@article{CullmannJahnSpindleretal.2021, author = {Cullmann, Katharina and Jahn, Magdalena and Spindler, Markus and Schenk, Franziska and Manukjan, Georgi and Mucci, Adele and Steinemann, Doris and Boller, Klaus and Schulze, Harald and Bender, Markus and Moritz, Thomas and Modlich, Ute}, title = {Forming megakaryocytes from murine-induced pluripotent stem cells by the inducible overexpression of supporting factors}, series = {Research and Practice in Thrombosis and Haemostasis}, volume = {5}, journal = {Research and Practice in Thrombosis and Haemostasis}, number = {1}, doi = {10.1002/rth2.12453}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-224565}, pages = {111 -- 124}, year = {2021}, abstract = {Background Platelets are small anucleate cells that circulate in the blood in a resting state but can be activated by external cues. In case of need, platelets from blood donors can be transfused. As an alternative source, platelets can be produced from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs); however, recovered numbers are low. Objectives To optimize megakaryocyte (MK) and platelet output from murine iPSCs, we investigated overexpression of the transcription factors GATA-binding factor 1 (GATA1); nuclear factor, erythroid 2; and pre-B-cell leukemia transcription factor 1 (Pbx1) and a hyperactive variant of the small guanosine triphosphatase RhoA (RhoAhc). Methods To avoid off-target effects, we generated iPSCs carrying the reverse tetracycline-responsive transactivator M2 (rtTA-M2) in the Rosa26 locus and expressed the factors from Tet-inducible gammaretroviral vectors. Differentiation of iPSCs was initiated by embryoid body (EB) formation. After EB dissociation, early hematopoietic progenitors were enriched and cocultivated on OP9 feeder cells with thrombopoietin and stem cell factor to induce megakaryocyte (MK) differentiation. Results Overexpression of GATA1 and Pbx1 increased MK output 2- to 2.5-fold and allowed prolonged collection of MK. Cytologic and ultrastructural analyses identified typical MK with enlarged cells, multilobulated nuclei, granule structures, and an internal membrane system. However, GATA1 and Pbx1 expression did not improve MK maturation or platelet release, although in vitro-generated platelets were functional in spreading on fibrinogen or collagen-related peptide. Conclusion We demonstrate that the use of rtTA-M2 transgenic iPSCs transduced with Tet-inducible retroviral vectors allowed for gene expression at later time points during differentiation. With this strategy we could identify factors that increased in vitro MK production.}, language = {en} } @article{SchulzeHuttererSaboetal.2018, author = {Schulze, Markus and Hutterer, Maria and Sabo, Anja and Hoja, Sabine and Lorenz, Julia and Rothhammer-Hampl, Tanja and Herold-Mende, Christel and Floßbach, Lucia and Monoranu, Camelia and Riemenschneider, Markus J.}, title = {Chronophin regulates active vitamin B6 levels and transcriptomic features of glioblastoma cell lines cultured under non-adherent, serum-free conditions}, series = {BMC Cancer}, volume = {18}, journal = {BMC Cancer}, doi = {10.1186/s12885-018-4440-4}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-234645}, year = {2018}, abstract = {Background The phosphatase chronophin (CIN/PDXP) has been shown to be an important regulator of glioma cell migration and invasion. It has two known substrates: p-Ser3-cofilin, the phosphorylated form of the actin binding protein cofilin, and pyridoxal 5′-phosphate, the active form of vitamin B6. Phosphoregulation of cofilin, among other functions, plays an important role in cell migration, whereas active vitamin B6 is a cofactor for more than one hundred enzymatic reactions. The role of CIN has yet only been examined in glioblastoma cell line models derived under serum culture conditions. Results We found that CIN is highly expressed in cells cultured under non-adherent, serum-free conditions that are thought to better mimic the in vivo situation. Furthermore, the substrates of CIN, p-Ser3-cofilin and active vitamin B6, were significantly reduced as compared to cell lines cultured in serum-containing medium. To further examine its molecular role we stably knocked down the CIN protein with two different shRNA hairpins in the glioblastoma