Zinc Fingers in HIV-1 Gag Precursor Are Not Equivalent for gRNA Recruitment at the Plasma Membrane.

The human immunodeficiency virus type 1 Gag precursor specifically selects the unspliced viral genomic RNA (gRNA) from the bulk of cellular and spliced viral RNAs via its nucleocapsid (NC) domain and drives gRNA encapsidation at the plasma membrane (PM). To further identify the determinants governing the intracellular trafficking of Gag-gRNA complexes and their accumulation at the PM, we compared, in living and fixed cells, the interactions between gRNA and wild-type Gag or Gag mutants carrying deletions in NC zinc fingers (ZFs) or a nonmyristoylated version of Gag. Our data showed that the deletion of both ZFs simultaneously or the complete NC domain completely abolished intracytoplasmic Gag-gRNA interactions. Deletion of either ZF delayed the delivery of gRNA to the PM but did not prevent Gag-gRNA interactions in the cytoplasm, indicating that the two ZFs display redundant roles in this respect. However, ZF2 played a more prominent role than ZF1 in the accumulation of the ribonucleoprotein complexes at the PM. Finally, the myristate group, which is mandatory for anchoring the complexes at the PM, was found to be dispensable for the association of Gag with the gRNA in the cytosol.

Health care utilization in geriatric patients admitted with alcohol withdrawal from 2005 to 2014.

BACKGROUND: Alcohol-related and alcohol withdrawal (AW) hospitalizations are routinely underestimated in the geriatric population and can have a significant impact on healthcare resource utilization. OBJECTIVES: To examine various patient-characteristics, hospitalization-outcomes, and prevalence of AW related-hospitalizations. METHODS: In this retrospective study, we examined the objectives mentioned above over a 10-year period (2005 to 2014) using the Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS) in adults aged 65 years or older. National estimates of trends for AW prevalence and matched-regression analyses were conducted. RESULTS: Increased prevalence of hospitalizations for AW was observed (148-cases-per-100,000-discharges in 2005 to 283-cases-per-100,000-discharges in 2014). Of the overall nationwide hospital admissions in patients aged 65 and older (128,111,787), 0.21% (264,786) with documented AW were identified. Of these, those of age 65-74 years accounted for 72.7% of admissions with the highest prevalence amongst males (males accounted for 74%, women 26%) and individuals of Caucasian ethnicity (79.9%).On comparing AW to Non-AW related-hospitalizations, patients admitted with AW had a higher median length of stay (five vs. four days), more significant functional decline with only 44.2% discharges being discharged home (vs. 47.2%) and 34.4% AW related discharges requiring discharge to skilled nursing facilities (vs. 28.5%). Higher hospitalization costs totaling $4,000 more on bivariate analysis were observed for the AW group. CONCLUSIONS: The prevalence of admissions with AW has increased in the inpatient geriatric population, contributing to increased length of stay, higher hospitalization costs, and greater functional decline. Recognition of these findings and the development of programs supporting older adults with alcohol use disorder may improve patient outcomes.

JEasyTFM: an open-source software package for the analysis of large 2D TFM data within ImageJ.

Motivation: Cells adhering to the extracellular matrix can sense and respond to a wide variety of chemical and physical features of the adhesive surface. Traction force microscopy (TFM) allows determining the tensile forces exerted by the cells on their substrate with high resolution. Results: To allow broad access of this techniques to cell biology laboratories we developed JeasyTFM, an open-source ImageJ package able to process multi-color and multi-position time-lapse pictures thus suitable for the automatic analysis of large TFM data. Availability and implementation: JEasyTFM is implemented as an ImageJ plugin and available at: http://questpharma.u-strasbg.fr/JEasyTFM.html.

Protein dynamics at invadopodia control invasion-migration transitions in melanoma cells.

Cell invasion is a highly complex process that requires the coordination of cell migration and degradation of the extracellular matrix. In melanoma cells, as in many highly invasive cancer cell types these processes are driven by the regulated formation of adhesives structures such as focal adhesions and invasive structures like invadopodia. Structurally, focal adhesion and invadopodia are quite distinct, yet they share many protein constituents. However, quantitative understanding of the interaction of invadopodia with focal adhesion is lacking, and how invadopodia turn-over is associated with invasion-migration transition cycles remains unknown. In this study, we investigated the role of Pyk2, cortactin and Tks5 in invadopodia turnover and their relation with focal adhesions. We found that active Pyk2 and cortactin are localised at both focal adhesions and invadopodia. At invadopodia, localisation of active Pyk2 is correlated with ECM degradation. During invadopodia disassembly, Pyk2 and cortactin but not Tks5 are often relocated at nearby nascent adhesions. We also show that during ECM degradation, cell migration is reduced which is likely related to the sharing of common molecules within the two structures. Finally, we found that the dual FAK/Pyk2 inhibitor PF-431396 inhibits both focal adhesion and invadopodia activities thereby reducing both migration and ECM degradation.

Role of Endocytosis Proteins in Gefitinib-Mediated EGFR Internalisation in Glioma Cells.

