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Item Intrinsically disordered proteins play diverse roles in cell signaling(BMC, 2022-02-17) Bondos, Sarah E.; Dunker, A. Keith; Uversky, Vladimir N.; Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, School of MedicineSignaling pathways allow cells to detect and respond to a wide variety of chemical (e.g. Ca2+ or chemokine proteins) and physical stimuli (e.g., sheer stress, light). Together, these pathways form an extensive communication network that regulates basic cell activities and coordinates the function of multiple cells or tissues. The process of cell signaling imposes many demands on the proteins that comprise these pathways, including the abilities to form active and inactive states, and to engage in multiple protein interactions. Furthermore, successful signaling often requires amplifying the signal, regulating or tuning the response to the signal, combining information sourced from multiple pathways, all while ensuring fidelity of the process. This sensitivity, adaptability, and tunability are possible, in part, due to the inclusion of intrinsically disordered regions in many proteins involved in cell signaling. The goal of this collection is to highlight the many roles of intrinsic disorder in cell signaling. Following an overview of resources that can be used to study intrinsically disordered proteins, this review highlights the critical role of intrinsically disordered proteins for signaling in widely diverse organisms (animals, plants, bacteria, fungi), in every category of cell signaling pathway (autocrine, juxtacrine, intracrine, paracrine, and endocrine) and at each stage (ligand, receptor, transducer, effector, terminator) in the cell signaling process. Thus, a cell signaling pathway cannot be fully described without understanding how intrinsically disordered protein regions contribute to its function. The ubiquitous presence of intrinsic disorder in different stages of diverse cell signaling pathways suggest that more mechanisms by which disorder modulates intra- and inter-cell signals remain to be discovered.Item Plasma Total-Tau and Neurofilament Light Chain as Diagnostic Biomarkers of Alzheimer's Disease Dementia and Mild Cognitive Impairment in Adults with Down Syndrome(IOS Press, 2021) Petersen, Melissa E.; Rafii, Michael S.; Zhang, Fan; Hall, James; Julovich, David; Ances, Beau M.; Schupf, Nicole; Krinsky-McHale, Sharon J.; Mapstone, Mark; Silverman, Wayne; Lott, Ira; Klunk, William; Head, Elizabeth; Christian, Brad; Foroud, Tatiana; Lai, Florence; Rosas, H. Diana; Zaman, Shahid; Wang, Mei-Cheng; Tycko, Benjamin; Lee, Joseph H.; Handen, Benjamin; Hartley, Sigan; Fortea, Juan; O’Bryant, Sid; Alzheimer’s Biomarker Consortium – Down Syndrome (ABC-DS); Medical and Molecular Genetics, School of MedicineBackground: The need for diagnostic biomarkers of cognitive decline is particularly important among aging adults with Down syndrome (DS). Growing empirical support has identified the utility of plasma derived biomarkers among neurotypical adults with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer's disease (AD); however, the application of such biomarkers has been limited among the DS population. Objective: This study aimed to investigate the cross-sectional diagnostic performance of plasma neurofilament light chain (Nf-L) and total-tau, individually and in combination among a cohort of DS adults. Methods: Plasma samples were analyzed from n = 305 (n = 225 cognitively stable (CS); n = 44 MCI-DS; n = 36 DS-AD) participants enrolled in the Alzheimer's Biomarker Consortium -Down Syndrome. Results: In distinguishing DS-AD participants from CS, Nf-L alone produced an AUC of 90%, total-tau alone reached 74%, and combined reached an AUC of 86%. When age and gender were included, AUC increased to 93%. Higher values of Nf-L, total-tau, and age were all shown to be associated with increased risk for DS-AD. When distinguishing MCI-DS participants from CS, Nf-L alone produced an AUC of 65%, while total-tau alone reached 56%. A combined model with Nf-L, total-tau, age, and gender produced an AUC of 87%. Both higher values in age and total-tau were found to increase risk for MCI-DS; Nf-L levels were not associated with increased risk for MCI-DS. Conclusion: Advanced assay techniques make total-tau and particularly Nf-L useful biomarkers of both AD pathology and clinical status in DS and have the potential to serve as outcome measures in clinical trials for future disease-modifying drugs.