cell lines NCH421k and NCH644. Both cell lines did not show any significant alterations in proliferation but expression of differentiation markers (such as GFAP or TUBB3) was increased in the knockdown cell lines. In addition, colony formation was significantly impaired in NCH644. Of note, in both cell lines CIN knockdown increased active vitamin B6 levels with vitamin B6 being known to be important for S-adenosylmethionine biosynthesis. Nevertheless, global histone and DNA methylation remained unaltered as was chemoresistance towards temozolomide. To further elucidate the role of phosphocofilin in glioblastoma cells we applied inhibitors for ROCK1/2 and LIMK1/2 to our model. LIMK- and ROCK-inhibitor treatment alone was not toxic for glioblastoma cells. However, it had profound, but antagonistic effects in NCH421k and NCH644 under chemotherapy. Conclusion In non-adherent glioblastoma cell lines cultured in serum-free medium, chronophin knockdown induces phenotypic changes, e.g. in colony formation and transcription, but these are highly dependent on the cellular background. The same is true for phenotypes observed after treatment with inhibitors for kinases regulating cofilin phosphorylation (ROCKs and LIMKs). Targeting the cofilin phosphorylation pathway might therefore not be a straightforward therapeutic option in glioblastoma.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Schulze2014, author = {Schulze, Markus}, title = {Role of Chronophin for glioma cell migration and invasion}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-109292}, school = {Universit{\"a}t W{\"u}rzburg}, year = {2014}, abstract = {Abstract Glioblastomas, primary brain tumors, represent a tumor entity with a dismal prognosis and a median survival of only about one year. Invasion into the healthy brain parenchyma contributes substantially to the malignancy of this type of brain tumor. Therefore, a better understanding of the mechanisms promoting the invasive behavior of these brain tumors is needed to identify new therapeutic targets. Cofilin, an actin regulatory protein, has been shown to be an important regulator of the invasive behavior of tumor cells in other types of cancer and the actin cytoskeleton is involved in the formation of a variety of cellular structures important for cell migration and invasion. Cofilin is regulated by phosphorylation on a single residue, serine 3. The aim of this thesis was to examine the role of the cofilin regulatory phosphatase chronophin for glioma cell migration and invasion. First, it was established that chronophin depletion in the cell line GBM6840 leads to an increase in the ratio of phosphorylated cofilin to total cofilin. Higher chronophin levels were correlated with a decrease in F-actin in the cell lines GBM6840 and U87 as measured in an actin spin down assay and in a flow cytometry based assay. Furthermore, it was shown that knockdown of chronophin in two different cell lines, GBM6840 and DBTRG-05-MG, strongly increased their invasiveness in vitro. Expression of human chronophin in the cell line U87 decreased its invasiveness substantially. There was no difference in cell proliferation between GBM6840 and DBTRG-05-MG cells expressing a chronophin targeting shRNA or a control shRNA and U87 cells transfected with an empty vector or a human chronophin encoding plasmid. The increase in invasiveness after chronophin depletion could be correlated with an increase in directionality in cell migration under 2D culture conditions in the cell lines U87 and GBM6840. Moreover, treatment with the ROCK inhibitor Y-27632 decreased directionality in GBM6840 cells under 2D culture conditions and reduced the invasiveness of GBM6840 chronophin shRNA cells back to control levels. Expression of a non-phosphorylatable cofilin mutant, the S3A mutant, was able to reduce invasiveness and to reduce directionality under 2D culture conditions back to control levels in GBM6840 chronophin shRNA cells. This provides important evidence for the involvement of cofilin phosphoregulation in the phenotypes described above. In vivo, when injected into NOD-SCID mice, chronophin depleted cells showed a dramatic growth reduction as compared to control and rescue cells. Transciptomic characterization of GBM6840 cells by microarray analysis