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51 Janelia Publications

Showing 21-30 of 51 results
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    07/27/20 | A general method to optimize and functionalize red-shifted rhodamine dyes.
    Grimm JB, Tkachuk AN, Xie L, Choi H, Mohar B, Falco N, Schaefer K, Patel R, Zheng Q, Liu Z, Lippincott-Schwartz J, Brown TA, Lavis LD
    Nature Methods. 2020 Jul 27:. doi: 10.1038/s41592-020-0909-6

    Expanding the palette of fluorescent dyes is vital to push the frontier of biological imaging. Although rhodamine dyes remain the premier type of small-molecule fluorophore owing to their bioavailability and brightness, variants excited with far-red or near-infrared light suffer from poor performance due to their propensity to adopt a lipophilic, nonfluorescent form. We report a framework for rationalizing rhodamine behavior in biological environments and a general chemical modification for rhodamines that optimizes long-wavelength variants and enables facile functionalization with different chemical groups. This strategy yields red-shifted 'Janelia Fluor' (JF) dyes useful for biological imaging experiments in cells and in vivo.

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    07/20/20 | Microdomains form on the luminal face of neuronal extracellular vesicle membranes.
    Matthies D, Lee NY, Gatera I, Pasolli HA, Zhao X, Liu H, Walpita D, Liu Z, Yu Z, Ioannou MS
    Scientific Reports. 2020 Jul 20;10(1):11953. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-68436-x

    Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are important mediators of cell-to-cell communication and have been implicated in several pathologies including those of the central nervous system. They are released by all cell types, including neurons, and are highly heterogenous in size and composition. Yet much remains unknown regarding the biophysical characteristics of different EVs. Here, using cryo-electron microscopy (cryoEM), we analyzed the size distribution and morphology of EVs released from primary cortical neurons. We discovered massive macromolecular clusters on the luminal face of EV membranes. These clusters are predominantly found on medium-sized vesicles, suggesting that they may be specific to microvesicles as opposed to exosomes. We propose that these clusters serve as microdomains for EV signaling and play an important role in EV physiology.

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    06/17/20 | Genome-wide kinetic properties of transcriptional bursting in mouse embryonic stem cells.
    Ochiai H, Hayashi T, Umeda M, Yoshimura M, Harada A, Shimizu Y, Nakano K, Saitoh N, Liu Z, Yamamoto T, Okamura T, Ohkawa Y, Kimura H, Nikaido I
    Science Advances. 2020 Jun 17;6(25):eaaz6699. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.aaz6699

    Transcriptional bursting is the stochastic activation and inactivation of promoters, contributing to cell-to-cell heterogeneity in gene expression. However, the mechanism underlying the regulation of transcriptional bursting kinetics (burst size and frequency) in mammalian cells remains elusive. In this study, we performed single-cell RNA sequencing to analyze the intrinsic noise and mRNA levels for elucidating the transcriptional bursting kinetics in mouse embryonic stem cells. Informatics analyses and functional assays revealed that transcriptional bursting kinetics was regulated by a combination of promoter- and gene body-binding proteins, including the polycomb repressive complex 2 and transcription elongation factors. Furthermore, large-scale CRISPR-Cas9-based screening identified that the Akt/MAPK signaling pathway regulated bursting kinetics by modulating transcription elongation efficiency. These results uncovered the key molecular mechanisms underlying transcriptional bursting and cell-to-cell gene expression noise in mammalian cells.

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    04/01/20 | 3D ATAC-PALM: super-resolution imaging of the accessible genome.
    Xie L, Dong P, Chen X, Hsieh TS, Banala S, De Marzio M, English BP, Qi Y, Jung SK, Kieffer-Kwon K, Legant WR, Hansen AS, Schulmann A, Casellas R, Zhang B, Betzig E, Lavis LD, Chang HY, Tjian R, Liu Z
    Nature Methods. 2020 Apr 01;17(4):430-6. doi: 10.1038/s41592-020-0775-2

    To image the accessible genome at nanometer scale in situ, we developed three-dimensional assay for transposase-accessible chromatin-photoactivated localization microscopy (3D ATAC-PALM) that integrates an assay for transposase-accessible chromatin with visualization, PALM super-resolution imaging and lattice light-sheet microscopy. Multiplexed with oligopaint DNA–fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH), RNA–FISH and protein fluorescence, 3D ATAC-PALM connected microscopy and genomic data, revealing spatially segregated accessible chromatin domains (ACDs) that enclose active chromatin and transcribed genes. Using these methods to analyze genetically perturbed cells, we demonstrated that genome architectural protein CTCF prevents excessive clustering of accessible chromatin and decompacts ACDs. These results highlight 3D ATAC-PALM as a useful tool to probe the structure and organizing mechanism of the genome.

