Structural and signaling mechanisms of TAAR1 enabled preferential agonist design.

Trace amine-associated receptor 1 (TAAR1) senses a spectrum of endogenous amine-containing metabolites (EAMs) to mediate diverse psychological functions and is useful for schizophrenia treatment without the side effects of catalepsy. Here, we systematically profiled the signaling properties of TAAR1 activation and present nine structures of TAAR1-Gs/Gq in complex with EAMs, clinical drugs, and synthetic compounds. These structures not only revealed the primary amine recognition pocket (PARP) harboring the conserved acidic D3.32 for conserved amine recognition and "twin" toggle switch for receptor activation but also elucidated that targeting specific residues in the second binding pocket (SBP) allowed modulation of signaling preference. In addition to traditional drug-induced Gs signaling, Gq activation by EAM or synthetic compounds is beneficial to schizophrenia treatment. Our results provided a structural and signaling framework for molecular recognition by TAAR1, which afforded structural templates and signal clues for TAAR1-targeted candidate compounds design.

Regulation of endogenous retrovirus-derived regulatory elements by GATA2/3 and MSX2 in human trophoblast stem cells.

The placenta is an organ with extraordinary phenotypic diversity in eutherian mammals. Recent evidence suggests that numerous human placental enhancers are evolved from lineage-specific insertions of endogenous retroviruses (ERVs), yet the transcription factors (TFs) underlying their regulation remain largely elusive. Here, by first focusing on MER41, a primate-specific ERV family previously linked to placenta and innate immunity, we uncover the binding motifs of multiple crucial trophoblast TFs (GATA2/3, MSX2, GRHL2) in addition to innate immunity TFs STAT1 and IRF1. Integration of ChIP-seq data confirms the binding of GATA2/3, MSX2, and their related factors on the majority of MER41-derived enhancers in human trophoblast stem cells (TSCs). MER41-derived enhancers that are constitutively active in human TSCs are distinct from those activated upon interferon stimulation, which is determined by the binding of relevant TFs and their subfamily compositions. We further demonstrate that GATA2/3 and MSX2 have prevalent binding to numerous other ERV families - indicating their broad impact on ERV-derived enhancers. Functionally, the derepression of many syncytiotrophoblast genes after MSX2 knockdown is likely to be mediated by regulatory elements derived from ERVs - suggesting ERVs are also important for mediating transcriptional repression. Overall, this study characterizes the regulation of ERV-derived regulatory elements by GATA2/3, MSX2, and their cofactors in human TSCs, and provides mechanistic insights into the importance of ERVs in human trophoblast regulatory network.

Paternal USP26 mutations raise Klinefelter syndrome risk in the offspring of mice and humans.

Current understanding holds that Klinefelter syndrome (KS) is not inherited, but arises randomly during meiosis. Whether there is any genetic basis for the origin of KS is unknown. Here, guided by our identification of some USP26 variations apparently associated with KS, we found that knockout of Usp26 in male mice resulted in the production of 41, XXY offspring. USP26 protein is localized at the XY body, and the disruption of Usp26 causes incomplete sex chromosome pairing by destabilizing TEX11. The unpaired sex chromosomes then result in XY aneuploid spermatozoa. Consistent with our mouse results, a clinical study shows that some USP26 variations increase the proportion of XY aneuploid spermatozoa in fertile men, and we identified two families with KS offspring wherein the father of the KS patient harbored a USP26-mutated haplotype, further supporting that paternal USP26 mutation can cause KS offspring production. Thus, some KS should originate from XY spermatozoa, and paternal USP26 mutations increase the risk of producing KS offspring.

Dimensionality reduction and visualization of single-cell RNA-seq data with an improved deep variational autoencoder.