and subsequent comparison of the data with microarray profiles of normal brain tissues and different glioma entities identified two specifically chronophin regulated transcripts potentially involved in tumor progression and invasion, MXI1 and EDIL3. Moreover, c-myc was identified as a significantly altered transcription factor after chronophin deregulation based on the number of c-myc target molecules in the microarray dataset. MXI1 is a potential negative regulator of c-myc dependent transcription, and was strongly downregulated after chronophin knockdown in GBM6840. In line with this, the activity of a c-myc reporter plasmid was increased after chronophin depletion in GBM6840 and reduced after chronophin expression in U87 cells. However, the protein level of the c-myc protein was reduced after chronophin depletion in GBM6840. Finally, anaylsis of the expression of proteases known to be important for glioblastoma pathogenesis revealed no major changes in protease expression between chronophin depleted and control cells. Therefore, a comprehensive analysis of chronophin in the context of glioma pathogenesis has been performed in this thesis. It has been shown that chronophin depletion strongly enhanced invasiveness of glioma cells and that it induced transcriptomic changes potentially involved in tumor progression. The proteins regulating cofilin phosphorylation are therefore valuable therapeutic targets for anti-invasive therapy in glioblastomas. Inhibitors for kinases upstream of cofilin, e.g. LIMKs and ROCKs, are available, and might be promising agents for anti-invasive therapy.}, subject = {Zellmigration}, language = {en} } @article{BemmBeckerLarischetal.2016, author = {Bemm, Felix and Becker, Dirk and Larisch, Christina and Kreuzer, Ines and Escalante-Perez, Maria and Schulze, Waltraud X. and Ankenbrand, Markus and Van de Weyer, Anna-Lena and Krol, Elzbieta and Al-Rasheid, Khaled A. and Mith{\"o}fer, Axel and Weber, Andreas P. and Schultz, J{\"o}rg and Hedrich, Rainer}, title = {Venus flytrap carnivorous lifestyle builds on herbivore defense strategies}, series = {Genome Research}, volume = {26}, journal = {Genome Research}, number = {6}, doi = {10.1101/gr.202200.115}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-188799}, pages = {812-825}, year = {2016}, abstract = {Although the concept of botanical carnivory has been known since Darwin's time, the molecular mechanisms that allow animal feeding remain unknown, primarily due to a complete lack of genomic information. Here, we show that the transcriptomic landscape of the Dionaea trap is dramatically shifted toward signal transduction and nutrient transport upon insect feeding, with touch hormone signaling and protein secretion prevailing. At the same time, a massive induction of general defense responses is accompanied by the repression of cell death-related genes/processes. We hypothesize that the carnivory syndrome of Dionaea evolved by exaptation of ancient defense pathways, replacing cell death with nutrient acquisition.}, language = {en} } @article{RosaButtHopperetal.2022, author = {Rosa, Annabelle and Butt, Elke and Hopper, Christopher P. and Loroch, Stefan and Bender, Markus and Schulze, Harald and Sickmann, Albert and Vorlova, Sandra and Seizer, Peter and Heinzmann, David and Zernecke, Alma}, title = {Cyclophilin a is not acetylated at lysine-82 and lysine-125 in resting and stimulated platelets}, series = {International Journal of Molecular Sciences}, volume = {23}, journal = {International Journal of Molecular Sciences}, number = {3}, issn = {1422-0067}, doi = {10.3390/ijms23031469}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-284011}, year = {2022}, abstract = {Cyclophilin A (CyPA) is widely expressed by all prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells. Upon activation, CyPA can be released into the extracellular space to engage in a variety of functions, such as interaction with the CD147 receptor, that contribute to the pathogenesis of cardiovascular diseases. CyPA was recently found to undergo acetylation at K82 and K125, two lysine residues conserved in most species, and these modifications are required for secretion of CyPA in response to cell activation in vascular smooth muscle cells. Herein we addressed whether acetylation