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Environmental factors influence cross-talk between a heat shock protein and an oxidative stress protein modification in the lizard Gallotia galloti (2024)
Journal Article
Gilbert, E., Žagar, A., López-Darias, M., Megía-Palma, R., Lister, K. A., Dolton Jones, M., …Wollenberg Valero, K. C. (2024). Environmental factors influence cross-talk between a heat shock protein and an oxidative stress protein modification in the lizard Gallotia galloti. PLoS ONE, 19(3), Article e0300111. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0300111

Better understanding how organisms respond to their abiotic environment, especially at the biochemical level, is critical in predicting population trajectories under climate change. In this study, we measured constitutive stress biomarkers and protei... Read More about Environmental factors influence cross-talk between a heat shock protein and an oxidative stress protein modification in the lizard Gallotia galloti.

Investigating the effects of arginine methylation inhibitors on microdissected brain tumour biopsies maintained in a miniaturised perfusion system (2023)
Journal Article
Barry, A., Samuel, S. F., Hosni, I., Moursi, A., Feugere, L., Sennett, C. J., …Beltran-Alvarez, P. (2023). Investigating the effects of arginine methylation inhibitors on microdissected brain tumour biopsies maintained in a miniaturised perfusion system. Lab on a chip, 23(11), 2664-2682. https://doi.org/10.1039/d3lc00204g

Arginine methylation is a post-translational modification that consists of the transfer of one or two methyl (CH3) groups to arginine residues in proteins. Several types of arginine methylation occur, namely monomethylation, symmetric dimethylation a... Read More about Investigating the effects of arginine methylation inhibitors on microdissected brain tumour biopsies maintained in a miniaturised perfusion system.

Heat induces multiomic and phenotypic stress propagation in zebrafish embryos (2023)
Journal Article
Feugere, L., Bates, A., Emagbetere, T., Chapman, E., Malcolm, L., Bulmer, K., …Wollenberg Valero, K. C. (2023). Heat induces multiomic and phenotypic stress propagation in zebrafish embryos. PNAS Nexus, 2(5), Article pgad137. https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgad137

Heat alters biology from molecular to ecological levels, but may also have unknown indirect effects. This includes the concept that animals exposed to abiotic stress can induce stress in naive receivers. Here, we provide a comprehensive picture of th... Read More about Heat induces multiomic and phenotypic stress propagation in zebrafish embryos.

The Epigenetic Regulatory Protein CBX2 Promotes mTORC1 Signalling and Inhibits DREAM Complex Activity to Drive Breast Cancer Cell Growth (2022)
Journal Article
Bilton, L. J., Warren, C., Humphries, R. M., Kalsi, S., Waters, E., Francis, T., …Wade, M. A. (2022). The Epigenetic Regulatory Protein CBX2 Promotes mTORC1 Signalling and Inhibits DREAM Complex Activity to Drive Breast Cancer Cell Growth. Cancers, 14(14), Article 3491. https://doi.org/10.3390/cancers14143491

Chromobox 2 (CBX2) is a chromatin-binding component of polycomb repressive complex 1, which causes gene silencing. CBX2 expression is elevated in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), for which there are few therapeutic options. Here, we aimed to inv... Read More about The Epigenetic Regulatory Protein CBX2 Promotes mTORC1 Signalling and Inhibits DREAM Complex Activity to Drive Breast Cancer Cell Growth.

Functional genomics of abiotic environmental adaptation in lacertid lizards and other vertebrates (2021)
Journal Article
Wollenberg Valero, K. C., Garcia-Porta, J., Irisarri, I., Feugere, L., Bates, A., Kirchhof, S., …Storey, K. B. (in press). Functional genomics of abiotic environmental adaptation in lacertid lizards and other vertebrates. The journal of animal ecology, https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2656.13617

Understanding the genomic basis of adaptation to different abiotic environments is important in the context of climate change and resulting short-term environmental fluctuations. Using functional and comparative genomics approaches, we here investiga... Read More about Functional genomics of abiotic environmental adaptation in lacertid lizards and other vertebrates.