Single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) is a revolutionary breakthrough that determines the precise gene expressions on individual cells and deciphers cell heterogeneity and subpopulations. However, scRNA-seq data are much noisier than traditional high-throughput RNA-seq data because of technical limitations, leading to many scRNA-seq data studies about dimensionality reduction and visualization remaining at the basic data-stacking stage. In this study, we propose an improved variational autoencoder model (termed DREAM) for dimensionality reduction and a visual analysis of scRNA-seq data. Here, DREAM combines the variational autoencoder and Gaussian mixture model for cell type identification, meanwhile explicitly solving 'dropout' events by introducing the zero-inflated layer to obtain the low-dimensional representation that describes the changes in the original scRNA-seq dataset. Benchmarking comparisons across nine scRNA-seq datasets show that DREAM outperforms four state-of-the-art methods on average. Moreover, we prove that DREAM can accurately capture the expression dynamics of human preimplantation embryonic development. DREAM is implemented in Python, freely available via the GitHub website, https://github.com/Crystal-JJ/DREAM.

Virus classification for viral genomic fragments using PhaGCN2.

Viruses are the most ubiquitous and diverse entities in the biome. Due to the rapid growth of newly identified viruses, there is an urgent need for accurate and comprehensive virus classification, particularly for novel viruses. Here, we present PhaGCN2, which can rapidly classify the taxonomy of viral sequences at the family level and supports the visualization of the associations of all families. We evaluate the performance of PhaGCN2 and compare it with the state-of-the-art virus classification tools, such as vConTACT2, CAT and VPF-Class, using the widely accepted metrics. The results show that PhaGCN2 largely improves the precision and recall of virus classification, increases the number of classifiable virus sequences in the Global Ocean Virome dataset (v2.0) by four times and classifies more than 90% of the Gut Phage Database. PhaGCN2 makes it possible to conduct high-throughput and automatic expansion of the database of the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses. The source code is freely available at https://github.com/KennthShang/PhaGCN2.0.

CYTOSOLIC INVERTASE2 regulates flowering and reactive oxygen species-triggered programmed cell death in tomato.

Cytosolic invertase (CIN) in plants hydrolyzes sucrose into fructose and glucose, influencing flowering time and organ development. However, the underlying molecular mechanisms remain elusive. Through expressional, genetic, and histological analyses, we identified a substantially role of SlCIN2 (localized in mitochondria) in regulating flowering and pollen development in tomato (Solanum lycopersicum). The overexpression of SlCIN2 resulted in increased hexose accumulation and decreased sucrose and starch content. Our findings indicated that SlCIN2 interacts with Sucrose transporter2 (SlSUT2) to inhibit the sucrose transport activity of SlSUT2, thereby suppressing sucrose content in flower buds and delaying flowering. We found that higher levels of glucose in SlCIN2-overexpressing anthers result in the accumulation of abscisic acid (ABA) and reactive oxygen species (ROS), thereby disrupting programmed cell death (PCD) in anthers and delaying the end of tapetal degradation. Exogenous sucrose partially restored fertility in SlCIN2-overexpressing plants. This study revealed the mechanism by which SlCIN2 regulates pollen development and demonstrated a strategy for creating sugar-regulated gene male sterility lines for tomato hybrid seed production.

Spring Viremia of Carp Virus N Protein Negatively Regulates IFN Induction through Autophagy-Lysosome-Dependent Degradation of STING.

Fish possess a powerful IFN system to defend against aquatic virus infections. Nevertheless, spring viremia of carp virus (SVCV) causes large-scale mortality in common carp and significant economic losses to aquaculture. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate the strategies used by SVCV to escape the IFN response. In this study, we show that the SVCV nucleoprotein (N protein) negatively regulates cellular IFN production by degrading stimulator of IFN genes (STING) via the autophagy-lysosome-dependent pathway. First, overexpression of N protein inhibited the IFN promoter activation induced by polyinosinic-polycytidylic acid and STING. Second, the N protein associated with STING and experiments using a dominant-negative STING mutant demonstrated that the N-terminal transmembrane domains of STING were indispensable for this interaction. Then, the N protein degraded STING in a dose-dependent and autophagy-lysosome-dependent manner. Intriguingly, in the absence of STING, individual N proteins could not elicit host autophagic flow. Furthermore, the autophagy factor Beclin1 was found to interact with the N protein to attenuate N protein-mediated STING degradation after beclin1 knockdown. Finally, the N protein remarkably weakened STING-enhanced cellular antiviral responses. These findings reveal that SVCV uses the host autophagic process to achieve immune escape, thus broadening our understanding of aquatic virus pathogenesis.

