Condensins compact chromosomes to promote their equal segregation during mitosis, but the mechanism of condensin engagement with and action on chromatin is incompletely understood. Here, we show that the general transcription factor TFIIH complex is co…
The growth plates are cartilage tissues found at both ends of developing bones, and vital proliferation and differentiation of growth plate chondrocytes are primarily responsible for bone growth. C-type natriuretic peptide (CNP) stimulates bone growth …
The mammalian circadian clock exerts control of daily gene expression through cycles of DNA binding. Here we develop a quantitative model of how a finite pool of BMAL1 protein can regulate thousands of target sites over daily time scales. We used quant…
Mitochondrial defects are tightly linked to axon degeneration, yet the underlying cellular mechanisms remain poorly understood. In Caenorhabditis elegans, PVQ axons that lack mitochondria degenerate spontaneously with age. Using an unbiased genetic scr…
Acute kidney injury is common, with ~13 million cases and 1.7 million deaths/year worldwide. A major cause is renal ischaemia, typically following cardiac surgery, renal transplant or severe haemorrhage. We examined the cause of the sustained reduction…
Animal cell migration is predominantly driven by the coordinated, yet stochastic, polymerization of thousands of nanometer-scale actin filaments across micron-scale cell leading edges. It remains unclear how such inherently noisy processes generate rob…
Cellular differentiation is associated with the acquisition of a unique protein signature which is essential to attain the ultimate cellular function and activity of the differentiated cell. This is predicted to result in unique biosynthetic demands th…
Previously, we reported that the Polo-like kinase PLK-1 phosphorylates the single Caenorhabditis elegans lamin (LMN-1) to trigger lamina depolymerization during mitosis. We showed that this event is required to form a pronuclear envelope scission event…
During loading of viscoelastic tissues, part of the mechanical energy is transformed into heat that can locally increase the tissue temperature, a phenomenon known as self-heating. In the framework of mechanobiology, it has been accepted that cells rea…
Temporal molecular changes in ageing mammalian organs are of relevance to disease aetiology because many age-related diseases are linked to changes in the transcriptional and epigenetic machinery that regulate gene expression. We performed quantitative…