Biology subjects

Dao, N.

Publications and source records attributed to Dao, N..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2026

Paratenial thalamus engages in reciprocal and broadcast circuits with the prefrontal cortex

The dorsal anterior midline thalamus (aMT) consists of several closely packed nuclei that are important for motivated and emotional behavior. Previous work on aMT has focused on cells and synapses in the paraventricular thalamus (PVT), and little is known about the adjacent paratenial thalamus (PT). Here we examine neural circuits involving PT using a combination of molecular profiling, anatomical tracing, electrophysiology, and optogenetics. We first find that Protein Kinase C-delta (PKCd) selectively labels thalamocortical (TC) cells concentrated in PT but largely absent from neighboring PVT. We show that TC cells in PT project to the infralimbic region (IL) of the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), where they contact and drive L2/3 pyramidal cells. In return, we find that IL mPFC primarily projects to PT over nearby PVT, making connections onto reciprocally connected TC cells. However, these cortical inputs are even stronger onto thalamostriatal (TS) and thalamoamygdala (TA) cells, allowing the mPFC to broadcast to the subcortex. Together, our findings help to parcellate aMT, highlight PT as a distinct thalamic nucleus, establish reciprocal connectivity between PT and IL mPFC, and show cortico-thalamic throughput to the subcortex.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2026

Chiral methionine oxidation reagents reveal stereospecific proteome modifications

Life is predicated on chirality, a molecular asymmetry akin to the left and right versions of human hands. Here we show that privileged protein residues are predisposed for chiral regulation. We developed enantiomeric oxaziridine reagents that systematically identify pro-(S) and pro-(R) methionine oxidation sites across proteomes that can be erased by stereospecific methionine sulfoxide reductase enzymes A and B, respectively. These probes reveal that chiral regulation of methionine oxidation-reduction processes can allosterically regulate protein function, as shown in cell and murine models of oxidative stress where selective (R)-methionine sulfoxide formation on M69 of biphenyl hydrolase-like protein leads to hydrolase inhibition and amplification of proteome N-homocysteinylation modifications. This work introduces a platform for characterizing sites of asymmetric methionine oxidation and the functional consequences concomitant with an individual chiral single-atom modification.

biochemistry↗

bioRxiv2025

Fast Fourier Transform is a training-free, ultrafast, highly efficient, and fully interpretable approach for epigenomic data compression

Improving the efficiency of data compression remains essential for feature selection and data modelling. Current approaches for compressing epigenomic/genomic data highly rely on autoencoder that requires substantial computing resources, parameter fine-tuning, training, and time. Here, we developed a training-free, Fast Fourier Transform (FFT)-based method, for data compression with high efficiency and full interpretability. Our FFT method compresses epigenomic data of histone modification up to 1,000-fold while still maintaining high reconstruction fidelity (cosine similarity, 99.7%), does not require any training and completes ultrafast within 70 milliseconds on GPU or 20 seconds on CPU opposite to extensive training in hours/days for autoencoder on GPU/CPU, and offers full interpretability of compressed features from frequency components of original signals in contrast to the uninterpretable "black box" from autoencoder. This enables high accuracy in the classification model prediction (AUC, 0.960). Thus, our novel FFT method represents a major paradigm shift in data compression.

bioinformatics↗