GM-CSF Promotes the Survival of Peripheral-Derived Myeloid Cells in the Central Nervous System for Pain-Induced Relapse of Neuroinflammation.

We recently discovered a (to our knowledge) new neuroimmune interaction named the gateway reflex, in which the activation of specific neural circuits establishes immune cell gateways at specific vessel sites in organs, leading to the development of tissue-specific autoimmune diseases, including a multiple sclerosis (MS) mouse model, experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE). We have reported that peripheral-derived myeloid cells, which are CD11b+MHC class II+ and accumulate in the fifth lumbar (L5) cord during the onset of a transfer model of EAE (tEAE), play a role in the pain-mediated relapse via the pain-gateway reflex. In this study, we investigated how these cells survive during the remission phase to cause the relapse. We show that peripheral-derived myeloid cells accumulated in the L5 cord after tEAE induction and survive more than other immune cells. These myeloid cells, which highly expressed GM-CSFRα with common ß chain molecules, grew in number and expressed more Bcl-xL after GM-CSF treatment but decreased in number by blockade of the GM-CSF pathway, which suppressed pain-mediated relapse of neuroinflammation. Therefore, GM-CSF is a survival factor for these cells. Moreover, these cells were colocalized with blood endothelial cells (BECs) around the L5 cord, and BECs expressed a high level of GM-CSF. Thus, GM-CSF from BECs may have an important role in the pain-mediated tEAE relapse caused by peripheral-derived myeloid cells in the CNS. Finally, we found that blockade of the GM-CSF pathway after pain induction suppressed EAE development. Therefore, GM-CSF suppression is a possible therapeutic approach in inflammatory CNS diseases with relapse, such as MS.

Endogenous retrovirus-derived enhancers confer the transcriptional regulation of human trophoblast syncytialization.

Endogenous retroviruses (ERVs) have been proposed as a driving force for the evolution of the mammalian placenta, however, the contribution of ERVs to placental development and the underlying regulatory mechanism remain largely elusive. A key process of placental development is the formation of multinucleated syncytiotrophoblasts (STBs) in direct contact with maternal blood, through which constitutes the maternal-fetal interface critical for nutrient allocation, hormone production and immunological modulation during pregnancy. We delineate that ERVs profoundly rewire the transcriptional program of trophoblast syncytialization. Here, we first determined the dynamic landscape of bivalent ERV-derived enhancers with dual occupancy of H3K27ac and H3K9me3 in human trophoblast stem cells (hTSCs). We further demonstrated that enhancers overlapping several ERV families tend to exhibit increased H3K27ac and reduced H3K9me3 occupancy in STBs relative to hTSCs. Particularly, bivalent enhancers derived from the Simiiformes-specific MER50 transposons were linked to a cluster of genes important for STB formation. Importantly, deletions of MER50 elements adjacent to several STB genes, including MFSD2A and TNFAIP2, significantly attenuated their expression concomitant to compromised syncytium formation. Together, we propose that ERV-derived enhancers, MER50 specifically, fine-tune the transcriptional networks accounting for human trophoblast syncytialization, which sheds light on a novel ERV-mediated regulatory mechanism underlying placental development.

CBL family E3 ubiquitin ligases control JAK2 ubiquitination and stability in hematopoietic stem cells and myeloid malignancies.

