Dynamics of coagulopathy in patients with different COVID-19 severity.

With the progress of COVID-19 studies, it became evident that SARS-CoV-2 infection is often associated with thrombotic complications. The goal of our present study was to evaluate which component of clot formation process including endothelial function, platelets aggregation and plasma coagulation, as well as endogenous fibrinolysis in patients with COVID-19 correlates with the severity of the disease. We prospectively included 58 patients with COVID-19 and 47 healthy volunteers as a control group that we recruited before the pandemic started. It turns out that plasma coagulation with subsequent platelet aggregation, but not endothelial function, correlates with the severity of the COVID-19. IL-6 blockade may play a beneficial role in COVID-19 induced coagulopathy.

The Dam1 ring binds microtubules strongly enough to be a processive as well as energy-efficient coupler for chromosome motion.

Accurate chromosome segregation during mitotic division of budding yeast depends on the multiprotein kinetochore complex, Dam1 (also known as DASH). Purified Dam1 heterodecamers encircle microtubules (MTs) to form rings that can function as "couplers," molecular devices that transduce energy from MT disassembly into the motion of a cargo. Here we show that MT depolymerization develops a force against a Dam1 ring that is sixfold larger than the force exerted on a coupler that binds only one side of an MT. Wild-type rings slow depolymerization fourfold, but rings that include a mutant Dam1p with truncated C terminus slow depolymerization less, consistent with the idea that this tail is part of a strong bond between rings and MTs. A molecular-mechanical model for Dam1-MT interaction predicts that binding between this flexible tail and the MT wall should cause a Dam1 ring to wobble, and Fourier analysis of moving, ring-attached beads corroborates this prediction. Comparison of the forces generated against wild-type and mutant complexes confirms the importance of tight Dam1-MT association for processive cargo movement under load.

In vivo evaluation of indolyl glyoxamides in the phenotypic sea urchin embryo assay.

We have devised a 'one-pot' phenotypic in vivo assay for the rapid evaluation of potential tubulin inhibitors using the sea urchin embryo model. An effect of a small molecule on two specific developmental stages of sea urchin embryo, namely: (i) fertilized egg test for antimitotic activity and (ii) behavioral monitoring of a free-swimming blastulae for changes in the embryo swimming pattern could be quantified by a threshold concentration resulting in respective abnormalities. Derivatives of the clinical candidate D-24851 featured good correlation between activity in tubulin polymerization assay and our in vivo data. Importantly, we demonstrated that in these series, the N-substitution of indole is non-essential to attain profound in vitro and cellular effects.

Mitotic chromosome biorientation in fission yeast is enhanced by dynein and a minus-end-directed, kinesin-like protein.

Chromosome biorientation, the attachment of sister kinetochores to sister spindle poles, is vitally important for accurate chromosome segregation. We have studied this process by following the congression of pole-proximal kinetochores and their subsequent anaphase segregation in fission yeast cells that carry deletions in any or all of this organism's minus end-directed, microtubule-dependent motors: two related kinesin 14s (Pkl1p and Klp2p) and dynein. None of these deletions abolished biorientation, but fewer chromosomes segregated normally without Pkl1p, and to a lesser degree without dynein, than in wild-type cells. In the absence of Pkl1p, which normally localizes to the spindle and its poles, the checkpoint that monitors chromosome biorientation was defective, leading to frequent precocious anaphase. Ultrastructural analysis of mutant mitotic spindles suggests that Pkl1p contributes to error-free biorientation by promoting normal spindle pole organization, whereas dynein helps to anchor a focused bundle of spindle microtubules at the pole.