Vaccinia-related kinase 2 variants differentially affect breast cancer growth by regulating kinase activity

Genetic information is transcribed from genomic DNA to mRNA,which is then translated into threedimensional proteins.mRNAs can undergo various post-transcriptional modifications,including RNA editing that alters mRNA sequences,ultimately affecting protein function.In this study,RNA editing was identified at the 499th base(c.499)of human vaccinia-related kinase 2(VRK2).This RNA editing changes the amino acid in the catalytic domain of VRK2 from isoleucine(with adenine base)to valine(with guanine base).Isoleucine-containing VRK2 has higher kinase activity than the valine-containing VRK2,which leads to an increase in tumor cell proliferation.Earlier we reported that VRK2 directly interacts with dystrobrevin-binding protein(dysbindin)and results in reducing its stability.Herein,we demonstrate that isoleucine-containing VRK2 decreases the level of dysbindin than valinecontaining VRK2.Dysbindin interacts with cyclin D and thereby regulates its expression and function.The reduction in the level of dysbindin by isoleucine-containing VRK2 further enhances the cyclin D expression,resulting in increased tumor growth and reduction in survival rates.It has also been observed that in patient samples,VRK2 level was elevated in breast cancer tissue compared to normal breast tissue.Additionally,the isoleucine form of VRK2 exhibited a greater increase in breast cancer tissue.Therefore,it is concluded that VRK2,especially dependent on the 167th variant amino acid,can be one of the indexes of tumor progression and proliferation.

Subvoxel light-sheet microscopy for high-resolution high-throughput volumetric imaging of large biomedical specimens

A key challenge when imaging whole biomedical specimens is how to quickly obtain massive cellular information over a large field of view(FOV).We report a subvoxel light-sheet microscopy(SLSM)method enabling high-throughput volumetric imaging of mesoscale specimens at cellular resolution.A nonaxial,continuous scanning strategy is developed to rapidly acquire a stack of large-FOV images with three-dimensional(3-D)nanoscale shifts encoded.Then,by adopting a subvoxel-resolving procedure,the SLSM method models these low-resolution,cross-correlated images in the spatial domain and can iteratively recover a 3-D image with improved resolution throughout the sample.This technique can surpass the optical limit of a conventional light-sheet microscope by more than three times,with high acquisition speeds of gigavoxels per minute.By fast reconstruction of 3-D cultured cells,intact organs,and live embryos,SLSM method presents a convenient way to circumvent the trade-off between mapping large-scale tissue(>100 mm3)and observing single cell(∼1-μm resolution).It also eliminates the need of complicated mechanical stitching or modulated illumination,using a simple light-sheet setup and fast graphics processing unit-based computation to achieve high-throughput,high-resolution 3-D microscopy,which could be tailored for a wide range of biomedical applications in pathology,histology,neuroscience,etc.