Janus kinase 2 (JAK2) is a central kinase in hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells (HSPCs), and its uncontrolled activation is a prominent oncogenic driver of hematopoietic neoplasms. However, molecular mechanisms underlying the regulation of JAK2 have remained elusive. Here we report that the Casitas B-cell lymphoma (CBL) family E3 ubiquitin ligases down-regulate JAK2 stability and signaling via the adaptor protein LNK/SH2B3. We demonstrated that depletion of CBL/CBL-B or LNK abrogated JAK2 ubiquitination, extended JAK2 half-life, and enhanced JAK2 signaling and cell growth in human cell lines as well as primary murine HSPCs. Built on these findings, we showed that JAK inhibitor (JAKi) significantly reduced aberrant HSPCs and mitigated leukemia development in a mouse model of aggressive myeloid leukemia driven by loss of Cbl and Cbl-b Importantly, primary human CBL mutated (CBLmut ) leukemias exhibited increased JAK2 protein levels and signaling and were hypersensitive to JAKi. Loss-of-function mutations in CBL E3 ubiquitin ligases are found in a wide range of myeloid malignancies, which are diseases without effective treatment options. Hence, our studies reveal a novel signaling axis that regulates JAK2 in normal and malignant HSPCs and suggest new therapeutic strategies for treating CBLmut myeloid malignancies.

Mild-Temperature Supercritical Water Confined in Hydrophobic Metal-Organic Frameworks.

Fluids under extreme confinement show characteristics significantly different from those of their bulk counterpart. This work focuses on water confined within the complex cavities of highly hydrophobic metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) at high pressures. A combination of high-pressure intrusion-extrusion experiments with molecular dynamic simulations and synchrotron data reveals that supercritical transition for MOF-confined water takes place at a much lower temperature than in bulk water, ∼250 K below the reference values. This large shifting of the critical temperature (Tc) is attributed to the very large density of confined water vapor in the peculiar geometry and chemistry of the cavities of Cu2tebpz (tebpz = 3,3',5,5'-tetraethyl-4,4'-bipyrazolate) hydrophobic MOF. This is the first time the shift of Tc is investigated for water confined within highly hydrophobic nanoporous materials, which explains why such a large reduction of the critical temperature was never reported before, neither experimentally nor computationally.

The chromatin remodeler SRCAP promotes self-renewal of intestinal stem cells.

Lgr5+ intestinal stem cells (ISCs) exhibit self-renewal and differentiation features under homeostatic conditions, but the mechanisms controlling Lgr5 + ISC self-renewal remain elusive. Here, we show that the chromatin remodeler SRCAP is highly expressed in mouse intestinal epithelium and ISCs. Srcap deletion impairs both self-renewal of ISCs and intestinal epithelial regeneration. Mechanistically, SRCAP recruits the transcriptional regulator REST to the Prdm16 promoter and induces expression of this transcription factor. By activating PPARδ expression, Prdm16 in turn initiates PPARδ signaling, which sustains ISC stemness. Rest or Prdm16 deficiency abrogates the self-renewal capacity of ISCs as well as intestinal epithelial regeneration. Collectively, these data show that the SRCAP-REST-Prdm16-PPARδ axis is required for self-renewal maintenance of Lgr5 + ISCs.

DDX6 is involved in the pathogenesis of inflammatory diseases via NF-κB activation.

The IL-6 amplifier was originally discovered as a mechanism for the enhanced activation of NF-κB in non-immune cells. In the IL-6 amplifier, IL-6-STAT3 and NF-κB stimulation is followed by an excessive production of IL-6, chemokines, and growth factors to develop chronic inflammation preceding the development of inflammatory diseases. Previously, using a shRNA-mediated genome-wide screening, we found that DEAD-Box Helicase 6 (DDX6) is a candidate positive regulator of the amplifier. Here, we investigate whether DDX6 is involved in the pathogenesis of inflammatory diseases via the IL-6 amplifier. We found that DDX6-silencing in non-immune cells suppressed the NF-κB pathway and inhibited activation of the IL-6 amplifier, while the forced expression of DDX6 enhanced NF-κB promoter activity independent of the RNA helicase activity of DDX6. The imiquimod-mediated dermatitis model was suppressed by the siRNA-mediated gene downregulation of DDX6. Furthermore, silencing DDX6 significantly reduced the TNF-α-induced phosphorylation of p65/RelA and IκBα, nuclear localization of p65, and the protein levels of IκBα. Mechanistically, DDX6 is strongly associated with p65 and IκBα, but not TRADD, RIP, or TRAF2, suggesting a novel function of DDX6 as an adaptor protein in the NF-κB pathway. Thus, our findings demonstrate a possible role of DDX6 beyond RNA metabolism and suggest DDX6 is a therapeutic target for inflammatory diseases.

