Grant, R. | bioRxiv Science

bioRxiv2018

The impact on authors and editors of introducing Data Availability Statements at Nature journals

This paper describes the adoption of a standard policy for the inclusion of data availability statements in all research articles published at the Nature family of journals, and the subsequent research which assessed the impacts that these policies had on authors, editors, and the availability of datasets. The key findings of this research project include the determination of average and median times required to add a data availability statement to an article; and a correlation between the way researchers make their data available, and the time required to add a data availability statement. This paper will be presented at the International Digital Curation Conference 2018, and has been submitted to the International Journal of Digital curation.

scientific communication and education↗

bioRxiv2017

Regulation of mitochondrial dynamics by Aurora A kinase

Aurora A kinase (AURKA) is a major regulator of mitosis and an important driver of cancer progression. The roles of AURKA outside of mitosis, and how these might contribute to cancer progression, are not well understood. Here we show that a fraction of cytoplasmic AURKA is associated with mitochondria, co-fractionating in cell extracts and interacting with mitochondrial proteins by reciprocal co-immunoprecipitation. We have also found that the dynamics of the mitochondrial network are sensitive to AURKA inhibition, depletion or overexpression. This can account for the different mitochondrial morphologies observed in RPE1 and U2OS cell lines, which show very different levels of expression of AURKA. We identify the mitochondrial fraction of AURKA as influencing mitochondrial morphology, since an N-terminally truncated version of the kinase that does not localize to mitochondria does not affect the mitochondrial network. We identify a cryptic mitochondrial targeting sequence in the AURKA N-terminus and discuss how alternative conformations of the protein may influence its cytoplasmic fate.

cell biology↗