at these sites is also required for the release of CyPA from platelets based on the potential for local delivery of CyPA that may exacerbate cardiovascular disease events. Western blot analyses confirmed the presence of CyPA in human and mouse platelets. Thrombin stimulation resulted in CyPA release from platelets; however, no acetylation was observed—neither in cell lysates nor in supernatants of both untreated and activated platelets, nor after immunoprecipitation of CyPA from platelets. Shotgun proteomics detected two CyPA peptide precursors in the recombinant protein, acetylated at K28, but again, no acetylation was found in CyPA derived from resting or stimulated platelets. Our findings suggest that acetylation of CyPA is not a major protein modification in platelets and that CyPA acetylation is not required for its secretion from platelets.}, language = {en} } @article{BaeHeidrichLevicketal.2020, author = {Bae, Soyeon and Heidrich, Lea and Levick, Shaun R. and Gossner, Martin M. and Seibold, Sebastian and Weisser, Wolfgang W. and Magdon, Paul and Serebryanyk, Alla and B{\"a}ssler, Claus and Sch{\"a}fer, Deborah and Schulze, Ernst-Detlef and Doerfler, Inken and M{\"u}ller, J{\"o}rg and Jung, Kirsten and Heurich, Marco and Fischer, Markus and Roth, Nicolas and Schall, Peter and Boch, Steffen and W{\"o}llauer, Stephan and Renner, Swen C. and M{\"u}ller, J{\"o}rg}, title = {Dispersal ability, trophic position and body size mediate species turnover processes: Insights from a multi-taxa and multi-scale approach}, series = {Diversity and Distribution}, volume = {27}, journal = {Diversity and Distribution}, number = {3}, doi = {10.1111/ddi.13204}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-236117}, pages = {439-453}, year = {2020}, abstract = {Aim: Despite increasing interest in β-diversity, that is the spatial and temporal turnover of species, the mechanisms underlying species turnover at different spatial scales are not fully understood, although they likely differ among different functional groups. We investigated the relative importance of dispersal limitations and the environmental filtering caused by vegetation for local, multi-taxa forest communities differing in their dispersal ability, trophic position and body size. Location: Temperate forests in five regions across Germany. Methods: In the inter-region analysis, the independent and shared effects of the regional spatial structure (regional species pool), landscape spatial structure (dispersal limitation) and environmental factors on species turnover were quantified with a 1-ha grain across 11 functional groups in up to 495 plots by variation partitioning. In the intra-region analysis, the relative importance of three environmental factors related to vegetation (herb and tree layer composition and forest physiognomy) and spatial structure for species turnover was determined. Results: In the inter-region analysis, over half of the explained variation in community composition (23\% of the total explained 35\%) was explained by the shared effects of several factors, indicative of spatially structured environmental filtering. Among the independent effects, environmental factors were the strongest on average over 11 groups, but the importance of landscape spatial structure increased for less dispersive functional groups. In the intra-region analysis, the independent effect of plant species composition had a stronger influence on species turnover than forest physiognomy, but the relative importance of the latter increased with increasing trophic position and body size. Main conclusions: Our study revealed that the mechanisms structuring assemblage composition are associated with the traits of functional groups. Hence, conservation frameworks targeting biodiversity of multiple groups should cover both environmental and biogeographical gradients. Within regions, forest management can enhance β-diversity particularly by diversifying tree species composition and forest physiognomy.