Thermal stress induces a positive phenotypic and molecular feedback loop in zebrafish embryos (2021)
Journal Article
Feugere, L., Wollenberg Valero, K. C., Scott, V., Rodriguez-Barucg, Q., & Beltran-Alvarez, P. (2021). Thermal stress induces a positive phenotypic and molecular feedback loop in zebrafish embryos. Journal of Thermal Biology, 102, Article 103114. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtherbio.2021.103114

Aquatic organisms must cope with both rising and rapidly changing temperatures. These thermal changes can affect numerous traits, from molecular to ecological scales. Biotic stressors are already known to induce the release of chemical cues which tri... Read More about Thermal stress induces a positive phenotypic and molecular feedback loop in zebrafish embryos.

Inhibition of arginine methylation impairs platelet function (2021)
Journal Article
Marsden, A. J., Riley, D. R. J., Barry, A., Khalil, J. S., Guinn, B. A., Kemp, N. T., …Beltran-Alvarez, P. (in press). Inhibition of arginine methylation impairs platelet function. ACS Pharmacology & Translational Science, https://doi.org/10.1021/acsptsci.1c00135

Protein arginine methyltransferases (PRMTs) catalyze the transfer of methyl groups to arginine residues in proteins. PRMT inhibitors are novel, promising drugs against cancer that are currently in clinical trials, which include oral administration of... Read More about Inhibition of arginine methylation impairs platelet function.

Love is in the hair: arginine methylation of human hair proteins as novel cardiovascular biomarkers (2021)
Journal Article
Marsden, A. J., Riley, D. R., Birkett, S., Rodriguez-Barucg, Q., Guinn, B. A., Carroll, S., …Beltran-Alvarez, P. (in press). Love is in the hair: arginine methylation of human hair proteins as novel cardiovascular biomarkers. Amino acids, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00726-021-03024-5

Cardiovascular disease is the major cause of death worldwide. Extensive cardiovascular biomarkers are available using blood tests but very few, if any, investigations have described non-invasive tests for cardiovascular biomarkers based on readily av... Read More about Love is in the hair: arginine methylation of human hair proteins as novel cardiovascular biomarkers.

Arginine methylation: the promise of a ‘silver bullet’ for brain tumours? (2021)
Journal Article
Samuel, S. F., Barry, A., Greenman, J., & Beltran-Alvarez, P. (2021). Arginine methylation: the promise of a ‘silver bullet’ for brain tumours?. Amino acids, 53(4), 489-506. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00726-020-02937-x

Despite intense research efforts, our pharmaceutical repertoire against high-grade brain tumours has not been able to increase patient survival for a decade and life expectancy remains at less than 16months after diagnosis, on average. Inhibitors of... Read More about Arginine methylation: the promise of a ‘silver bullet’ for brain tumours?.

The inhibitory subunit of cardiac troponin (cTnI) is modified by arginine methylation in the human heart (2019)
Journal Article
Onwuli, D. O., Samuel, S., Sfyri, P., Welham, K., Goddard, M., Abu-Omar, Y., …Beltran-Alvarez, P. (2019). The inhibitory subunit of cardiac troponin (cTnI) is modified by arginine methylation in the human heart. International journal of cardiology, 282, 76-80. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijcard.2019.01.102

Background The inhibitory subunit of cardiac troponin (cTnI) is a gold standard cardiac biomarker and also an essential protein in cardiomyocyte excitation-contraction coupling. The interactions of cTnI with other proteins are fine-tuned by post-tra... Read More about The inhibitory subunit of cardiac troponin (cTnI) is modified by arginine methylation in the human heart.

