Online Journal Club for September 2009
Our new format includes only relevant articles. If you have articles that you believe should be included in the online journal club, send them to me before the 20th of the month. -Sullydog
*1. The Regulation of protein tyrosine phosphatase 1B by sumoylation. Shrikrishna Dadke et al.
The horizon of cellular-physiological effects for SUMO continues to widen. This is cell-culture work, but features some beautiful IF work that has me pretty inspired. The findings increase the number of known SUMO substrates, and includes—get this—ER-bound signaling proteins. Even more exciting, for me, is the finding that insulin stimulates SUMOylation of PTP1B. We will definitely be following up on this work.
Link (PDF): http://www.nature.com/ncb/journal/v9/n1/pdf/ncb1522.pdf
*2. Potential Molecular Targets for Translational Stroke Research. Peter Vosler, Jun Chen.
This paper, and several of those that follow this month, give a quick overview of the state of the field. Jun Chen’s focus here is on PCD and the Usual Suspects: JNK, CREB, Akt, ERK, et al. This short little paper also gives an overview of how translational work is to be conducted going forward: documentaion of long-term neuroprotection and neurological improvement, cross-species efficacy, efficacy in aged and diseased animals—all the things we’ve been talking about for many months. A quick and worthwhile read.
Link (PDF): http://stroke.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/full/40/3_suppl_1/S119
*3. The Continued Promise of Neuroprotection for Acute Stroke Treatment. Shimin Liu, et al.
This article, from the new JESTM, clearly reflects the bias and interest of its authors—they believe that not enough work has been done on the bioenergetics of the penumbra. But the article is still a worthwhile read, covering a lot of territory, from the validation of systems, like STAIR for the evaluation of putative neuroprotectants, to the role of cerebral blood flow/no reflow in outcome, and suggestions of where work needs to go in the future. The authors make a good argument that “there is still hope for neuroprotection.” Hear, hear. The November journal club will include an in-depth review of the new STAIR criteria, which, while they do not obviate that hope, will nevertheless be rather sobering to us all. Gird your loins.
Link (PDF): http://www.jestm.com/index.php/jestm/article/view/14/48
*4. Anoxia-Induced NF-kB-Dependent Upregulation of NCX1 Contributes to Ca2+ Refilling Into Endoplasmic Reticulum in Cortical Neurons. Rossana Sirabella et al.
The authors used an OGD model to investigate the relative expression and modulation of various isoforms of the Na/Ca exchanger NCX in cortical neurons, and how these phenomena effected Ca2+ refilling. They found that OGD for 3 h resulted in differential expression, which was NF-kB dependent and correlated with significant alterations in ER Ca2+ current. This was further correlated with caspase activation, The results suggest that NF-kB dependent NCX1 upregulation is important to ER CA2++ refilling, which would ameliorate ischemic neuronal stress and PCD. The role of NF-kB is particularly interesting, and raises the quesiton of whether growth factors can “talk” to the stressed endoplasmic reticulum in a salutary manner.
Link (PDF): http://stroke.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/full/40/3/922