}, language = {en} } @article{BreuerMattheisenFranketal.2018, author = {Breuer, Ren{\´e} and Mattheisen, Manuel and Frank, Josef and Krumm, Bertram and Treutlein, Jens and Kassem, Layla and Strohmaier, Jana and Herms, Stefan and M{\"u}hleisen, Thomas W. and Degenhardt, Franziska and Cichon, Sven and N{\"o}then, Markus M. and Karypis, George and Kelsoe, John and Greenwood, Tiffany and Nievergelt, Caroline and Shilling, Paul and Shekhtman, Tatyana and Edenberg, Howard and Craig, David and Szelinger, Szabolcs and Nurnberger, John and Gershon, Elliot and Alliey-Rodriguez, Ney and Zandi, Peter and Goes, Fernando and Schork, Nicholas and Smith, Erin and Koller, Daniel and Zhang, Peng and Badner, Judith and Berrettini, Wade and Bloss, Cinnamon and Byerley, William and Coryell, William and Foroud, Tatiana and Guo, Yirin and Hipolito, Maria and Keating, Brendan and Lawson, William and Liu, Chunyu and Mahon, Pamela and McInnis, Melvin and Murray, Sarah and Nwulia, Evaristus and Potash, James and Rice, John and Scheftner, William and Z{\"o}llner, Sebastian and McMahon, Francis J. and Rietschel, Marcella and Schulze, Thomas G.}, title = {Detecting significant genotype-phenotype association rules in bipolar disorder: market research meets complex genetics}, series = {International Journal of Bipolar Disorders}, volume = {6}, journal = {International Journal of Bipolar Disorders}, doi = {10.1186/s40345-018-0132-x}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-220509}, year = {2018}, abstract = {Background Disentangling the etiology of common, complex diseases is a major challenge in genetic research. For bipolar disorder (BD), several genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have been performed. Similar to other complex disorders, major breakthroughs in explaining the high heritability of BD through GWAS have remained elusive. To overcome this dilemma, genetic research into BD, has embraced a variety of strategies such as the formation of large consortia to increase sample size and sequencing approaches. Here we advocate a complementary approach making use of already existing GWAS data: a novel data mining procedure to identify yet undetected genotype-phenotype relationships. We adapted association rule mining, a data mining technique traditionally used in retail market research, to identify frequent and characteristic genotype patterns showing strong associations to phenotype clusters. We applied this strategy to three independent GWAS datasets from 2835 phenotypically characterized patients with BD. In a discovery step, 20,882 candidate association rules were extracted. Results Two of these rules—one associated with eating disorder and the other with anxiety—remained significant in an independent dataset after robust correction for multiple testing. Both showed considerable effect sizes (odds ratio ~ 3.4 and 3.0, respectively) and support previously reported molecular biological findings. Conclusion Our approach detected novel specific genotype-phenotype relationships in BD that were missed by standard analyses like GWAS. While we developed and applied our method within the context of BD gene discovery, it may facilitate identifying highly specific genotype-phenotype relationships in subsets of genome-wide data sets of other complex phenotype with similar epidemiological properties and challenges to gene discovery efforts.}, language = {en} } @article{HerrmannNotzSchlesingeretal.2021, author = {Herrmann, Johannes and Notz, Quirin and Schlesinger, Tobias and Stumpner, Jan and Kredel, Markus and Sitter, Magdalena and Schmid, Benedikt and Kranke, Peter and Schulze, Harald and Meybohm, Patrick and Lotz, Christopher}, title = {Point of care diagnostic of hypercoagulability and platelet function in COVID-19 induced acute respiratory distress syndrome: a retrospective observational study}, series = {Thrombosis Journal}, volume = {19}, journal = {Thrombosis Journal}, number = {1}, doi = {10.1186/s12959-021-00293-8}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-260739}, year = {2021}, abstract = {Background Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) associated coagulopathy (CAC) leads to thromboembolic events in a high number of critically ill COVID-19 patients. However, specific diagnostic or therapeutic algorithms for CAC have not been established. In the current study, we analyzed coagulation abnormalities with point-of-care testing (POCT) and their relation to hemostatic complications in patients suffering from COVID-19 induced Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS). Our