Post-mortem analysis has revealed reduced levels of the protein dysbindin in the brains of those suffering from the neurodevelopmental disorder schizophrenia. Consequently, mechanisms controlling the cellular levels of dysbindin and its interacting partners may participate in neurodevelopmental processes impaired in that disorder. To address this question, we studied loss of function mutations ...

Dysbindin is a schizophrenia susceptibility factor and subunit of the biogenesis of lysosome-related organelles complex 1 (BLOC-1) required for lysosome-related organelle biogenesis, and in neurons, synaptic vesicle assembly, neurotransmission, and plasticity. Protein networks, or interactomes, downstream of dysbindin/BLOC-1 remain partially explored despite their potential to illuminate neurod...

NCI-NHGRI Working Group on Replication in Association Studies The study of human genetics has recently undergone a dramatic transition with the com­ pletion of both the sequencing of the human genome and the mapping of human haplo­ types of the most common form of genetic variation, the single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP). In concert with this rapid expansion of detailed genomic information, c...

Abnormalities in NMDA receptor (NMDAR) function have been implicated in schizophrenia. Here, we show that dysbindin, a schizophrenia-susceptibility gene widely expressed in the forebrain, controls the surface expression of NMDARs in a subunit-specific manner. Imaging analyses revealed a marked increase in surface NR2A, but not NR2B, in hippocampal neurons derived from dysbindin-null mutant mice...

Proteome modifications downstream of monogenic or polygenic disorders have the potential to uncover novel molecular mechanisms participating in pathogenesis and/or extragenic modification of phenotypic expression. We tested this idea by determining the proteome sensitive to genetic defects in a locus encoding dysbindin, a protein required for synapse biology and implicated in schizophrenia risk...

lentinan a polysaccharide from medicinal mushroom i.e lentinus, has been known to have anticancer properties. telomerase activity is not observed in normal healthy cells, whereas in cancerous cells telomerase expression is high. telomerase represents a promising cancer therapeutic target. we investigated the inhibitory effect of lentinan on telomerase reverse transcriptase gene (htert) which is...

lentiviral vectors are promising gene delivery tools capable of transducing a variety of dividing and non-dividing cells, including pluripotent stem cells which are refractory for transduction by murine retroviruses. although there is a growing debate on the safety of lentiviral vectors for gene transfer, in particular for those derived from human immunodeficiency viruses, type one (hiv-1) and ...

the engineering of transgenic canola (brassica napus l. ) to make tolerance to the broad-spectrum herbicide, glyphosate, is one of the most effective approaches for weed management. glyphosate inhibits the enzyme epsps (5-enolpyruvylshikimate-3-phosphate synthase) enzyme which functions in the shikimate pathway and has a key role in biosynthesis of aromatic amino acids required for survival of ...