Epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) enables epithelial cells to acquire motility and invasiveness that are characteristic of mesenchymal cells. It plays an important role in development and tumor cell metastasis. However, the mechanisms of EMT and their dysfunction in cancer cells are still not well understood. Here we report that Siva1 interacts with stathmin, a microtubule destabilizer. Siva1 inhibits stathmin's activity directly as well as indirectly through Ca 2+ /calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II-mediated phosphorylation of stathmin at Ser16. Via the inhibition of stathmin, Siva1 enhances the formation of microtubules and impedes focal adhesion assembly, cell migration, and EMT. Low levels of Siva1 and Ser16-phosphorylated stathmin correlate with high metastatic states of human breast cancer cells. In mouse models, knockdown of Siva1 promotes cancer dissemination, whereas overexpression of Siva1 inhibits it. These results suggest that microtubule dynamics are critical for EMT. Furthermore, they reveal an important role for Siva1 in suppressing cell migration and EMT and indicate that down-regulation of Siva1 may contribute to tumor cell metastasis.CaMKII | cell motility | tumor metastasis

IntroductionThere have been many inconsistent reports about the performance of histidine-rich protein 2 (HRP2) and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) antigens as rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) for the diagnosis of past Plasmodium falciparum infections. This meta-analysis was performed to determine the performance of pfHRP2 versus pLDH antigen RDTs in the detection of P. falciparum.Material and methodsAfter a systematic review of related studies, Meta-DiSc 1.4 software was used to calculate the pooled sensitivity, specificity, positive likelihood ratio (PLR), negative likelihood ratio (NLR), and diagnostic odds ratio (DOR). Forest plots and summary receiver operating characteristic curve (SROC) analysis were used to summarize the overall test performance.ResultsFourteen studies which met the inclusion criteria were included in the meta-analysis. The summary performances for pfHRP2- and pLDH-based tests in the diagnosis of P. falciparum infections were as follows: pooled sensitivity, 96.3% (95.8–96.7%) vs. 82.6% (81.7–83.5%); specificity, 86.1% (85.3–86.8%) vs. 95.9% (95.4–96.3%); diagnostic odds ratio (DOR), 243.31 (97.679–606.08) vs. 230.59 (114.98–462.42); and area under ROCs, 0.9822 versus 0.9849 (all p < 0.001).ConclusionsThe two RDTs performed satisfactorily for the diagnosis of P. falciparum, but the pLDH tests had higher specificity, whereas the pfHRP2 tests had better sensitivity. The pfHRP2 tests had slightly greater accuracy compared to the pLDH tests. A combination of both antigens might be a more reliable approach for the diagnosis of malaria.

These authors contributed equally to this work.Keywords: BECN1, BECN1s, mitochondrial depolarization, mitophagy, starvation Abbreviations: Atg, autophagy-related; bp, base pairs; BECN1s, BECN1 short isoform; CCCP, carbonyl cyanide m-chlorophenylhydrazone; EBSS, Earle's balanced salt solution; ECD, evolutionarily conserved domain; GFP, green fluorescent protein; LAMP1, lysosomal-associated membrane protein 1; MAP1LC3/LC3, microtubule-associated protein 1 light chain 3; PtdIns3K, class III phosphatidylinositol 3-kinaseMitochondria selective autophagy, known as mitophagy, plays a pivotal role in several biological processes, such as elimination of the damaged mitochondria, removal of the mitochondria from immature red blood cells and sperm. The defects in mitophagy are associated with a wide spectrum of human diseases, including neurodegenerative disease, aging, cardiac disease and autoimmune disease. However, the mechanism underlying mitophagy remains largely unclear. Here, we report the characterization of a novel splice variant of BECN1/Beclin 1, BECN1s, which is produced by an alternative splicing mechanism. BECN1s is primarily associated with the outer-membrane of mitochondria. Unlike unspliced BECN1, which is essential for nonselective macroautophagy induction, BECN1s is indispensible for mitochondria-selective autophagy. Furthermore, BECN1s plays an important role in starvation-and membrane depolarization-induced mitophagy. Taken together, our findings broaden the view of BECN1 as an important regulator in autophagy, and implicate BECN1s as a specific mitophagy mediator.

The variant histone protein H2A.Z plays a critical role in early development. Likewise, Nanog, a master regulator of embryonic stem cells (ESCs), is essential for proper development in early embryogenesis. In this study, we establish that these two factors work together to maintain pluripotency. It is shown that H2A.Z influences the protein level of Nanog through the ubiquitin-proteasome pathway. Knockdown of H2A.Z causes differentiation of mouse ESCs and disrupts the reprogramming of somatic cells, which can be partially rescued by overexpression of Nanog. We conclude that the H2A.Z-Nanog partnership is involved in ESC pluripotency and reprogramming of somatic cells.