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    12/23/19 | MeCP2 nuclear dynamics in live neurons results from low and high affinity chromatin interactions.
    Piccolo FM, Liu Z, Dong P, Hsu C, Stoyanova EI, Rao A, Tjian R, Heintz N
    eLife. 2019 Dec 23;8:. doi: 10.7554/eLife.51449

    Methyl-CpG-binding-Protein 2 (MeCP2) is an abundant nuclear protein highly enriched in neurons. Here we report live-cell single-molecule imaging studies of the kinetic features of mouse MeCP2 at high spatial-temporal resolution. MeCP2 displays dynamic features that are distinct from both highly mobile transcription factors and immobile histones. Stable binding of MeCP2 in living neurons requires its methyl-binding domain and is sensitive to DNA modification levels. Diffusion of unbound MeCP2 is strongly constrained by weak, transient interactions mediated primarily by its AT-hook domains, and varies with the level of chromatin compaction and cell type. These findings extend previous studies of the role of the MeCP2 MBD in high affinity DNA binding to living neurons, and identify a new role for its AT-hooks domains as critical determinants of its kinetic behavior. They suggest that limited nuclear diffusion of MeCP2 in live neurons contributes to its local impact on chromatin structure and gene expression.

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    12/18/19 | Phase separation of YAP reorganizes genome topology for long-term YAP target gene expression.
    Cai D, Feliciano D, Dong P, Flores E, Gruebele M, Porat-Shliom N, Sukenik S, Liu Z, Lippincott-Schwartz J
    Nature Cell Biology. 2019 Dec;21(12):1578-1589. doi: 10.1038/s41556-019-0433-z

    Yes-associated protein (YAP) is a transcriptional co-activator that regulates cell proliferation and survival by binding to a select set of enhancers for target gene activation. How YAP coordinates these transcriptional responses is unknown. Here, we demonstrate that YAP forms liquid-like condensates in the nucleus. Formed within seconds of hyperosmotic stress, YAP condensates compartmentalized the YAP transcription factor TEAD1 and other YAP-related co-activators, including TAZ, and subsequently induced the transcription of YAP-specific proliferation genes. Super-resolution imaging using assay for transposase-accessible chromatin with photoactivated localization microscopy revealed that the YAP nuclear condensates were areas enriched in accessible chromatin domains organized as super-enhancers. Initially devoid of RNA polymerase II, the accessible chromatin domains later acquired RNA polymerase II, transcribing RNA. The removal of the intrinsically-disordered YAP transcription activation domain prevented the formation of YAP condensates and diminished downstream YAP signalling. Thus, dynamic changes in genome organization and gene activation during YAP reprogramming is mediated by liquid-liquid phase separation.

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    09/01/19 | A neuron-glia Co-culture system for studying intercellular lipid transport.
    Ioannou MS, Liu Z, Lippincott-Schwartz J
    Curr Protoc Cell Biol. 2019 Sep 01;84(1):e95. doi: 10.1002/cpcb.95

    Neurons and glia operate in a highly coordinated fashion in the brain. Although glial cells have long been known to supply lipids to neurons via lipoprotein particles, new evidence reveals that lipid transport between neurons and glia is bidirectional. Here, we describe a co-culture system to study transfer of lipids and lipid-associated proteins from neurons to glia. The assay entails culturing neurons and glia on separate coverslips, pulsing the neurons with fluorescently labeled fatty acids, and then incubating the coverslips together. As astrocytes internalize and store neuron-derived fatty acids in lipid droplets, analyzing the number, size, and fluorescence intensity of lipid droplets containing the fluorescent fatty acids provides an easy and quantifiable measure of fatty acid transport. © 2019 The Authors.

