Chong Li

TL;DR: It is shown that loss of dSms in Drosophila recapitulates the pathological polyamine imbalance of SRS and causes survival defects and synaptic degeneration, and oxidative stress caused by loss of SMS is suppressed by genetically or pharmacologically enhanced antioxidant activity.

TL;DR: Progress in understanding the regulation of NMNAT has uncovered a neuronal stress response with great therapeutic promise for treating various neurodegenerative conditions.

TL;DR: Drosophila Nmnat is alternatively spliced into two mRNA variants, RA and RB, which translate to protein isoforms with divergent neuroprotective capacities against spinocerebellar ataxia 1-induced neurodegeneration, and results indicate that alternative splicing functions as a switch that regulates the expression of functionally distinct DmNmnat variants.

TL;DR: The NIH UDP incorporated use of the Human Phenotype Ontology, developed a genomic alignment strategy cognizant of parental genotypes, pursued agnostic biochemical analyses, implemented functional validation, and established virtual villages of global experts.

TL;DR: An easy-to-follow, semi-automated approach using Fiji/ImageJ to analyze two cellular processes and provides a standardized, yet adaptable reference point for image analysis and quantification, and could facilitate reliability and reproducibility across the field, and ultimately enhance mechanistic understanding of neurodegeneration.