The gene defective in Huntington's disease encodes a protein, huntingtin, with unknown function. Antisera generated against three separate regions of huntingtin identified a single high molecular weight protein of approximately 320 kDa on immunoblots of human neuroblastoma extracts. The same protein species was detected in human and rat cortex synaptosomes and in sucrose density gradients of vesicle-enriched fractions, where huntingtin immunoreactivity overlapped with the distribution of vesicle membrane proteins (SV2, transferrin receptor, and synaptophysin). Immunohistochemistry in human and rat brain revealed widespread cytoplasmic labeling of huntingtin within neurons, particularly cell bodies and dendrites, rather than the more selective pattern of axon terminal labeling characteristic of many vesicle-associated proteins. At the ultrastructural level, immunoreactivity in cortical neurons was detected in the matrix of the cytoplasm and around the membranes of the vesicles. The ubiquitous cytoplasmic distribution of huntingtin in neurons and its association with vesicles suggest that huntingtin may have a role in vesicle trafficking.

A trinucleotide repeat (CAG) expansion in the huntingtin gene causes Huntington's disease (HD). In brain tissue from HD heterozygotes with adult onset and more clinically severe juvenile onset, where the largest expansions occur, a mutant protein of equivalent intensity to wild-type huntingtin was detected in cortical synaptosomes, indicating that a mutant species is synthesized and transported with the normal protein to nerve endings. The increased size of mutant huntingtin relative to the wild type was highly correlated with CAG repeat expansion, thereby linking an altered electrophoretic mobility of the mutant protein to its abnormal function. Mutant huntingtin appeared in gray and white matter with no difference in expression in affected regions. The mutant protein was broader than the wild type and in 6 of 11 juvenile cases resolved as a complex of bands, consistent with evidence at the DNA level for somatic mosaicism. Thus, HD pathogenesis results from a gain of function by an aberrant protein that is widely expressed in brain and is harmful only to some neurons.

Laboratory classes have consistently played a crucial role in science education for many years. Common to all labs is the need to understand essential lab techniques. Students often lack this foundational understanding, and this can lead to poor performance or confidence (Gallagher et al. 2008).Virtual labs have been found to be effective in promoting active learning and increasing performance (Lewis 2014). In this project, a virtual lab for preparing a phosphate-buffered saline solution (PBS) was created to educate undergraduate biology students on essential laboratory techniques. The virtual lab included animations and interactive elements to visually communicate each step.Content experts provided input on the accuracy of the scientific content throughout development. Focus group testing with biology teaching assistants (TAs) at the University of Illinois at Chicago was conducted to assess the potential effectiveness of the virtual lab.

At the University of Illinois College of Medicine Anesthesiology Research department, lung trauma researchers aimed to generate interest in the importance of the lung endothelial surface layer in inflammation. However, they had difficulty describing the dynamic molecular structure of the lung endothelial surface layer and its role in inflammatory processes in the lung. A 3D animation was created because of its ability to communicate a rich and complex molecular narrative. Prior studies have shown that, for scientific animations, level of expertise of the viewer influences how an animation is perceived. This study aimed to improve lung trauma researchers’ ability to generate interest in their research and to assess if prior knowledge affects how biomedical animations are perceived in terms of engagement by analyzing eye-tracking.

Due to the rapid evolution of biomedical research, it is crucial to effectively communicate new technological advances in topics such as organoid models in cancer therapeutics to help improve health outcomes. Visual communication, including animation, has been shown to improve cognition and understanding of complex biological processes. However, there is contradictory information about the amount of detail that should be used for effective communication when utilizing animation.Although it is known that the inclusion of detailed references increases the scientific community’s perceived credibility of the visualization, the effect of including visual scientific data is unknown. This research examines the impact of including visual scientific data in an educational animation by analyzing biomedical researchers’ perception of credibility and learning outcomes with respect to cancer organoid research.