Inhibiting arginine methylation as a tool to investigate cross-talk with methylation and acetylation post-translational modifications in a glioblastoma cell line (2018)
Journal Article
Samuel, S. F., Marsden, A. J., Deepak, S., Rivero, F., Greenman, J., & Beltran-Alvarez, P. (2018). Inhibiting arginine methylation as a tool to investigate cross-talk with methylation and acetylation post-translational modifications in a glioblastoma cell line. Proteomes, 6(4), Article 44. https://doi.org/10.3390/proteomes6040044

Glioblastomas (GBM) are the most common grade 4 brain tumours; patients have very poor prognosis with an average survival of 15 months after diagnosis. Novel research lines have begun to explore aberrant protein arginine methylation (ArgMe) as a poss... Read More about Inhibiting arginine methylation as a tool to investigate cross-talk with methylation and acetylation post-translational modifications in a glioblastoma cell line.

Attenuation of oxidative stress-induced lesions in skeletal muscle in a mouse model of obesity-independent hyperlipidaemia and atherosclerosis through the inhibition of Nox2 activity (2018)
Journal Article
Sfyri, P. P., Yuldasheva, N. Y., Tzimou, A., Giallourou, N., Crispi, V., Aburima, A., …Matsakas, A. (2018). Attenuation of oxidative stress-induced lesions in skeletal muscle in a mouse model of obesity-independent hyperlipidaemia and atherosclerosis through the inhibition of Nox2 activity. Free radical biology & medicine, 129, 504-519. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.freeradbiomed.2018.10.422

Obesity leading to hyperlipidaemia and atherosclerosis is recognised to induce morphological and metabolic changes in many tissues. However, hyperlipidaemia can occur in the absence of obesity. The impact of the latter scenario on skeletal muscle and... Read More about Attenuation of oxidative stress-induced lesions in skeletal muscle in a mouse model of obesity-independent hyperlipidaemia and atherosclerosis through the inhibition of Nox2 activity.

Do sodium channel proteolytic fragments regulate sodium channel expression? (2017)
Journal Article
Onwuli, D. O., Yañez-Bisbe, L., Pinsach-Abuin, M., Tarradas, A., Brugada, R., Greenman, J., …Beltran-Alvarez, P. (2017). Do sodium channel proteolytic fragments regulate sodium channel expression?. Channels, 11(5), 476-481. https://doi.org/10.1080/19336950.2017.1355663

© 2017 Taylor & Francis The cardiac voltage-gated sodium channel (gene: SCN5A, protein: Na V 1.5) is responsible for the sodium current that initiates the cardiomyocyte action potential. Research into the mechanisms of SCN5A gene expression has gai... Read More about Do sodium channel proteolytic fragments regulate sodium channel expression?.

Transcriptional regulation of the sodium channel gene (SCN5A) by GATA4 in human heart (2016)
Journal Article
Tarradas, A., Pinsach-Abuin, M., Mackintosh, C., Llorà-Batlle, O., Pérez-Serra, A., Batlle, M., …Pagans, S. (2017). Transcriptional regulation of the sodium channel gene (SCN5A) by GATA4 in human heart. Journal of Molecular and Cellular Cardiology, 102, 74-82. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yjmcc.2016.10.013

Aberrant expression of the sodium channel gene (SCN5A) has been proposed to disrupt cardiac action potential and cause human cardiac arrhythmias, but the mechanisms of SCN5A gene regulation and dysregulation still remain largely unexplored. To gain i... Read More about Transcriptional regulation of the sodium channel gene (SCN5A) by GATA4 in human heart.

Mapping arginine methylation in the human body and cardiac disease (2016)
Journal Article
Onwuli, D. O., Rigau-Roca, L., Cawthorne, C., & Beltran-Alvarez, P. (2017). Mapping arginine methylation in the human body and cardiac disease. Proteomics. Clinical applications, 11(1-2), Article ARTN 1600106. https://doi.org/10.1002/prca.201600106

Purpose Arginine methylation (ArgMe) is one of the most ubiquitous post-translational modifications, and hundreds of proteins undergo ArgMe in e.g. brain. However, the scope of ArgMe in many tissues, including the heart, is currently under explored.... Read More about Mapping arginine methylation in the human body and cardiac disease.