hypothesis was that specific diagnostic patterns can be identified in patients with COVID-19 induced ARDS at risk of thromboembolic complications utilizing POCT. Methods This is a single-center, retrospective observational study. Longitudinal data from 247 rotational thromboelastometries (Rotem®) and 165 impedance aggregometries (Multiplate®) were analysed in 18 patients consecutively admitted to the ICU with a COVID-19 induced ARDS between March 12th to June 30th, 2020. Results Median age was 61 years (IQR: 51-69). Median PaO2/FiO2 on admission was 122 mmHg (IQR: 87-189), indicating moderate to severe ARDS. Any form of hemostatic complication occurred in 78 \% of the patients with deep vein/arm thrombosis in 39 \%, pulmonary embolism in 22 \%, and major bleeding in 17 \%. In Rotem® elevated A10 and maximum clot firmness (MCF) indicated higher clot strength. The delta between EXTEM A10 minus FIBTEM A10 (ΔA10) > 30 mm, depicting the sole platelet-part of clot firmness, was associated with a higher risk of thromboembolic events (OD: 3.7; 95 \%CI 1.3-10.3; p = 0.02). Multiplate® aggregometry showed hypoactive platelet function. There was no correlation between single Rotem® and Multiplate® parameters at intensive care unit (ICU) admission and thromboembolic or bleeding complications. Conclusions Rotem® and Multiplate® results indicate hypercoagulability and hypoactive platelet dysfunction in COVID-19 induced ARDS but were all in all poorly related to hemostatic complications..}, language = {en} } @article{KleinHesslingMuhammadKleinetal.2017, author = {Klein-Hessling, Stefan and Muhammad, Khalid and Klein, Matthias and Pusch, Tobias and Rudolf, Ronald and Fl{\"o}ter, Jessica and Qureischi, Musga and Beilhack, Andreas and Vaeth, Martin and Kummerow, Carsten and Backes, Christian and Schoppmeyer, Rouven and Hahn, Ulrike and Hoth, Markus and Bopp, Tobias and Berberich-Siebelt, Friederike and Patra, Amiya and Avots, Andris and M{\"u}ller, Nora and Schulze, Almut and Serfling, Edgar}, title = {NFATc1 controls the cytotoxicity of CD8\(^{+}\) T cells}, series = {Nature Communications}, volume = {8}, journal = {Nature Communications}, number = {511}, doi = {10.1038/s41467-017-00612-6}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-170353}, year = {2017}, abstract = {Cytotoxic T lymphocytes are effector CD8\(^{+}\) T cells that eradicate infected and malignant cells. Here we show that the transcription factor NFATc1 controls the cytotoxicity of mouse cytotoxic T lymphocytes. Activation of Nfatc1\(^{-/-}\) cytotoxic T lymphocytes showed a defective cytoskeleton organization and recruitment of cytosolic organelles to immunological synapses. These cells have reduced cytotoxicity against tumor cells, and mice with NFATc1-deficient T cells are defective in controlling Listeria infection. Transcriptome analysis shows diminished RNA levels of numerous genes in Nfatc1\(^{-/-}\) CD8\(^{+}\) T cells, including Tbx21, Gzmb and genes encoding cytokines and chemokines, and genes controlling glycolysis. Nfatc1\(^{-/-}\), but not Nfatc2\(^{-/-}\) CD8\(^{+}\) T cells have an impaired metabolic switch to glycolysis, which can be restored by IL-2. Genome-wide ChIP-seq shows that NFATc1 binds many genes that control cytotoxic T lymphocyte activity. Together these data indicate that NFATc1 is an important regulator of cytotoxic T lymphocyte effector functions.}, language = {en} } @article{HartmannReisslandMaieretal.2021, author = {Hartmann, Oliver and Reissland, Michaela and Maier, Carina R. and Fischer, Thomas and Prieto-Garcia, Cristian and Baluapuri, Apoorva and Schwarz, Jessica and Schmitz, Werner and Garrido-Rodriguez, Martin and Pahor, Nikolett and Davies, Clare C. and Bassermann, Florian and Orian, Amir and Wolf, Elmar and Schulze, Almut and Calzado, Marco A. and Rosenfeldt, Mathias T. and Diefenbacher, Markus E.