Mouse B-type lamins are required for proper organogenesis but not by embryonic stem cells.
A- and B-type lamins are differentially expressed in normal human tissues.
Role of A-type lamins in signaling, transcription, and chromatin organization.
Post-natal myogenic and adipogenic developmental: defects and metabolic impairment upon loss of A-type lamins. Nucleus 2:195-207.
Using an advanced array of techniques available in fruit fly studies, the team demonstrated that lamins were a necessary component of supporting niche organization, which in turn regulates proper proliferation and differentiation of germline stem cells in fruit fly testis.
"These results could have implications for the role of lamins in other types of stem cell niches," Zheng said.
Lamins, including lamins A/C, and lamin B1 are suppressed in colon cancer, suggesting their pathogenic role in colorectal carcinogenesis (Atreya and Neurath 2008).
Nuclear lamins: building blocks of nuclear architecture.
Protein phosphatase 1 (PP1), a Ser/Thr phosphatase, is the key enzyme responsible for dephosphorylation of
lamins in the cell nucleus.
The "mechanical stress hypothesis" model suggests that the
lamins and their associated proteins form a filamentous nucleoskeleton that supports the nuclear envelope (NE).
This PA is a new initiative to support research to understand how mutations in the gene for
lamin A/C affect nuclear structure, thus leading to bothdysfunction of the nuclear envelope, and depending on the mutation, Hutchinson-Gilford syndrome in humans (Eriksson et al., manuscript in preparation).
The LMNA gene is found on chromosome 1q21.2-q21.3 in humans and encodes the
lamin A/C proteins (Feng and Howard, 1993).