Sirtuin-6 knockout causes exacerbated stalled healing of diabetic ulcers in mice.

BACKGROUND: Diabetic ulcers (DUs) are characterized by chronic inflammation and delayed re-epithelialization, with a high incidence and weighty economic burden. The primary therapeutic strategies for refractory wounds include surgery, non-invasive wound therapy, and drugs, while the optimum regimen remains controversial. Sirtuin-6 (SIRT6) is a histone deacetylase and a key epigenetic factor that exerts anti-inflammatory and pro-proliferatory effects in wound healing. However, the exact function of SIRT6 in DUs remains unclear. METHODS: We generated tamoxifen-inducible SIRT6 knockout mice by crossing SIRT6flox/flox homozygous mice with UBC-creERT2+ transgenic mice. Systemic SIRT6 null mice, under either normal or diabetic conditions, were utilized to assess the effects of SIRT6 in DUs treatment. Gene and protein expressions of SIRT6 and inflammatory cytokines were measured by Western blotting and RT-qPCR. Histopathological examination confirmed the altered re-epithelialization (PCNA), inflammation (NF-κB p50 and F4/80), and angiogenesis (CD31) markers during DUs restoration. RESULTS: Knockout of SIRT6 inhibited the healing ability of DUs, presenting attenuated re-epithelialization (PCNA), exacerbated inflammation responses (NF-κB p50, F4/80, Il-1ß, Tnf-α, Il-6, Il-10, and Il-4), and hyperplasia vascular (CD31) compared with control mice. CONCLUSIONS: SIRT6 could boost impaired wound healing through improving epidermal proliferation, inflammation, and angiogenesis. Our study highlighted the therapeutic potential of the SIRT6 agonist for DUs treatment.

BpWOX11 promotes adventitious root formation in Betula pendula.

Adventitious root formation is a key step in vegetative propagation via cuttings. It is crucial for establishing birch plantations and preserve birch varieties. Although previous studies have highlighted role of WOX11 in controlling adventitious root formation, no such study has been conducted in birch. Understanding the mechanism of adventitious root formation is essential for improvement of rooting or survival rate using stem cuttings in birch. In this study, we cloned BpWOX11 and produced BpWOX11 overexpression (OE) transgenic lines using the Agrobacterium-mediated plant transformation. OE lines exhibited early initiated adventitious root formation, leading to increase the rooting rate of stem cuttings plants. RNA sequencing analysis revealed that OE lines induced the gene expression related to expansin and cell division pathway, as well as defense and stress response genes. These may be important factors for the BpWOX11 gene to promote adventitious root formation in birch cuttings. The results of this study will help to further understand the molecular mechanisms controlling the formation of adventitious roots in birch.

Thrombospondin 1 enhances systemic inflammation and disease severity in acute-on-chronic liver failure.