}, title = {Implementation of CRISPR/Cas9 Genome Editing to Generate Murine Lung Cancer Models That Depict the Mutational Landscape of Human Disease}, series = {Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology}, volume = {9}, journal = {Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology}, issn = {2296-634X}, doi = {10.3389/fcell.2021.641618}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-230949}, year = {2021}, abstract = {Lung cancer is the most common cancer worldwide and the leading cause of cancer-related deaths in both men and women. Despite the development of novel therapeutic interventions, the 5-year survival rate for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients remains low, demonstrating the necessity for novel treatments. One strategy to improve translational research is the development of surrogate models reflecting somatic mutations identified in lung cancer patients as these impact treatment responses. With the advent of CRISPR-mediated genome editing, gene deletion as well as site-directed integration of point mutations enabled us to model human malignancies in more detail than ever before. Here, we report that by using CRISPR/Cas9-mediated targeting of Trp53 and KRas, we recapitulated the classic murine NSCLC model Trp53fl/fl:lsl-KRasG12D/wt. Developing tumors were indistinguishable from Trp53fl/fl:lsl-KRasG12D/wt-derived tumors with regard to morphology, marker expression, and transcriptional profiles. We demonstrate the applicability of CRISPR for tumor modeling in vivo and ameliorating the need to use conventional genetically engineered mouse models. Furthermore, tumor onset was not only achieved in constitutive Cas9 expression but also in wild-type animals via infection of lung epithelial cells with two discrete AAVs encoding different parts of the CRISPR machinery. While conventional mouse models require extensive husbandry to integrate new genetic features allowing for gene targeting, basic molecular methods suffice to inflict the desired genetic alterations in vivo. Utilizing the CRISPR toolbox, in vivo cancer research and modeling is rapidly evolving and enables researchers to swiftly develop new, clinically relevant surrogate models for translational research.}, language = {en} } @article{SeiboldHothornGossneretal.2021, author = {Seibold, Sebastian and Hothorn, Torsten and Gossner, Martin M. and Simons, Nadja K. and Bl{\"u}thgen, Nico and M{\"u}ller, J{\"o}rg and Ambarl{\i}, Didem and Ammer, Christian and Bauhus, J{\"u}rgen and Fischer, Markus and Habel, Jan C. and Penone, Caterina and Schall, Peter and Schulze, Ernst-Detlef and Weisser, Wolfgang W.}, title = {Insights from regional and short-term biodiversity monitoring datasets are valuable: a reply to Daskalova et al. 2021}, series = {Insect Conservation and Diversity}, volume = {14}, journal = {Insect Conservation and Diversity}, number = {1}, doi = {10.1111/icad.12467}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-228309}, pages = {144 -- 148}, year = {2021}, abstract = {Reports of major losses in insect biodiversity have stimulated an increasing interest in temporal population changes. Existing datasets are often limited to a small number of study sites, few points in time, a narrow range of land-use intensities and only some taxonomic groups, or they lack standardised sampling. While new monitoring programs have been initiated, they still cover rather short time periods. Daskalova et al. 2021 (Insect Conservation and Diversity, 14, 1-18) argue that temporal trends of insect populations derived from short time series are biased towards extreme trends, while their own analysis of an assembly of shorter- and longer-term time series does not support an overall insect decline. With respect to the results of Seibold et al. 2019 (Nature, 574, 671-674) based on a 10-year multi-site time series, they claim that the analysis suffers from not accounting for temporal pseudoreplication. Here, we explain why the criticism of missing statistical rigour in the analysis of Seibold et al. (2019) is not warranted. Models that include 'year' as random effect, as suggested by Daskalova et al. (2021), fail to detect non-linear trends and assume that consecutive years are independent samples which is questionable for insect time-series data. We agree with Daskalova et al. (2021) that the assembly and analysis of larger datasets is urgently needed, but it will take time until such datasets are available. Thus, short-term datasets are highly valuable, should be extended and analysed continually to provide a more detailed understanding of insect population changes under the influence of global change, and to trigger immediate conservation actions.}, language = {en} }