The p75 neurotrophin receptor (p75NTR) is expressed by neurons particularly vulnerable in Alzheimer's disease (AD). We tested the hypothesis that non-peptide, small molecule p75NTR ligands found to promote survival signaling might prevent Aβ-induced degeneration and synaptic dysfunction. These ligands inhibited Aβ-induced neuritic dystrophy, death of cultured neurons and Aβ-induced death of pyramidal neurons in hippocampal slice cultures. Moreover, ligands inhibited Aβ-induced activation of molecules involved in AD pathology including calpain/cdk5, GSK3β and c-Jun, and tau phosphorylation, and prevented Aβ-induced inactivation of AKT and CREB. Finally, a p75NTR ligand blocked Aβ-induced hippocampal LTP impairment. These studies support an extensive intersection between p75NTR signaling and Aβ pathogenic mechanisms, and introduce a class of specific small molecule ligands with the unique ability to block multiple fundamental AD-related signaling pathways, reverse synaptic impairment and inhibit Aβ-induced neuronal dystrophy and death.

Viruses belong to a fascinating class of natural supramolecular structures, composed of multiple copies of coat proteins (CPs) that assemble into different shapes with a variety of sizes from tens to hundreds of nanometres. Because of their advantages including simple/economic production, well-defined structural features, unique shapes and sizes, genetic programmability and robust chemistries, recently viruses and virus-like nanoparticles (VLPs) have been used widely in biomedical applications and materials synthesis. In this critical review, we highlight recent advances in the use of virus coat proteins (VCPs) and viral nanoparticles (VNPs) as building blocks in self-assembly studies and materials development. We first discuss the self-assembly of VCPs into VLPs, which can efficiently incorporate a variety of different materials as cores inside the viral protein shells. Then, the self-assembly of VNPs at surfaces or interfaces is summarized. Finally, we discuss the co-assembly of VNPs with different functional materials (178 references).

Nuclear receptors (NRs) comprise a superfamily of ligand-activated transcription factors that play important roles in both physiology and diseases including cancer. The technologies of Chromatin ImmunoPrecipitation followed by array hybridization (ChIP-chip) or massively parallel sequencing (ChIP-seq) has been used to map, at an unprecedented rate, the in vivo genome-wide binding (cistrome) of NRs in both normal and cancer cells. We developed a curated database of 88 NR cistrome datasets and other associated high-throughput datasets, including 121 collaborating factor cistromes, 94 epigenomes and 319 transcriptomes. Through integrative analysis of the curated NR ChIP-chip/seq datasets, we discovered novel factor-specific noncanonical motifs that may have important regulatory roles. We also revealed a common feature of NR pioneering factors to recognize relatively short and AT-rich motifs. Most NRs bind predominantly to introns and distal intergenetic regions, and binding sites closer to transcription start sites (TSSs) were found to be neither stronger nor more evolutionarily conserved. Interestingly, while most NRs appear to be predominantly transcriptional activators, our analysis suggests that the binding of ESR1, RARA and RARG has both activating and repressive effects. Through meta-analysis of different omic data of the same cancer cell line model from multiple studies, we generated consensus cistrome and expression profiles. We further made probabilistic predictions of the NR target genes by integrating cistrome and transcriptome data, and validated the predictions using expression data from tumor samples. The final database, with comprehensive cistrome, epigenome, transcriptome datasets, and downstream analysis results, constitutes a valuable resource for the nuclear receptor and cancer community.