BACKGROUND: The key role of thrombospondin 1 (THBS1) in the pathogenesis of acute-on-chronic liver failure (ACLF) is unclear. Here, we present a transcriptome approach to evaluate THBS1 as a potential biomarker in ACLF disease pathogenesis. METHODS: Biobanked peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from 330 subjects with hepatitis B virus (HBV)-related etiologies, including HBV-ACLF, liver cirrhosis (LC), and chronic hepatitis B (CHB), and normal controls (NC) randomly selected from the Chinese Group on the Study of Severe Hepatitis B (COSSH) prospective multicenter cohort underwent transcriptome analyses (ACLF = 20; LC = 10; CHB = 10; NC = 15); the findings were externally validated in participants from COSSH cohort, an ACLF rat model and hepatocyte-specific THBS1 knockout mice. RESULTS: THBS1 was the top significantly differentially expressed gene in the PBMC transcriptome, with the most significant upregulation in ACLF, and quantitative polymerase chain reaction (ACLF = 110; LC = 60; CHB = 60; NC = 45) was used to verify that THBS1 expression corresponded to ACLF disease severity outcome, including inflammation and hepatocellular apoptosis. THBS1 showed good predictive ability for ACLF short-term mortality, with an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC) of 0.8438 and 0.7778 at 28 and 90 days, respectively. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay validation of the plasma THBS1 using an expanded COSSH cohort subjects (ACLF = 198; LC = 50; CHB = 50; NC = 50) showed significant correlation between THBS1 with ALT and γ-GT (P = 0.01), and offered a similarly good prognostication predictive ability (AUROC = 0.7445 and 0.7175) at 28 and 90 days, respectively. ACLF patients with high-risk short-term mortality were identified based on plasma THBS1 optimal cut-off value (< 28 µg/ml). External validation in ACLF rat serum and livers confirmed the functional association between THBS1, the immune response and hepatocellular apoptosis. Hepatocyte-specific THBS1 knockout improved mouse survival, significantly repressed major inflammatory cytokines, enhanced the expression of several anti-inflammatory mediators and impeded hepatocellular apoptosis. CONCLUSIONS: THBS1 might be an ACLF disease development-related biomarker, promoting inflammatory responses and hepatocellular apoptosis, that could provide clinicians with a new molecular target for improving diagnostic and therapeutic strategies.

Iron-Confined CRISPR/Cas9-Ribonucleoprotein Delivery System for Redox-Responsive Gene Editing.

Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat (CRISPR)-associated protein 9 (Cas9) is a promising gene editing tool to treat diseases at the genetic level. Nonetheless, the challenge of the safe and efficient delivery of CRISPR/Cas9 to host cells constrains its clinical applicability. In the current study, a facile, redox-responsive CRISPR/Cas9-Ribonucleoprotein (RNP) delivery system by combining iron-coordinated aggregation with liposomes (Fe-RNP@L) is reported. The Fe-RNP is formed by the coordination of Fe3+ with amino and carboxyl groups of Cas9, which modifies the lipophilicity and surface charge of RNP and alters cellular uptake from primary endocytosis to endocytosis and cholesterol-dependent membrane fusion. RNP can be rapidly and reversibly released from Fe-RNP in response to glutathione without loss of structural integrity and enzymatic activity. In addition, iron coordination also improves the stability of RNP and substantially mitigates cytotoxicity. This construct enabled highly efficient cytoplasmic/nuclear delivery (≈90%) and gene-editing efficiency (≈70%) even at low concentrations. The high payload content, high editing efficiency, good stability, low immunogenicity, and ease of production and storage, highlight its potential for diverse genome editing and clinical applications.

Freeze Metal Halide Perovskite for Dramatic Laser Tuning: Direct Observation via In Situ Cryo-Electron Microscope.

A frozen-temperature (below -28 °C) laser tuning way is developed to optimize metal halide perovskite (MHP)'s stability and opto-electronic properties, for emitter, photovoltaic and detector applications. Here freezing can adjust the competitive laser irradiation effects between damaging and annealing/repairing. And the ligand shells on MHP surface, which are widely present for many MHP materials, can be frozen and act as transparent solid templates for MHP's re-crystallization/re-growth during the laser tuning. With model samples of different types of CsPbBr3 nanocube arrays,an attempt is made to turn the dominant exposure facet from low-energy [100] facet to high-energy [111], [-211], [113] and [210] ones respectively; selectively removing the surface impurities and defects of CsPbBr3 nanocubes to enhance the irradiation durability by 101 times; and quickly (tens of seconds) modifying a Ruddlesden-Popper (RP) boundary into another type of boundary like twinning, and so on. The laser tuning mechanism is revealed by an innovative in situ cryo-transmission electron microscope (cryo-TEM) exploration at atomic resolution.

