Defects in nuclear morphology often correlate with the onset of disease, including cancer, progeria, cardiomyopathy, and muscular dystrophy. However, the mechanism by which a cell controls its nuclear shape is unknown. Here, we use adhesive micropatterned surfaces to control the overall shape of fibroblasts and find that the shape of the nucleus is tightly regulated by the underlying cell adhes...

Defects in the biogenesis of lamin A from its farnesylated precursor, prelamin A, lead to the accumulation of prelamin A at the nuclear envelope, cause misshapen nuclei, and result in progeroid syndromes. A deficiency in ZMPSTE24, a protease involved in prelamin A processing, leads to prelamin A accumulation, an absence of mature lamin A, misshapen nuclei, and a lethal perinatal progeroid syndr...

Epigenetic changes to chromatin are thought to be essential to cell senescence, which is key to tumorigenesis and aging. Although many studies focus on heterochromatin gain, this work demonstrates large-scale unraveling of peri/centromeric satellites, which occurs in all models of human and mouse senescence examined. This was not seen in cancer cells, except in a benign senescent tumor in vivo....

Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria Syndrome (HGPS) is a devastating incurable premature aging disease caused by accumulation of progerin, a toxic lamin A mutant protein. HGPS patient-derived cells exhibit nuclear morphological abnormalities, altered signaling pathways, genomic instability, and premature senescence. Here we uncover new molecular mechanisms contributing to cellular decline in progeria. ...

Numerous mutations in the human A-type lamin gene (LMNA) cause the premature aging disease, progeria. Some of these are located in the alpha-helical central rod domain required for the polymerization of the nuclear lamins into higher order structures. Patient cells with a mutation in this domain, 433G>A (E145K) show severely lobulated nuclei, a separation of the A- and B-type lamins, alteration...

Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome (HGPS) is a very rare genetic disorder that is characterized by multiple features of premature aging and largely affects tissues of mesenchymal origin. In this study, we describe the development of a tissue-specific mouse model that overexpresses the most common HGPS mutation (LMNA, c.1824C>T, p.G608G) in osteoblasts. Already at the age of 5 weeks, HGPS muta...

A-type lamins, the intermediate filament proteins participating in nuclear structure and function, are encoded by LMNA. LMNA mutations can lead to laminopathies such as lipodystrophies, premature aging syndromes (progeria) and muscular dystrophies. Here, we identified a novel heterozygous LMNA p.R388P de novo mutation in a patient with a non-previously described severe phenotype comprising cong...

Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome (HGPS) is a severe human premature aging disorder caused by a lamin A mutant named progerin. Death occurs at a mean age of 13 y from cardiovascular problems. Previous studies revealed loss of vascular smooth muscle cells (SMCs) in the media of large arteries in a patient with HGPS and two mouse models, suggesting a causal connection between the SMC loss and ...

Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome (HGPS) is a segmental progeroid syndrome with multiple features suggestive of premature accelerated aging. Accumulation of progerin is thought to underlie the pathophysiology of HGPS. However, despite ubiquitous expression of lamin A in all differentiated cells, the HGPS mutation results in organ-specific defects. For example, bone and skin are strongly affe...