This study of learning principle-designed scientific animation sought to determine whether animation is an effective teaching tool and what components of animation fulfill that role. It is known that there is a lack of animations that concretely support research-based learning principles. There are qualitative studies describing how different visual styles of animation may affect learning. These studies have provided the visual preferences and opinions of certain audiences. However, there are much fewer quantitative studies that objectively test whether differences in visual style produce different learning outcomes. The limited amount of scientific papers demonstrating how animation design effects comprehension leads to a concern that most scientific animations are crafted according to creator preferences and rely on instinct rather than evidence-based practices. This study analyzed the effects of one component of scientific animation, realism, to quantitatively assess the effects of visual realism on learning and to quantitatively gather viewer preferences and opinions on this subject. One animation was designed using cognitive principles and artistic standards. It was rendered into three distinct visual styles with progressive increase in level of detail: schematic, semi-realistic, realistic. Participants were randomly assigned a level of detail, assessed on the animation material, and given samples of the styles to comment on. There was a positive improvement in test scores before and after viewing one of the three animation styles. The greatest improvement in test scores was seen among participants with low prior knowledge who were shown the simplest visual style (schematic). The vast majority of participants preferred the most detailed version. About ten percent of participants claimed to see "no difference" among the three visual styles when asked to choose a preferred rendering. From these results it was concluded that an animation can effectively fulfill learning design even with simplified visuals. Simplified 3D animations can be specifically beneficial to beginners. This study benefitted from user preference input even though the preferred visual style (realistic) was not linked to a significantly better improvement in scores. The results emphasize the need to integrate learning principles in scientific animation design.

Translating new discoveries into viable therapies is dependent upon communication between scientists and medical professionals, especially in the emerging field of nanomedicine. Understanding of mechanisms on the cellular and molecular scale is commonly facilitated using 3D animation. However, this project sought to validate the knowledge transfer of complex biomedical information in nanomedicine using an alternative medium, the comic book. This medium has been effective for science communication but remains largely untested in medical education. In order to explore the differences in knowledge gain, engagement, and preference between comics and 3D animations, a comic book about a synthetic high-density lipoprotein gold nanoparticle’s apoptotic effects on lymphoma cells was created and compared to a 3D animation with identical content. Thirty-five individuals consisting of medical students, physicians, graduate students, and research scientists in the biomedical sciences were randomly shown the comic or the animation following a pretest. A posttest and preferences survey was conducted afterward. Results indicated that both the comic and animation were similarly effective at increasing knowledge about the HDL AuNP mechanism of action and had a similar level of engagement.

IntroductionG Protein-Coupled Receptors (GPCRs) are transmembrane (TM) proteins that span the cell membrane seven times, and contain intracellular and extracellular domains comprised of connecting loops as well as terminal extension sequences. GPCRs bind ligands within their transmembrane and/or extracellular domains. Ligand binding elicits conformational changes that initiate downstream intracellular signaling events through arrestins and G proteins ( Figure 1; Katritch et al., 2013). GPCRs play central roles in many physiological processes from sensory to neurological, cardiovascular, endocrine, and reproductive functions. GPCRs represent one of the largest gene families in the human genome, encoding approximately 800 unique proteins (Fredriksson et al., 2003). GPCRs' unique structure and cell surface location make them ideal targets for various drug therapies, assuring interest from the pharmaceutical and clinical medicine communities (Vischer et al., 2011). It is estimated that roughly 40% of the pharmaceuticals currently marketed, target GPCRs (Vischer et al., 2011). BI-167107, bovine Gs;Rasmussen et al., 2011) Urbana-Champaign (Humphreys et al., 1996). This image was made with Visual Molecular Dynamics (VMD). VMD is developed with NIH support by the Theoretical and Computational Biophysics group at the Beckman Institute, University of Illinois atThe elucidation of x-ray crystallographic structures of GPCRs has been monumental to the research in understanding the function and conformational flexibility of GPCRs (Costanzi 2014;Venkatakrishnan et al., 2014). Understanding how ligand binding alters the structure and function of GPCRs to mediate signaling has undergone an expansion in recent years (Katritch et al., 2013). Concepts such as ligands acting as functionally selective biased agonists to elicit a specific subset of signaling responses are now at the forefront of GPCR research (Andresen 2011). Development of allosteric ligands extends the repertoire of GPCR regulators (Smith 2010). GPCRs were originally considered to be monomeric, but increasing evidence indicates that they can form dimers and oligomers as well (Ferre et al., 2014 Piscitelli et al., 2015), has been described as a "crystallization boom" (Costanzi 2014), with rapid growth emerging due to recent technological advances in both crystallization and structure detection. The availability of growing numbers of experimentally-determined GPCR structures, as well as improved homology-modeling of unknown target proteins based on a wider field of experimentally determined GPCR template structures, allows visual representation of GPCRs to be built upon the basis of known or modeled three-dimensional structures. Nevertheless, several challenges to accurate communication of GPCR structure remain.The goal of this paper is to provide strategies to address common visual representation challenges for GPCRs, and to identify errors that may arise from an incomplete understanding of GPCR structure. GPCRs comprise a subclass of the alpha-helical membrane p...