Biology subjects

Roovers, E. F.

Publications and source records attributed to Roovers, E. F..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2021

Ischemic tolerance and cardiac repair in the African spiny mouse

Ischemic heart disease and by extension myocardial infarction is the primary cause of death worldwide, necessitating regenerative therapies to restore heart function. Current models of heart regeneration are restricted in that they are not of adult mammalian origin, precluding the study of class-specific traits that have emerged throughout evolution, and reducing translatability of research findings to humans. Here, we overcome those restrictions by introducing the African spiny mouse (Acomys spp.), a murid rodent that has recently been found to exhibit bona fide regeneration of the back skin and ear pinna. We show that spiny mice exhibit tolerance to myocardial infarction through superior survivability, improved ventricular conduction, smaller scar size, and near-absence of cardiac remodeling. Critically, spiny mice display increased vascularization and cardiomyocyte expansion, with an associated improvement in heart function. These findings present new avenues for mammalian heart research by leveraging unique tissue properties of the spiny mouse.

developmental biology↗

bioRxiv2019

PIWIL3 forms a complex with TDRKH in mammalian oocytes

PIWIs are crucial guardians of genome integrity, particularly in germ cells. While mammalian PIWIs have been primarily studied in mouse and rat, a homologue for the human PIWIL3 gene is absent in the Muridae family, and hence the unique function of PIWIL3 in germ cells cannot be effectively modeled by mouse knockouts. Herein, we investigated the expression, distribution and interaction of PIWIL3 in bovine oocytes. We localized PIWIL3 to mitochondria, and demonstrated that PIWIL3 expression is stringently controlled both spatially and temporally before and after fertilization. Moreover, we identified PIWIL3 in a mitochondrials-recruited three-membered complex with TDRKH and PNLDC1, and demonstrated by mutagenesis that PIWIL3 N-terminal arginine modifications are required for complex assembly. Finally we sequenced the piRNAs bound to PIWIL3-TDRKH-PNLDC1 and report here that about 50% of these piRNAs map to transposable elements, recapitulating the important role of PIWIL3 in maintaining genome integrity in mammalian oocytes.

cell biology↗

bioRxiv2018

Tdrd6a regulates the aggregation of Buc into functional subcellular compartments that drive germ cell specification

In recent years, it has become clear that phase separation represents an important class of subcellular compartmentalization. However, relatively little is known about how the formation or disassembly of such compartments is regulated. In zebrafish, the Balbiani body (Bb) and the germ plasm (Gp) are phase-separated structures essential for germ cell specification and home to many germ cell-specific mRNAs and proteins. Throughout development, these structures range from a single large aggregate (Bb), to a dispersed state and back to relatively large assemblies (Gp). Formation of the Bb requires Bucky ball (Buc), a protein with prion-like properties. We found that the multi-tudor domain-containing protein Tdrd6a interacts directly with Buc, affecting its mobility and aggregation properties. Importantly, lack of this regulatory interaction leads to significant defects in germ cell development. Our work presents a new mechanism for how prion-like protein-aggregations can be regulated and highlights the biological relevance of such regulatory events.

molecular biology↗