An interview with Signe Oksefjell Ebeling

University of Oslo, Norway 10:30-11:30, 10 August, 2018(XLX: Xiuling Xu;SOE: Signe Oksefjell Ebeling)XLX: Could you briefly talk about the connection between the University of Oslo with LOB and ICAME in the 1970 s? SOE: This is well before my time. The connection between the University of Oslo with LOB and ICAME is very much down to Stig Johansson. Some of this is discussed in Leech and Johansson’s article 'The coming of ICAME'(ICAME Journal No. 33, 2009).

An interview with Hilde Hasselgard

University of Oslo, Norway13:30-15:15, 27 June, 2018(XLX: Xiuling Xu;HH: Hilde Hasselg?rd)XLX: When did you initially know about corpora and corpus linguistics?HH: I had Stig Johansson as my teacher already when I was a master student in the late 1980 s.

Estrogen upregulates DNA2 expression through the PI3K-AKT pathway in endometrial carcinoma

Endometrial cancer is the most common gynecological malignancy,affecting up to 3%of women at some point during their lifetime(Morice et al.,2016;Li and Wang,2021).Based on the pathogenesis and bio‑logical behavioral characteristics,endometrial cancer can be divided into estrogen-dependent(I)and non-estrogen-dependent(II)types(Ulrich,2011).Type I accounts for approximately 80%of cases,of which the majority are endometrioid carcinomas,and the remaining are mucinous adenocarcinomas(Setiawan et al.,2013).

Modeling xeroderma pigmentosum associated neurological pathologies with patients-derived iPSCs

Xeroderma pigmentosum （XP） is a group of genetic disorders caused by mutations of XP-associated genes, resulting in impairment of DNA repair. XP patients frequently exhibit neurological degeneration, but the underlying mechanism is unknown, in part due to lack of proper disease models. Here, we generated patientspecific induced pluripotent stem cells （iPSCs） harboring mutations in five different XP genes including XPA, XPB, XPC, XPG, and XPV. These iPSCs were further differentiated to neural cells, and their susceptibility to DNA damage stress was investigated. Mutation of XPA in either neural stem cells （NSCs） or neurons resulted in severe DNA damage repair defects, and these neural cells with mutant XPA were hyper-sensitive to DNA damage-induced apoptosis. Thus, XP-mutant neural cells represent valuable tools to clari the molecular mechanisms of neurological abnormalities in the XP patients.

CRISPR/Cas9-mediated targeted gene correction in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis patient iPSCs

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis （ALS） is a complex neu- rodegenerative disease with cellular and molecular mechanisms yet to be fully described. Mutations in a number of genes including SOD1 and FUS are associated with familial ALS. Here we report the generation of induced pluripotent stem cells （iPSCs） from fibroblasts of familial ALS patients bearing SOD1＋1A27~c and FUS＋/GISe6A mutations, respectively. We further gener- ated gene corrected ALS iPSCs using CRISPR/Cas9 system. Genome-wide RNA sequencing （RNA-seq） analysis of motor neurons derived from SOD1＋~A272c and corrected iPSCs revealed 899 aberrant transcripts. Our work may shed light on discovery of early biomarkers and pathways dysregulated in ALS, as well as provide a basis for novel therapeutic strategies to treat ALS.

Converted neural cells: induced to a cure?

Many neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson’s disease(PD),amyotrophic lateral sclerosis(ALS)and others often occur as a result of progressive loss of structure or function of neurons.Recently,many groups were able to generate neural cells,either differentiated from induced pluripotent stem cells(iPSCs)or converted from somatic cells.Advances in converted neural cells have opened a new era to ease applications for modeling diseases and screening drugs.In addition,the converted neural cells also hold the promise for cell replacement therapy(Kikuchi et al.,2011;Krencik et al.,2011;Kriks et al.,2011;Nori et al.,2011;Rhee et al.,2011;Schwartz et al.,2012).Here we will mainly discuss most recent progress on using converted functional neural cells to treat neurological diseases and highlight potential clinical challenges and future perspectives.

A widely adaptable approach to generate integration-free iPSCs from non-invasively acquired human somatic cells

Dear Editor Human pluripotent stem cells including human embryonic stem cells （ESCs） and induced pluripotent stem cells （iPSCs） are cells displaying abilities of unlimited self-renewal and differentiation into any somatic cell type. These unique properties make them increasingly attractive for novel applications in disease modeling, drug discovery, and cell therapy （Buganim et al., 2014; Liu et al., 2011; Liu et al., 2012; Sanchez Alvarado and Yamanaka, 2014）. Moreover, iPSCs hold great potential for personalized cell therapy as they avoid some of the ethical concerns as well as the immunological rejection issues ascribed to ESCs.