EGFR (epidermal growth factor receptor), a member of the ErbB tyrosine kinase receptor family, is a clinical therapeutic target in numerous solid tumours. EGFR overexpression in glioblastoma (GBM) drives cell invasion and tumour progression. However, clinical trials were disappointing, and a molecular basis to explain these poor results is still missing. EGFR endocytosis and membrane trafficking, which tightly regulate EGFR oncosignaling, are often dysregulated in glioma. In a previous work, we showed that EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors, such as gefitinib, lead to enhanced EGFR endocytosis into fused early endosomes. Here, using pharmacological inhibitors, siRNA-mediated silencing, or expression of mutant proteins, we showed that dynamin 2 (DNM2), the small GTPase Rab5 and the endocytosis receptor LDL receptor-related protein 1 (LRP-1), contribute significantly to gefitinib-mediated EGFR endocytosis in glioma cells. Importantly, we showed that inhibition of DNM2 or LRP-1 also decreased glioma cell responsiveness to gefitinib during cell evasion from tumour spheroids. By highlighting the contribution of endocytosis proteins in the activity of gefitinib on glioma cells, this study suggests that endocytosis and membrane trafficking might be an attractive therapeutic target to improve GBM treatment.

Inhibiting FAK-Paxillin Interaction Reduces Migration and Invadopodia-Mediated Matrix Degradation in Metastatic Melanoma Cells.

The nonreceptor tyrosine kinase FAK is a promising target for solid tumor treatment because it promotes invasion, tumor progression, and drug resistance when overexpressed. Investigating the role of FAK in human melanoma cells, we found that both in situ and metastatic melanoma cells strongly express FAK, where it controls tumor cells' invasiveness by regulating focal adhesion-mediated cell motility. Inhibiting FAK in human metastatic melanoma cells with either siRNA or a small inhibitor targeting the kinase domain impaired migration but led to increased invadopodia formation and extracellular matrix degradation. Using FAK mutated at Y397, we found that this unexpected increase in invadopodia activity is due to the lack of phosphorylation at this residue. To preserve FAK-Src interaction while inhibiting pro-migratory functions of FAK, we found that altering FAK-paxillin interaction, with either FAK mutation in the focal adhesion targeting (FAT) domain or a competitive inhibitor peptide mimicking paxillin LD domains drastically reduces cell migration and matrix degradation by preserving FAK activity in the cytoplasm. In conclusion, our data show that targeting FAK-paxillin interactions could be a potential therapeutic strategy to prevent metastasis formation, and molecules targeting this interface could be alternative to inhibitors of FAK kinase activity which display unexpected effects.

The detrimental invasiveness of glioma cells controlled by gadolinium chelate-coated gold nanoparticles.

Glioblastoma are characterized by an invasive phenotype, which is thought to be responsible for recurrences and the short overall survival of patients. In the last decade, the promising potential of ultrasmall gadolinium chelate-coated gold nanoparticles (namely Au@DTDTPA(Gd)) was evidenced for image-guided radiotherapy in brain tumors. Considering the threat posed by invasiveness properties of glioma cells, we were interested in further investigating the biological effects of Au@DTDTPA(Gd) by examining their impact on GBM cell migration and invasion. In our work, exposure of U251 glioma cells to Au@DTDTPA(Gd) led to high accumulation of gold nanoparticles, that were mainly diffusely distributed in the cytoplasm of the tumor cells. Experiments pointed out a significant decrease in glioma cell invasiveness when exposed to nanoparticles. As the proteolysis activities were not directly affected by the intracytoplasmic accumulation of Au@DTDTPA(Gd), the anti-invasive effect cannot be attributed to matrix remodeling impairment. Rather, Au@DTDTPA(Gd) nanoparticles affected the intrinsic biomechanical properties of U251 glioma cells, such as cell stiffness, adhesion and generated traction forces, and significantly reduced the formation of protrusions, thus exerting an inhibitory effect on their migration capacities. Consistently, analysis of talin-1 expression and membrane expression of beta 1 integrin evoke the stabilization of focal adhesion plaques in the presence of nanoparticles. Taken together, our results highlight the interest in Au@DTDTPA(Gd) nanoparticles for the therapeutic management of astrocytic tumors, not only as a radio-enhancing agent but also by reducing the invasive potential of glioma cells.

Targeting Focal Adhesion Kinase Using Inhibitors of Protein-Protein Interactions.

Focal adhesion kinase (FAK) is a cytoplasmic non-receptor protein tyrosine kinase that is overexpressed and activated in many human cancers. FAK transmits signals to a wide range of targets through both kinase-dependant and independent mechanism thereby playing essential roles in cell survival, proliferation, migration and invasion. In the past years, small molecules that inhibit FAK kinase function have been developed and show reduced cancer progression and metastasis in several preclinical models. Clinical trials have been conducted and these molecules display limited adverse effect in patients. FAK contain multiple functional domains and thus exhibit both important scaffolding functions. In this review, we describe the major FAK interactions relevant in cancer signalling and discuss how such knowledge provide rational for the development of Protein-Protein Interactions (PPI) inhibitors.

Domain unfolding in neurofilament sidearms: effects of phosphorylation and ATP.