An update on transcriptional and post-translational regulation of brain voltage-gated sodium channels (2015)
Journal Article
Beltran-Alvarez, P., & Onwuli, D. O. (2016). An update on transcriptional and post-translational regulation of brain voltage-gated sodium channels. Amino acids, 48(3), 641-651. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00726-015-2122-y

Voltage-gated sodium channels are essential proteins in brain physiology, as they generate the sodium currents that initiate neuronal action potentials. Voltage-gated sodium channels expression, localisation and function are regulated by a range of t... Read More about An update on transcriptional and post-translational regulation of brain voltage-gated sodium channels.

Clinical and molecular characterization of a cardiac ryanodine receptor founder mutation causing catecholaminergic polymorphic ventricular tachycardia (2015)
Journal Article
Wangüemert, F., Bosch Calero, C., Pérez, C., Campuzano, O., Beltran-Alvarez, P., Scornik, F. S., …Brugada, R. (2015). Clinical and molecular characterization of a cardiac ryanodine receptor founder mutation causing catecholaminergic polymorphic ventricular tachycardia. Heart rhythm : the official journal of the Heart Rhythm Society, 12(7), 1636-1643. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hrthm.2015.03.033

Background Catecholaminergic polymorphic ventricular tachycardia (CPVT) is a difficult-to-diagnose cause of sudden cardiac death (SCD). We identified a family of 1400 individuals with multiple cases of CPVT, including 36 SCDs during youth. Objectives... Read More about Clinical and molecular characterization of a cardiac ryanodine receptor founder mutation causing catecholaminergic polymorphic ventricular tachycardia.

Interplay between R513 methylation and S516 phosphorylation of the cardiac voltage-gated sodium channel (2014)
Journal Article
Beltran-Alvarez, P., Feixas, F., Osuna, S., Díaz-Hernández, R., Brugada, R., & Pagans, S. (2015). Interplay between R513 methylation and S516 phosphorylation of the cardiac voltage-gated sodium channel. Amino acids, 47(2), 429-434. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00726-014-1890-0

Arginine methylation is a novel post-translational modification within the voltage-gated ion channel superfamily, including the cardiac sodium channel, Naᵥ1.5. We show that Naᵥ1.5 R513 methylation decreases S516 phosphorylation rate by 4 orders of ma... Read More about Interplay between R513 methylation and S516 phosphorylation of the cardiac voltage-gated sodium channel.

Protein arginine methyl transferases-3 and -5 increase cell surface expression of cardiac sodium channel (2013)
Journal Article
Beltran-Alvarez, P., Espejo, A., Schmauder, R., Beltran, C., Mrowka, R., Linke, T., …Brugada, R. (2013). Protein arginine methyl transferases-3 and -5 increase cell surface expression of cardiac sodium channel. FEBS Letters, 587(19), 3159-3165. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.febslet.2013.07.043

The α-subunit of the cardiac voltage-gated sodium channel (Na V1.5) plays a central role in cardiomyocyte excitability. We have recently reported that NaV1.5 is post-translationally modified by arginine methylation. Here, we aimed to identify the enz... Read More about Protein arginine methyl transferases-3 and -5 increase cell surface expression of cardiac sodium channel.

A Missense Mutation in the Sodium Channel β2 Subunit Reveals SCN2B as a New Candidate Gene for Brugada Syndrome (2013)
Journal Article
Riuró, H., Beltran-Alvarez, P., Tarradas, A., Selga, E., Campuzano, O., Vergés, M., …Brugada, R. (2013). A Missense Mutation in the Sodium Channel β2 Subunit Reveals SCN2B as a New Candidate Gene for Brugada Syndrome. Human Mutation, 34(7), 961-966. https://doi.org/10.1002/humu.22328

Brugada Syndrome (BrS) is a familial disease associated with sudden cardiac death. A 20%-25% of BrS patients carry genetic defects that cause loss-of-function of the voltage-gated cardiac sodium channel. Thus, 70%-75% of patients remain without a gen... Read More about A Missense Mutation in the Sodium Channel β2 Subunit Reveals SCN2B as a New Candidate Gene for Brugada Syndrome.