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In most mammals, including mice and humans, meiotic recombination is determined by the meiosis specific histone methytransferase PRDM9, which binds to specific DNA sequences and trimethylates histone 3 at lysine-4 and lysine-36 at the adjacent nucleosomes. These actions ensure successful DNA double strand break formation and repair that occur on the proteinaceous structure forming the chromosome axis. The process of hotspot association with the axis after their activation by PRDM9 is poorly understood. Previously, we and others have identified CXXC1, an ortholog of S. cerevisiae Spp1 in mammals, as a PRDM9 interactor. In yeast, Spp1 is a histone methyl reader that links H3K4me3 sites with the recombination machinery, promoting DSB formation. Here, we investigated whether CXXC1 has a similar function in mouse meiosis. We created two Cxxc1 conditional knockout mouse models to deplete CXXC1 generally in germ cells, and before the onset of meiosis. Surprisingly, male knockout mice were fertile, and the loss of CXXC1 in spermatocytes had no effect on PRDM9 hotspot trimethylation, double strand break formation or repair. Our results demonstrate that CXXC1 is not an essential link between PRDM9-activated recombination hotspot sites and DSB machinery and that the hotspot recognition pathway in mouse is independent of CXXC1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Methods used in information filtering and recommendation often rely on quantifying the similarity between objects or users. The used similarity metrics often suffer from similarity redundancies arising from correlations between objects’ attributes. Based on an unweighted undirected object-user bipartite network, we propose a Corrected Redundancy-Eliminating similarity index (CRE) which is based on a spreading process on the network. Extensive experiments on three benchmark data sets—Movilens, Netflix and Amazon—show that when used in recommendation, the CRE yields significant improvements in terms of recommendation accuracy and diversity. A detailed analysis is presented to unveil the origins of the observed differences between the CRE and mainstream similarity indices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In sickle cell disease (SCD), the inflammatory properties of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) can be changed by cell-free hemoglobin (Hb), which is released into the blood during hemolysis. Hb in the plasma of SCD patients or mice can bind with HDL specifically inducing an inflammatory reaction. In our study, we found increased amounts of inflammatory factor proteins in the chronic oxidative state of SCD with higher levels of Hb, haptoglobin (Hp) and hemopexin (Hx) in the apolipoprotein A-I (ApoA-1) particles of HDL and the role of HDL is changed from being anti-inflammatory to proinflammatory. Our results also suggest Hp and Hx, the scavengers of Hb in HDL, are positively associated with inflammatory levels in SCD patients. HDL retained its inflammatory inhibition role in Hp−/− mice, with less Hb accumulation. Hx may further prevent inflammatory reaction because its level will be even higher when lack of Hx. We therefore demonstrated that Hp is indispensable during the process whereby Hb associates with HDL and plays a clear proinflammatory role. Therefore, it is essential to break the binding between Hb and Hp for treatment. The dissociation of Hb/Hp/Hx complexes may also play an important role in the study of other inflammatory angiogenesis-related diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: ZFP580 is a novel C2H2 type zinc-finger transcription factor recently identified by our laboratory. We previously showed that ZFP580 may be involved in cell survival and growth. The aim of this study was to elucidate whether ZFP580 is involved in the cardioprotective effects of intermittent high-altitude (IHA) hypoxia against myocardial ischemia-reperfusion (I/R) injury. Methods and Results: After rats were subjected to myocardial ischemia for 30 min followed by reperfusion, ZFP580 expression in the left ventricle was measured. ZFP580 protein expression was found to be up-regulated within 1 h and decreased at 2 h after reperfusion. Comparing normoxic and IHA hypoxia-adapted rats (5000 m, 6 h day−1, 6 weeks) following I/R injury (30 min ischemia and 2 h reperfusion), we found that adaptation to IHA hypoxia attenuated infarct size and plasma leakage of lactate dehydrogenase and creatine kinase-MB. In addition, ZFP580 expression in the myocardium was up-regulated by IHA hypoxia. Consistent with this result, ZFP580 expression was found to be significantly increased in cultured H9c2 myocardial cells in the hypoxic preconditioning group compared with those in the control group following simulated I/R injury (3 h simulated ischemic hypoxia and 2 h reoxygenation). To determine the role of ZFP580 in apoptosis, lentivirus-mediated gene transfection was performed in H9c2 cells 72 h prior to simulated I/R exposure. The results showed that ZFP580 overexpression significantly inhibited I/R-induced apoptosis and caspase-3 activation. H9c2 cells were pretreated with or without PD98059, an inhibitor of ERK1/2 phosphorylation, and Western blot results showed that PD98059 (10 µM) markedly suppressed I/R-induced up-regulation of ZFP580 expression. Conclusions: Our findings demonstrate that the cardioprotective effect of IHA hypoxia against I/R injury is mediated via ZFP580, a downstream target of ERK1/2 signaling with anti-apoptotic roles in myocardial cells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]