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    08/13/19 | Bright and photostable chemigenetic indicators for extended in vivo voltage imaging.
    Abdelfattah AS, Kawashima T, Singh A, Novak O, Liu H, Shuai Y, Huang Y, Campagnola L, Seeman SC, Yu J, Zheng J, Grimm JB, Patel R, Friedrich J, Mensh BD, Paninski L, Macklin JJ, Murphy GJ, Podgorski K, Lin B, Chen T, Turner GC, Liu Z, Koyama M, Svoboda K, Ahrens MB, Lavis LD, Schreiter ER
    Science. 2019 Aug 13;365(6454):699-704. doi: 10.1126/science.aav6416

    Imaging changes in membrane potential using genetically encoded fluorescent voltage indicators (GEVIs) has great potential for monitoring neuronal activity with high spatial and temporal resolution. Brightness and photostability of fluorescent proteins and rhodopsins have limited the utility of existing GEVIs. We engineered a novel GEVI, "Voltron", that utilizes bright and photostable synthetic dyes instead of protein-based fluorophores, extending the combined duration of imaging and number of neurons imaged simultaneously by more than tenfold relative to existing GEVIs. We used Voltron for in vivo voltage imaging in mice, zebrafish, and fruit flies. In mouse cortex, Voltron allowed single-trial recording of spikes and subthreshold voltage signals from dozens of neurons simultaneously, over 15 min of continuous imaging. In larval zebrafish, Voltron enabled the precise correlation of spike timing with behavior.

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    06/21/19 | Spastin tethers lipid droplets to peroxisomes and directs fatty acid trafficking through ESCRT-III.
    Chang C, Weigel AV, Ioannou MS, Pasolli HA, Xu CS, Peale DR, Shtengel G, Freeman M, Hess HF, Blackstone C, Lippincott-Schwartz J
    Journal of Cell Biology. 2019 Jun 21;218(8):2583-99. doi: 10.1101/544023

    Lipid droplets (LDs) are neutral lipid storage organelles that transfer lipids to various organelles including peroxisomes. Here, we show that the hereditary spastic paraplegia protein M1 Spastin, a membrane-bound AAA ATPase found on LDs, coordinates fatty acid (FA) trafficking from LDs to peroxisomes through two inter-related mechanisms. First, M1 Spastin forms a tethering complex with peroxisomal ABCD1 to promote LD-peroxisome contact formation. Second, M1 Spastin recruits the membrane-shaping ESCRT-III proteins IST1 and CHMP1B to LDs via its MIT domain to facilitate LD-to-peroxisome FA trafficking, possibly through IST1 and CHMP1B modifying LD membrane morphology. Furthermore, M1 Spastin, IST1 and CHMP1B are all required to relieve LDs of lipid peroxidation. The roles of M1 Spastin in tethering LDs to peroxisomes and in recruiting ESCRT-III components to LD-peroxisome contact sites for FA trafficking may help explain the pathogenesis of diseases associated with defective FA metabolism in LDs and peroxisomes.

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    06/14/19 | NDP52 tunes cortical actin interaction with astral microtubules for accurate spindle orientation.
    Yu H, Yang F, Dong P, Liao S, Liu WR, Zhao G, Qin B, Dou Z, Liu Z, Liu W, Zang J, Lippincott-Schwartz J, Liu X, Yao X
    Cell Research. 2019 Jun 14;29(8):666-79. doi: 10.1038/s41422-019-0189-9

    Oriented cell divisions are controlled by a conserved molecular cascade involving Gαi, LGN, and NuMA. Here, we show that NDP52 regulates spindle orientation via remodeling the polar cortical actin cytoskeleton. siRNA-mediated NDP52 suppression surprisingly revealed a ring-like compact subcortical F-actin architecture surrounding the spindle in prophase/prometaphase cells, which resulted in severe defects of astral microtubule growth and an aberrant spindle orientation. Remarkably, NDP52 recruited the actin assembly factor N-WASP and regulated the dynamics of the subcortical F-actin ring in mitotic cells. Mechanistically, NDP52 was found to bind to phosphatidic acid-containing vesicles, which absorbed cytoplasmic N-WASP to regulate local filamentous actin growth at the polar cortex. Our TIRFM analyses revealed that NDP52-containing vesicles anchored N-WASP and shortened the length of actin filaments in vitro. Based on these results we propose that NDP52-containing vesicles regulate cortical actin dynamics through N-WASP to accomplish a spatiotemporal regulation between astral microtubules and the actin network for proper spindle orientation and precise chromosome segregation. In this way, intracellular vesicles cooperate with microtubules and actin filaments to regulate proper mitotic progression. Since NDP52 is absent from yeast, we reason that metazoans have evolved an elaborate spindle positioning machinery to ensure accurate chromosome segregation in mitosis.

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