Trends in Biochemical Sciences: E3 Ubiquitin Ligases in Signaling, Disease, and Therapeutics (Olsen)

September 15, 2025

 Pirouz Ebadi 1, Caleb M Stratton 1, Shaun K Olsen 2 Abstract The ubiquitin-proteasome system (UPS) is a central regulator of protein turnover and signaling, with E3 ubiquitin ligases conferring substrate specificity and chain-type control. Recent advances have revealed new mechanistic classes of E3 ligases and expanded our understanding of their roles in disease, including cancer, neurodegeneration, and immune dysfunction. [...]

Aging Cell: Inhibition of Hippo Signaling Through Ablation of Lats1 and Lats2 Protects Against Cognitive Decline in 5xFAD Mice via Increasing Neuronal Resilience Against Ferroptosis (Zheng)

September 10, 2025

 Robert C. Evans, Nawab John Dar, Liuji Chen, Ren Na, Jason C. O'Connor, Jing Jiang, Siyuan Zheng, Qitao Ran ABSTRACT The Hippo signaling pathway is a key regulator of cell growth and cell survival, and hyperactivation of the Hippo pathway has been implicated in neurodegenerative diseases such as Huntington's disease. However, the role of Hippo signaling in Alzheimer's disease (AD) remains unclear. [...]

Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Targets: Rhabdomyosarcoma: development of molecular therapeutics under the microscope (Houghton)

August 15, 2025

 Peter J. Houghton Mary-Ann Bjornsti ABSTRACT Rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS), predominantly diagnosed in children, represents 3% of the pediatric solid tumors. RMS has characteristics of skeletal muscle, although the cell of origin remains controversial. Cytotoxic therapeutics, radiation treatment, and surgery remain the standard of care; however, outcomes for advanced disease have not changed for several decades. Major [...]

Biochemistry: The Spliceosomal Peptidyl Prolyl Isomerase Like 1 Interacts with the Low-Complexity Domain of the RNA Binding Protein EWS Modulating Its Phase Separation Behavior (Libich Lab)

August 8, 2025

 George L Parra 1, Erich J Sohn 1, Xiaoping Xu 1, David S Libich 1 Abstract RNA-binding protein EWS, a member of the FET (FUS, EWS, TAF15) family, contributes to mRNA biogenesis through roles in transcription, splicing, and RNA transport. Despite evidence linking EWS to spliceosomal complexes, its interactions with spliceosome-associated cyclophilins remain unclear. Here, we describe the first structural and biochemical [...]

Journal of Applied Physiology: Evaluating the effects of exercise and phellodendron amurense on cardiac function in a prostate cancer mouse model (Aune Lab)

August 4, 2025

 Neha Kumar, Logan R. Davis, Gregory J. Aune Paul Rivas, Addanki P. Kumar, Darpan I. Patel Abstract Cytotoxic treatments pose a significant cardiotoxic risk to men with prostate cancer (PCa). Exercise has been found to prevent cardiotoxicities. Previous work from our group has also identified the chemopreventative effects of phellodendron amurense (PhAm). We therefore aimed [...]

Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers Prevention: Multiancestry Transcriptome-Wide Association Study Identifies Candidate Genes Associated with Hepatoblastoma (Tomlinson)

August 1, 2025

 Tiankai Xie Josey C. Sorenson Logan G. Spector Nathan Pankratz R. Stephanie Huang Eiso Hiyama Jenny N. Poynter Gail E. Tomlinson Carolina Armengol Roland Kappler Michael E. Scheurer Eve Roman Aurora Castellano Michael A. Grotzer David S. Ziegler Saonli Basu Erin L. Marcotte Tianzhong Yang Abstract Background: Hepatoblastoma (HB) is a rare embryonal liver tumor, [...]

Journal of Clinical Investigation: Efficacy and safety of a therapeutic humanized FSH–blocking antibody in obesity and Alzheimer’s disease models (Gupta)

July 30, 2025

 Anusha R. Pallapati,1 Funda Korkmaz,1 Satish Rojekar,1 Steven Sims,1 Anurag Misra,2 Judit Gimenez–Roig,1 Aishwarya Gangadhar,1 Victoria Laurencin,1 Anissa Gumerova,1 Uliana Cheliadinova,1 Farhath Sultana,1 Darya Vasilyeva,1 Liam Cullen,1 Jonathan Schuermann,3 Jazz Munitz,4 Hasni Kannangara,1 Surabhi Parte,1 Georgii Pevnev,1 Guzel Burganova,1 Zehra Tumoglu,1 Ronit Witztum,1 Soleil Wizman,1 Natan Kramskiy,1 Liah Igel,1 Fazilet Sen,1 Anna Ranzenigo,4 Anne Macdonald,1 Susan Hutchison,1 Abraham J.P. Teunissen,4 Heather Burkart,5 Mansi Saxena,1 Yelena Ginzburg,1 Ki Goosens,1 Weibin Zhou,1 Vitaly Ryu,1 Ofer Moldavski,1 Orly Barak,1 Michael Pazianas,1 John Caminis,1 Shalender Bhasin,6 Richard Fitzgerald,7 Se-Min Kim,1 Matthew Quinn,5 Shozeb Haider,8 Susan Appt,5 Tal Frolinger,1 Clifford J. Rosen,9 Daria Lizneva,1 Yogesh K. Gupta,2 Tony Yuen,1 and Mone [...]

Computational & Structural Biotechnology: Cell type prediction with neighborhood-enhanced cellular embedding using deep learning on hematoxylin and eosin-stained images (Chen Lab)

July 30, 2025

 Nam Nhut Phana ∙ Hanzhou Wanga ∙ Tapsya Nayaka ∙ Zhenqing Yea ∙ Yu-Chiao Chiub,c ∙ Yufang Jind ∙ Yufei Huangc,e,f ∙ Yidong Chena,g cheny8@uthscsa.edu  Abstract Purpose This study aimed to predict the cell types that infiltrate the tumor microenvironment using hematoxylin and eosin-stained images from colon cancer and breast cancer samples. Methods Two datasets, one focused on colon cancer and the other on breast cancer, were used to develop deep learning models. Cell segmentation was performed using [...]

Cell Reports: IGSF10 is a RET antagonist regulating Ewing sarcoma growth and GnRH neuron migration (Chen, Houghton, & Shiio Lab)

July 24, 2025

 Panneerselvam Jayabal1 ∙ Xiuye Ma1 ∙ Maleeha Akram2 ∙ Hannah Bow2 ∙ Pranay Mandal2 ∙ Naira Mansano2 ∙ Yidong Chen1,3,4 ∙ Susan T. Weintraub4,5 ∙ Peter J. Houghton1,4,6 ∙ Susan Wray2 ∙ Yuzuru Shiio Highlights Ewing sarcoma depends on IGSF10, which inhibits the RET receptor tyrosine kinase IGSF10 assembles an inhibitory RET-GAS1 complex and suppresses cdc42 The IGSF10-RET-GAS1-cdc42 pathway regulates the migration of GnRH neurons IGSF10 mutants linked to delayed puberty are defective in RET-cdc42 regulation Summary RET is a receptor tyrosine kinase that plays important [...]