Cytoskeletal control of early mammalian development

Extraordinary diversity of telomeres, telomerase RNAs and their template regions in Saccharomycetaceae

“…Chromosomes are capped by nucleoprotein structures called telomeres, which are involved in several important functions such as the regulation of gene expression, recombination, mitosis and meiosis 1 – 4 . Telomeres protect chromosome termini from eliciting the DNA damage response and play a fundamental role in longevity and cell proliferation 5 .…”

Clinical Relevance of Secreted Small Noncoding RNAs in an Embryo Implantation Potential Prediction at Morula and Blastocyst Development Stages

“…It has been well established that the cytoskeleton, comprising actin filaments, microtubules and intermediate filaments, allows cells to transmit external signals to the internal biochemical signaling pathways, resulting in the gene expression and cellular behavior changes. Highly detailed research has been performed by Hui Yi Grace Lim and Nicolas Plachta [37], applying live imaging approaches to understand how the mammalian embryo forms and grows during the preimplantation stages of development. Beginning with the eight-cell stage, blastomeres polarize along their radial axis and undergo compaction through the reorganization, redistribution, and apical accumulation of microtubules, actin, and keratin intermediate filaments.…”

“…Depletion of VPS4, AAA ATPase, alters centrosome numbers and size and causes defects in polar spindle formation and chromosome segregation during cell division [54]. Finally, it is important to note the regulator of Hippo-signaling pathway TAOK1/3, identified as direct kinases for LATS1/2 [55], which in turn acts together with phosphorylated Amot to enhance the phosphorylation and nuclear exclusion of Yap1, allows the expression of pluripotency-associated genes in the inner cells of the 16-cell embryo [37].…”

Microenvironment promotes cytoskeleton remodeling and adaptive phenotypic transition

“…Namely, the existence of an intermediate filament cage surrounding the nucleus, and occasionally passing into the nuclear space through invaginations or tunnels in the nucleus, suggests a unique mechanical coupling between receptors on the plasma membrane and the nucleus (Jorgens et al, 2017). These bewildering properties of cell scaffolding are especially important in the context of development-when cells are highly sensitive to their environment-during cell differentiation, and in all those conditions in which cells undergo a transition from a phenotypic state to another (Lim and Plachta, 2021). Therefore, studying how the cytoskeleton can be modified-both pharmacologically and/or through microenvironment-dependent changes-has become a major area of interest in cancer and developmental biology.…”

“…Under gravity, striped patterns of microtubules oriented consecutively in an ordered manner, whereas in weightlessness, no pattern formation arises and microtubules self-organize into an isotropic configuration without preferential orientation. In other words, gravity provides a vector of directionality to the self-organizing process (Lim and Plachta, 2021;Sonnenschein and Soto, 2020). Ultimately, the non-equilibrium dynamics modulation of CSK allows cells to display emergent properties, long range correlations and dramatic first-order classes transitions.…”