The m6A(m)-independent role of FTO in regulating WNT signaling pathways.

FTO and ALKBH5 are the two enzymes responsible for mRNA demethylation. Hence, the functional study of FTO has been focused on its mechanistic role in dynamic mRNA modification, and how this post-transcriptional regulation modulates signaling pathways. Here, we report that the functional landscape of FTO is largely associated with WNT signaling pathways but in a manner that is independent of its enzymatic activity. Re-analyses of public datasets identified the bifurcation of canonical and noncanonical WNT pathways as the major role of FTO. In FTO-depleted cells, we find that the canonical WNT/ß-Catenin signaling is attenuated in a non-cell autonomous manner via the up-regulation of DKK1. Simultaneously, this up-regulation of DKK1 promotes cell migration via activating the noncanonical WNT/PCP pathway. Unexpectedly, this regulation of DKK1 is independent of its RNA methylation status but operates at the transcriptional level, revealing a noncanonical function of FTO in gene regulation. In conclusion, this study places the functional context of FTO at the branch point of multiple WNT signaling pathways and extends its mechanistic role in gene regulation.

RNA m6A Methyltransferase Mettl3 Regulates Spatial Neural Patterning in Xenopus laevis.

N6-Methyladenosine (m6A) is the most prevalent internal RNA modification and has a widespread impact on mRNA stability and translation. Methyltransferase-like 3 (Mettl3) is a methyltransferase responsible for RNA m6A modification, and it is essential for early embryogenesis before or during gastrulation in mice and zebrafish. However, due to the early embryonic lethality, loss-of-function phenotypes of Mettl3 beyond gastrulation, especially during neurulation stages when spatial neural patterning takes place, remain elusive. Here, we address multiple roles of Mettl3 during Xenopus neurulation in anteroposterior neural patterning, neural crest specification, and neuronal cell differentiation. Knockdown of Mettl3 causes anteriorization of neurulae and tailbud embryos along with the loss of neural crest and neuronal cells. Knockdown of the m6A reader Ythdf1 and mRNA degradation factors, such as 3' to 5' exonuclease complex component Lsm1 or mRNA uridylation enzyme Tut7, also show similar neural patterning defects, suggesting that m6A-dependent mRNA destabilization regulates spatial neural patterning in Xenopus. We also address that canonical WNT signaling is inhibited in Mettl3 morphants, which may underlie the neural patterning defects of the morphants. Altogether, this study reveals functions of Mettl3 during spatial neural patterning in Xenopus.

RNA demethylation by FTO stabilizes the FOXJ1 mRNA for proper motile ciliogenesis.

Adenosine N6-methylation (m6A) is one of the most pervasive mRNA modifications, and yet the physiological significance of m6A removal (demethylation) remains elusive. Here, we report that the m6A demethylase FTO functions as a conserved regulator of motile ciliogenesis. Mechanistically, FTO demethylates and thereby stabilizes the mRNA that encodes the master ciliary transcription factor FOXJ1. Depletion of Fto in Xenopus laevis embryos caused widespread motile cilia defects, and Foxj1 was identified as one of the major phenocritical targets. In primary human airway epithelium, FTO depletion also led to FOXJ1 mRNA destabilization and a severe loss of ciliated cells with an increase of neighboring goblet cells. Consistently, Fto knockout mice showed strong asthma-like phenotypes upon allergen challenge, a result owing to defective ciliated cells in the airway epithelium. Altogether, our study reveals a conserved role of the FTO-FOXJ1 axis in embryonic and homeostatic motile ciliogenesis.

Reductively Caged, Photoactivatable DNA-PAINT for High-Throughput Super-resolution Microscopy.

In DNA points accumulation in nanoscale topography (DNA-PAINT), capable of single-molecule localization microscopy with sub-10-nm resolution, the high background stemming from the unbound fluorescent probes in solution limits the imaging speed and throughput. Herein, we reductively cage the fluorescent DNA probes conjugated with a cyanine dye to hydrocyanine, acting as a photoactivatable dark state. The additional dark state from caging lowered the fluorescent background while enabling optically selective activation by total internal reflection (TIR) illumination at 405 nm. These benefits from "reductive caging" helped to increase the localization density or the imaging speed while preserving the image quality. With the aid of high-density analysis, we could further increase the imaging speed of conventional DNA-PAINT by two orders of magnitude, making DNA-PAINT capable of high-throughput super-resolution imaging.

TIS21/BTG2 inhibits doxorubicin-induced stress fiber-vimentin networks via Nox4-ROS-ABI2-DRF-linked signal cascade.

Activities of TIS21/BTG2 gene regulating cancer cell senescence were investigated in hepatoma cells by using low dose doxorubicin (Doxo, 100ng/mL). Treatment of Huh7 cells with Doxo increased linear actin nucleation e.g., transverse arcs and ventral stress fibers, as opposed to loss of filopodia. The linear actin nucleation was accompanied with thick vimentin networks at periphery of the cells, when examined by super-resolution STED microscope. However, expression of TIS21 inhibited ABI2-DRF pathway by inhibiting DRF expression and reducing ABI2 protein stability. The change lead to downregulation of stress fiber formations and thick vimentin networks at the periphery of Huh7 cells. In addition, TIS21 inhibited NADPH oxidase 4 (Nox4)-derived reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation that regulates actin nucleator, DRF family gene expression. Taken together, TIS21 attenuated Doxo-induced cancer cell senescence by inhibiting linear actin nucleation via Nox4-ROS-ABI2-DRF signal cascade, implying that expression of TIS21 overcomes resistance of senescent cells to cancer chemotherapy via inhibiting linear actin nucleation.

Sexual life and self-esteem in married elderly.

The elderly population in South Korea is increasing. But traditionally in Korea, there is a tendency for the elderly to be cautious and sensitive to how their children view them, and younger generations tend to consider elderly sexuality to be a subject of taboo. Nevertheless, a person's sexual life is a general condition that affects the body, mental health and personality. Therefore, it is important to examine the relationship between the actual conditions of sexual life of elderly and self-esteem during old age. Sexual life was important for 38.5% of the research subjects and very important for 23.7%. Sexual partners were spouses for 93.4%. The self-esteem range was 20-38 with an average of 28.23. Those who were maintaining a sexual life had significantly higher self-esteem than those who were not (t=2.222, p=0.028). Those who felt very satisfied with their current sexual life had a significantly higher self-esteem than those who did not (F=2.824, p=0.028). The results show that it is important to have sexual life in late life. It will be necessary to develop and apply programs that will actively support elderly sexual life, as well as continue research in this area.

High order statistics based blind deconvolution of bi-level images with unknown intensity values.

We propose a novel linear blind deconvolution method for bi-level images. The proposed method seeks an optimal point spread function and two parameters that maximize a high order statistics based objective function. Unlike existing minimum entropy deconvolution and least squares minimization methods, the proposed method requires neither unrealistic assumption that the pixel values of a bi-level image are independently identically distributed samples of a random variable nor tuning of regularization parameters.We demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method in simulations and experiments.