Lateral projections of neurofilaments (NF) called sidearms (SA) affect axon stability and caliber. SA phosphorylation is thought to modulate inter-NF distance and interactions between NF and other subcellular organelles. SA were probed by atomic force microscopy (AFM) and dynamic light scattering (DLS) as a function of phosphorylation and ATP content. DLS shows SA are larger when phosphorylated, and AFM shows four unfoldable domains in SA regardless of phosphorylation state or the presence of ATP. However, the native phosphorylated SA requires three-fold higher force to unfold by AFM than dephosphorylated SA, suggesting a less pliant as well as larger structure when phosphorylated.

Elasticity measurement of living cells with an atomic force microscope: data acquisition and processing.

Elasticity of living cells is a parameter of increasing importance in cellular physiology, and the atomic force microscope is a suitable instrument to quantitatively measure it. The principle of an elasticity measurement is to physically indent a cell with a probe, to measure the applied force, and to process this force-indentation data using an appropriate model. It is crucial to know what extent the geometry of the indenting probe influences the result. Therefore, we indented living Chinese hamster ovary cells at 37 degrees C with sharp tips and colloidal probes (spherical particle tips) of different sizes and materials. We furthermore developed an implementation of the Hertz model, which simplifies the data processing. Our results show (a) that the size of the colloidal probe does not influence the result over a wide range (radii 0.5-26 microm) and (b) indenting cells with sharp tips results in higher Young's moduli ( approximately 1,300 Pa) than using colloidal probes ( approximately 400 Pa).

Ethanol alters access to the cell nucleus.

Ethanol is the most frequently used drug among humans. We tested the hypothesis whether ethanol, at clinically relevant concentrations modifies, signaling across the nuclear envelope (NE). In cell nuclei isolated from Xenopus oocytes, we measured NE electrical resistance and NE macromolecule permeability 1 to 20 h after addition of ethanol (0.05 to 0.2%). Furthermore, with atomic force microscopy, nuclear pores of the NE were imaged after exposure to ethanol. We found that NE permeability decreased within hours of ethanol exposure. In parallel, nuclei swell and nuclear pores form clusters in the NE. Force measurements on individual nuclear pores indicate that pores found in clusters are stiffer than those found randomly distributed in the NE. Application of a transcription blocker (actinomycin D) or RNase treatment of isolated nuclei in vitro after ethanol exposure prevents the permeability changes. In conclusion, ethanol, at commonly used concentrations, changes NE structure by transcriptional processes in the cell nucleus. Within hours, the NE becomes less permeable for diffusible ions and macromolecules. This could explain altered signaling to and communication with the cell nucleus in the pathophysiology of alcohol abuse.

Cooperativity in forced unfolding of tandem spectrin repeats.

Force-driven conformational changes provide a broad basis for protein extensibility, and multidomain proteins broaden the possibilities further by allowing for a multiplicity of forcibly extended states. Red cell spectrin is prototypical in being an extensible, multidomain protein widely recognized for its contribution to erythrocyte flexibility. Atomic force microscopy has already shown that single repeats of various spectrin family proteins can be forced to unfold reversibly under extension. Recent structural data indicates, however, that the linker between triple-helical spectrin repeats is often a contiguous helix, thus raising questions as to what the linker contributes and what defines a domain mechanically. We have examined the extensible unfolding of red cell spectrins as monomeric constructs of just two, three, or four repeats from the actin-binding ends of both alpha- and beta-chains, i.e., alpha(18-21) and beta(1-4) or their subfragments. In addition to single repeat unfolding evident in sawtooth patterns peaked at relatively low forces (<50 pN at 1 nm/ms extension rates), tandem repeat unfolding is also demonstrated in ensemble-scale analyses of thousands of atomic force microscopy contacts. Evidence for extending two chains and loops is provided by force versus length scatterplots which also indicate that tandem repeat unfolding occurs at a significant frequency relative to single repeat unfolding. Cooperativity in forced unfolding of spectrin is also clearly demonstrated by a common force scale for the unfolding of both single and tandem repeats.

Chemistry on a single protein, vascular cell adhesion molecule-1, during forced unfolding.

Proteins of many types experience tensile forces in their normal function, and vascular cell adhesion molecule-1 (VCAM-1) is typical in this. VCAM has seven Ig domains, and each has a disulfide bond (-S-S-) buried in its core that covalently stabilizes about half of each domain against unfolding. VCAM is extended here by single molecule atomic force microscopy in the presence or absence of reducing agents. In the absence of reducing agent, a sawtooth pattern of forced unfolding reveals an average period and total length consistent with disulfide locations in VCAM. With increasing reducing agent, accessible disulfides are specifically reduced (to SH); the average period for unfolding increases up to saturation together with additional metrics of unfolding. Steered molecular dynamics simulations of unfolding indeed show that the core disulfide bond is solvent-exposed in the very earliest stages of protein extension. Michaelis-Menten kinetics emerge with reduction catalyzed by force (tau(reduction) approximately 10(-4) s). The results establish single molecule reduction, one bond at a time, and show that mechanical forces can play a key role in modulating the redox state of cell adhesion proteins that are invariably stressed in cell adhesion.