Identification of Angiogenesis-Related Genes and Molecular Subtypes for Psoriasis Based on Random Forest Algorithm.

Psoriasis is a chronic immune-mediated recurrent skin disease causing systemic damage. Increased angiogenesis has been reported to participate in the progression of psoriasis. However, angiogenesis-related genes (ARGs) in psoriasis have not been systematically elucidated. Therefore, we aim to identify potential biomarkers and subtypes using two algorithms. Transcriptome sequencing data of patients with psoriasis were obtained, in which differentially expressed genes were assessed by principal component analysis (PCA). A diagnostic model was developed using random forest algorithm (ntree=400) and validated by ROC curves. Subsequently, we performed consensus clustering to calculate angiogenesis-associated molecular subtypes of psoriasis. Additionally, a correlation analysis was conducted between ARGs and immune cell infiltration. Finally, validation of potential ARG genes was performed by qRT-PCR. We identified 29 differentially expressed ARGs, including 13 increased and 16 decreased. Ten ARGs, CXCL8, ANG, EGF, HTATIP2, ANGPTL4, TNFSF12, RHOB, PML, FOXO4, and EMCN were subsequently sifted by the diagnostic model based on a random forest algorithm. Analysis of the ROC curve (area under the curve [AUC] = 1.0) indicated high diagnostic performance in internal validation. The correlation analysis suggested that CXCL8 has a high positive correlation with neutrophil (R =0.8, P<0.0001) and interleukins pathway (R=0.79, P<0.0001). Furtherer, two ARG-mediated subtypes were obtained, indicating potential heterogeneity. Finally, the qRT-PCR demonstrated that the mRNA expression levels of CXCL8 and ANGPTL4 were elevated in psoriasis patients, with a reduced expression of EMCN observed. The current paper indicated potential ARG-related biomarkers of psoriasis, including CXCL8, ANGPTL4, and EMCN, with two molecular subtypes.

Fish female-biased gene cyp19a1a leads to female antiviral response attenuation between sexes by autophagic degradation of MITA.

From insects to mammals, both innate and adaptive immune response are usually higher in females than in males, with the sex chromosome and hormonal differences considered the main reasons. Here, we report that zebrafish cyp19a1a (cytochrome P450, family 19, subfamily A, polypeptide 1a), an autosomal gene with female-biased expression, causes female fish to exhibit a lower antiviral response. First, we successfully constructed an infection model by intraperitoneal injection of spring viremia of carp virus (SVCV) into zebrafish (Danio rerio) and Carassius auratus herpesvirus (CaHV) in gibel carp (Carassius gibelio). Specifically, female fish were more vulnerable to viral infection than males, accompanied by a significantly weaker interferon (IFN) expression. After screening several candidates, cyp19a1a, which was highly expressed in female fish tissues, was selected for further analysis. The IFN expression and antiviral response were significantly higher in cyp19a1a-/- than in cyp19a1a+/+. Further investigation of the molecular mechanism revealed that Cyp19a1a targets mediator of IRF3 activation (MITA) for autophagic degradation. Interestingly, in the absence of MITA, Cyp19a1a alone could not elicit an autophagic response. Furthermore, the autophagy factor ATG14 (autophagy-related 14) was found interacted with Cyp19a1a to either promote or attenuate Cyp19a1a-mediated MITA degradation by either being overexpressed or knocked down, respectively. At the cellular level, both the normal and MITA-enhanced cellular antiviral responses were diminished by Cyp19a1a. These findings demonstrated a sex difference in the antiviral response based on a regulation mechanism controlled by a female-biased gene besides sex chromosome and hormonal differences, supplying the current understanding of sex differences in fish.