Mooschristian3734

Insect intraspecific olfactory communication occurs in a complex sensory environment. Here we present recent results on how the olfactory system extracts specific information from a sensory background, and integrates it with complementary information to improve odor source localization. Recent advances on mechanisms of olfactory mixture processing, multi-modal integration, as well as plasticity of sensory processing are reviewed. Significant progress in the understanding of neural coding and molecular bases of olfaction reinforce our perception of the tremendous adaptability of insects to a changing environment. However several reports demonstrate that anthropogenic environmental perturbations interfere with insect olfactory communication and might as a consequence significantly alter the functioning of ecosystems and agroecosystems.Progesterone and progesterone receptors (PR) have a storied albeit controversial history in breast cancers. As endocrine therapies for breast cancer progressed through the 20th century from oophorectomy to antiestrogens, it was recognized in the 1970s that the presence of estrogen receptors (ER) alone could not efficiently predict treatment responses. PR, an estrogen regulated protein, became the first prognostic and predictive marker of response to endocrine therapies. It remains today as the gold standard for predicting the existence of functional, targetable ER, in breast malignancies. PRs were subsequently identified as highly structured transcription factors that regulate diverse physiological processes in breast cancer cells. In the early 2000s, the somewhat surprising finding that prolonged use of synthetic progestin-containing menopausal hormone therapies was associated with increased breast cancer incidence raised new questions about the role of PR in "tumorigenesis". Most recently, PR have been linked to expansion of cancer stem cells, that are postulated to be the principal cells reactivated in occult or dormant disease. Other studies establish PR as dominant modulators of ER activity. Together, these findings mark PR as bona fide targets for progestin or antiprogestin therapies, yet their diverse actions have confounded that use. Here we summarize the early history of PR in breast cancer; debunk the theory that progesterone causes cancer; discuss recent discoveries that PR regulate cell heterogeneity; attempt to unify theories describing PR as either good or bad actors in tumors; and discuss emerging areas of research that may help explain this enigmatic hormone and receptor.In the last 15 years, single-cell technologies have become robust and indispensable tools to investigate cell heterogeneity. Beyond transcriptomic, genomic and epigenome analyses, technologies are constantly evolving, in particular toward multi-omics, where analyses of different source materials from a single cell are combined, and spatial transcriptomics where resolution of cellular heterogeneity can be detected in situ. While some of these techniques are still being optimised, single-cell RNAseq has commonly been used because the examination of transcriptomes allows characterization of cell identity, and therefore unravel previously uncharacterised diversity within cell populations. Most endocrine organs have now been investigated using this technique, and this has given new insights into organ embryonic development, characterization of rare cell types, and disease mechanisms. Here we highlight recent studies, particularly on the hypothalamus and pituitary, and examine recent findings on the pancreas and reproductive organs where many single-cell experiments have been performed.Most scientists consider that sonochemistry became recognised as a discrete subject in the 1980's - some 40 years ago which coincidentally is when my own interests in the subject began. This review briefly outlines how I first became involved in sonochemistry and then in its development. However its main theme is the way in which my links with China through sonochemistry have developed from their beginnings in 1990. This was the subject of my presentation at AOSS4 and involves a range of topics which started with the extraction of natural products and surface treatment but later expanded to include therapeutic ultrasound and environmental protection.Gene regulation by steroid hormones has been at the forefront in elucidating the intricacies of transcriptional regulation in eukaryotes ever since the discovery by Karlson and Clever that the insect steroid hormone ecdysone induces chromatin puffs in giant chromosomes. After the successful cloning of the hormone receptors towards the end of the past century, detailed mechanistic insight emerged in some model systems, in particular the MMTV provirus. selleck chemicals With the arrival of next generation DNA sequencing and the omics techniques we have gained even further insight into the global cellular response to steroid hormones that in the past decades also extended to the function of the 3D genome topology. More recently advances in high resolution microcopy, single cell genomics and the new vision of liquid-liquid phase transitions in the context of nuclear space brings us closer than ever to unravelling the logic of gene regulation and its complex integration of global cellular signaling networks. Using the function of progesterone and its cellular receptor in breast cancer cells we will briefly summarize the history and describe the present extent of our knowledge on how regulatory proteins deal with the chromatin structure to gain access to DNA sequences and interpret the genomic instructions that enable cells to respond selectively to external signals by reshaping their gene regulatory networks.A low vitamin D status is associated with an increased risk of various cancers, such as of colon, breast, prostate and hematological cells. The biologically most active vitamin D metabolite 1α,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 (1,25(OH)2D3) is a high affinity ligand of the transcription factor vitamin D receptor (VDR). 1,25(OH)2D3 induces via VDR changes to the epigenome of healthy and neoplastic cells and in this way influences their transcriptome. Ligand-activated VDR binds to more than 10,000 loci within the human genome and affects the transcription of some 1000 target genes in a large proportion of human tissues and cell types. From the evolutionary perspective, the prime role of vitamin D was probably the control of energy metabolism later shifting to modulate innate and adaptive immunity as well as to regulate calcium and bone homeostasis. Since rapidly growing immune and cancer cells both use the same pathways and genes for controlling their proliferation, differentiation and apoptosis, not surprisingly, vitamin D signaling changes these processes also in neoplastic cells.