... -
Biology of Type 2 Phosphatidylinositol-5-Phosphate 4-Kinase
(2015-09-22)Type 2 phosphatidylinositol-5-phosphate 4-kinase (PI5P4K) converts phosphatidylinositol-5-phosphate to phosphatidylinositol-4,5-bisphosphate. Mammals have three genes, PIP4K2A, PIP4K2B and PIP4K2C that encode the enzymes ... -
The Biophysics of Vertebrate Hearing: A Single-Molecule Approach
(2015-05-22)Inner-ear mechanotransduction relies on tip links, fine protein filaments made of cadherin-23 and protocadherin-15 that convey tension to mechanosensitive channels at the tips of hair-cell stereocilia. The tip-link cadherins ... -
Blueprints for Smell: Defining the Architecture of the Necklace Olfactory System
(2016-09-14)Animals must extract salient information from complex environments in order to generate adaptive behaviors. Mice have evolved multiple olfactory subsystems that enable detection and discrimination of a vast range of chemical ... -
The Brain Has an Innate Immune Response That Can Limit Virus Spread
(2016-05-17)The brain has a tightly regulated environment that protects non-regenerating post-mitotic neurons and limits inflammation, which led to its description as a site of ‘immune privilege’. For example, viral and bacterial ... -
Brain-Wide Neural Dynamics Underlying Looming-Evoked Escapes and Spontaneous Exploration
(2015-05-15)Behavior is generated via brain-wide coordination of neural circuits. But until recently, it was difficult to analyze neural dynamics at cellular resolution throughout the brain during behavior. With the genetic and optical ... -
Causality in Epigenetics: Strategies for Targeted Epigenome Engineering of Transcriptional Regulation and Genome Topology
(2018-05-14)Changes in epigenetic states are at the heart of normal developmental processes and also underlie many human diseases. Studies to date have established strong associations between histone post-translational modifications, ...