Browsing by Author "Li, Yiran"

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    Tbx1 haploinsufficiency leads to local skull deformity, paraflocculus and flocculus dysplasia, and motor-learning deficit in 22q11.2 deletion syndrome
    (Springer Nature, 2024-12-05) Eom, Tae-Yeon; Schmitt, J. Eric; Li, Yiran; Davenport, Christopher M.; Steinberg, Jeffrey; Bonnan, Audrey; Alam, Shahinur; Ryu, Young Sang; Paul, Leena; Hansen, Baranda S.; Khairy, Khaled; Pelletier, Stephane; Pruett-Miller, Shondra M.; Roalf, David R.; Gur, Raquel E.; Emanuel, Beverly S.; McDonald-McGinn, Donna M.; Smith, Jesse N.; Li, Cai; Christie, Jason M.; Northcott, Paul A.; Zakharenko, Stanislav S.; Medical and Molecular Genetics, School of Medicine
    Neurodevelopmental disorders are thought to arise from intrinsic brain abnormalities. Alternatively, they may arise from disrupted crosstalk among tissues. Here we show the local reduction of two vestibulo-cerebellar lobules, the paraflocculus and flocculus, in mouse models and humans with 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22q11DS). In mice, this paraflocculus/flocculus dysplasia is associated with haploinsufficiency of the Tbx1 gene. Tbx1 haploinsufficiency also leads to impaired cerebellar synaptic plasticity and motor learning. However, neural cell compositions and neurogenesis are not altered in the dysplastic paraflocculus/flocculus. Interestingly, 22q11DS and Tbx1+/- mice have malformations of the subarcuate fossa, a part of the petrous temporal bone, which encapsulates the paraflocculus/flocculus. Single-nuclei RNA sequencing reveals that Tbx1 haploinsufficiency leads to precocious differentiation of chondrocytes to osteoblasts in the petrous temporal bone autonomous to paraflocculus/flocculus cell populations. These findings suggest a previously unrecognized pathogenic structure/function relation in 22q11DS in which local skeletal deformity and cerebellar dysplasia result in behavioral deficiencies.
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    Ubiquity of polystyrene digestion and biodegradation within yellow mealworms, larvae of Tenebrio molitor Linnaeus (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae)
    (Elsevier, 2018) Yang, Shan-Shan; Wu, Wei-Min; Brandon, Anja M.; Fan, Han-Qing; Receveur, Joseph P.; Li, Yiran; Wang, Zhi-Yue; Fan, Rui; McClellan, Rebecca L.; Gao, Shu-Hong; Ning, Daliang; Phillips, Debra H.; Peng, Bo-Yu; Wang, Hongtao; Cai, Shen-Yang; Li, Ping; Cai, Wei-Wei; Ding, Ling-Yun; Yang, Jun; Zheng, Min; Ren, Jie; Zhang, Ya-Lei; Gao, Jie; Xing, Defeng; Ren, Nan-Qi; Waymouth, Robert M.; Zhou, Jizhong; Tao, Hu-Chun; Picard, Christine J.; Benbow, Mark Eric; Criddle, Craig S.; Biology, School of Science
    Academics researchers and “citizen scientists” from 22 countries confirmed that yellow mealworms, the larvae of Tenebrio molitor Linnaeus, can survive by eating polystyrene (PS) foam. More detailed assessments of this capability for mealworms were carried out by12 sources: five from the USA, six from China, and one from Northern Ireland. All of these mealworms digested PS foam. PS mass decreased and depolymerization was observed, with appearance of lower molecular weight residuals and functional groups indicative of oxidative transformations in extracts from the frass (insect excrement). An addition of gentamycin (30 mg g−1), a bactericidal antibiotic, inhibited depolymerization, implicating the gut microbiome in the biodegradation process. Microbial community analyses demonstrated significant taxonomic shifts for mealworms fed diets of PS plus bran and PS alone. The results indicate that mealworms from diverse locations eat and metabolize PS and support the hypothesis that this capacity is independent of the geographic origin of the mealworms, and is likely ubiquitous to members of this species.