Biology subjects

Henn, L.

Publications and source records attributed to Henn, L..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2026

Recognizing dUTPase as a mitotic factor essential for early embryonic development

dUTPase is universally regarded as a metabolic sanitizing enzyme that protects genomes by preventing the incorporation of uracil into DNA. Despite its essentiality across eukaryotes, no function beyond nucleotide sanitization has been demonstrated. Here, we uncover a conserved, non-canonical role for dUTPase as a regulator of mitosis. Using Drosophila and mouse models, we demonstrate that dUTPase loss causes early embryonic lethality characterized by severe mitotic failure that, cannot be rescued by disabling uracil-DNA repair, uncoupling dUTPase essentiality from DNA repair pathways. Mechanistically, dUTPase dynamically associates with the mitotic spindle and centrosomes, and its depletion induces centrosome amplification and chromosome segregation defects. Beyond cell division, dUTPase dosage bidirectionally controls cell migration, linking its mitotic function to cellular behaviors relevant for metastasis. Together, our findings redefine dUTPase as a moonlighting mitotic factor that coordinates centrosome integrity and spindle dynamics, expanding its known repertoire beyond nucleotide metabolism. HighlightsdUTPase deficiency leads to mitotic defects during early embryonic development in both Drosophila and mouse models dUTPase shows dynamic spatiotemporal localization associated with microtubules through mitosis dUTPase is essential for the normal number and intracellular localization of centrosomes dUTPase deficiency counteracts while its overexpression enhances cell migration

molecular biology↗

bioRxiv2020

In response to Li et al.: Linker histones function in Drosophila embryogenesis

In an earlier paper (Perez-Montero et al., 2013), we reported that the embryonic linker histone of Drosophila dBigH1 was essential for early Drosophila embryogenesis since embryos homozygous for the bigH1100 mutation showed strong defects and did not survive beyond zygotic genome activation (ZGA) at cellularization. Recent results challenge these observations since null bigH1 mutations generated by CRISPR/Cas9 methodology turn out to be homozygous viable, as reported in Li et al. (2019) and here. In this regard, Li et al. described a novel mechanism by which lack of dBigH1 is compensated by the early expression of maternal dH1. Here, we confirm this observation and show that such compensatory mechanism is not activated in bigH1100 embryos.

molecular biology↗

bioRxiv2019

Clustering of the structures by using \"snakes-and-dragons\" approach, or correlation matrix as a signal

Biological, ecological, social, and technological systems are complex structures with multiple interacting parts, often represented by networks. Correlation matrices describing interdependency of the variables in such structures provide key information for comparison and classification of such systems. Classification based on correlation matrices could supplement or improve classification based on variable values, since the former reveals similarities in system structures, while the latter relies on the similarities in system states. Importantly, this approach of clustering correlation matrices is different from clustering elements of the correlation matrices, because our goal is to compare and cluster multiple networks - not the nodes within the networks. A novel approach for clustering correlation matrices, named \"snakes-&-dragons,\" is introduced and illustrated by examples from neuroscience, human microbiome, and macroeconomics.

bioinformatics↗