Neurons form dense neural circuits by connecting to each other via synapses and exchange information through synaptic receptors to sustain brain activities. Excitatory postsynapses form and mature on spines composed predominantly of actin, while inhibi…
Mitochondria influence cellular function through both cell-autonomous and non-cell autonomous mechanisms, such as production of paracrine and endocrine factors. Here, we demonstrate that mitochondrial regulation of the secretome is more extensive than …
Nociceptive habituation is a conserved process through which pain sensitivity threshold is adjusted based on past sensory experience and which may be dysregulated in human chronic pain conditions. Noxious heat habituation in Caenorhabditis elegans invo…
Changes in the number of synaptic AMPA receptors underlie many forms of synaptic plasticity. These variations are controlled by an interplay between their intracellular transport (IT), export to the plasma membrane (PM), stabilization at synapses, and …
Mutations in the ubiquitin (Ub) chaperone Ubiquilin 2 (UBQLN2) cause X-linked forms of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD) through unknown mechanisms. Here we show that aggregation-prone, ALS-associated mutants of UBQL…
Hearing loss is a hallmark of aging, typically initially affecting the higher frequencies. In echolocating bats, the ability to discern high frequencies is essential. However, nothing is known about age-related hearing loss in bats, and they are often…
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is a fatal neurodegenerative disease characterized by progressive motor neuron dysfunction and loss. A portion of ALS cases are caused by mutation of the proteasome shuttle factor Ubiquilin 2 (UBQLN2), but the molecu…
Modification by sialylated glycans can affect protein functions, underlying mechanisms that control animal development and physiology. Sialylation relies on a dedicated pathway involving evolutionarily conserved enzymes, including CMP-sialic acid synth…
Hair cells of the inner ear are particularly sensitive to changes in mitochondria, the subcellular organelles necessary for energy production in all eukaryotic cells. There are over thirty mitochondrial deafness genes, and mitochondria are implicated i…
C. elegans neurons under stress can produce giant vesicles, several microns in diameter, called exophers. Current models suggest that exophers are neuroprotective, providing a mechanism for stressed neurons to eject toxic protein aggregates and organel…