Biology subjects

Lipinski, M.

Publications and source records attributed to Lipinski, M..

8 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2026

KAT3 Shuttling Between Neuronal Identity and Activity-Dependent Plasticity Programs Drives Large-Scale Chromatin Remodeling

Activity-dependent transcription is a central feature of neuronal plasticity. Here, we show that neuronal activation triggers genome-wide redistribution of CBP and p300 in hippocampal neurons. Upon stimulation, KAT3 cofactors relocate from super-enhancers supporting neuronal identity to enhancers associated with activity-regulated genes, accompanied by transient changes in H3K27ac, chromatin accessibility, and three-dimensional genome architecture. Mechanistically, distinct TF families control KAT3 shuttling: proneural bHLH factors such as NeuroD2 maintain cofactor occupancy at identity-associated regulatory elements, whereas AP-1 binds de novo at plasticity-associated loci. This dynamic redistribution reshapes enhancer landscapes and chromatin interactions, enabling robust activation of plasticity genes while transiently attenuating neuronal identity programs. Remarkably, FOS overexpression is sufficient to reproduce the repression of neuronal identity genes observed during stimulation. Together, our findings reveal a reversible competition between transcriptional networks governing neuronal identity and plasticity and identify KAT3 redistribution as a key mechanism coupling neuronal activity to large-scale chromatin remodeling.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2026

Celldega: Integrated Toolkit for Visualization and Analysis of Spatial Data

Spatial-transcriptomics integrates high-dimensional single-cell data with microscopy to reveal cellular states, communication, and tissue organization. Analyzing this data requires a combination of multi-modal data processing, high-dimensional data analysis, spatial analysis, and integrated visualization. However, computational analysis is increasingly becoming a bottleneck as approaches mature and dataset sizes increase. Additionally, visualization can be challenging as open-source visualization tools struggle to scale to large datasets (exceeding 1 billion transcripts), and commercial visualization tools are costly, closed source, and inflexible. We present Celldega, an open-source Python and JavaScript library for scalable, interactive visualization and analysis of spatial-omics data. Celldega integrates custom analyses, performs neighborhood analysis, implements an efficient visualization-specific file format, and enables interactive exploration in notebooks and web galleries. We demonstrate Celldega across multiple technologies, tissues, and datasets, including 3D reconstructions of the developing whole mouse head comprising over four million cells. Finally, we demonstrate how Celldega can be utilized throughout the entire lifecycle of spatial data analysis, from quality control to building a public shareable gallery.

bioinformatics↗

bioRxiv2026

Rubicon modulates neuroimmune responses following traumatic brain injury

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) elicits robust neuroinflammation and oxidative stress, coupled with an acute inhibition of macro-autophagy (autophagy) in neurons and microglia. Rubicon (Rubcn), a Beclin1 interacting protein that suppresses autophagy and mediates LC3-associated phagocytosis and endocytosis (LAP/LANDO), influences inflammatory signaling in metabolic, neurodegenerative, and inflammaging diseases; yet its role in acquired brain injury has not been defined. Using a controlled cortical impact model, we investigated the role of Rubicon in acute neuroinflammatory responses following injury by comparing wild-type and Rubcn-mutant mice. Bulk-RNA sequencing of injured cortex revealed attenuated induction of inflammatory pathways and reduced activation of pro-inflammatory microglial/macrophage phenotype in injured Rubcn-mutant mice. Rubcn-mutant mice demonstrated less pronounced inhibition of autophagy during the acute phase of injury. Although the inflammatory dicerences were transient, Rubicon mutant mice exhibited improved motor coordination and gait stability during recovery. Proteomic analyses revealed the presence of a truncated Rubicon protein in the mutant mice and identified the negative regulator of reactive oxygen species (NRROS) as a novel interactor of Rubicon. Consistent with this interaction, Rubcn-mutant mice displayed markedly reduced oxidative damage, indicated by decreased lipid peroxidation after injury. Together, these findings indicate that Rubicon promotes acute neuroinflammatory and oxidative stress responses following TBI by modulating autophagy and ROS production. Rubicon mediated pathways may serve as therapeutic targets that ocer a neuroprotective strategy to improve outcomes after TBI.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2025

Genetic Modifiers Influencing the Acute and Long-Term Responses to Traumatic Brain Injury in Drosophila

Worldwide, traumatic brain injury (TBI) represents a major cause of mortality and long-term disability, with even mild repetitive forms of TBI (mTBI) potentially having deleterious consequences for both the acute and long-term function of the nervous system. Understanding the key cellular and molecular processes that occur following TBI exposure and potential factors that influence individual injury responses has been limited in part by the lack of comprehensive in vivo screening technique that directly compares stress sensitive and resistant genotypes involving conserved genes and functional pathways. In this report, we use a high throughput adult Drosophila trauma model system to compare the impact modest insulin signaling (IRS/chico) and autophagic defects (Atg8a/MAPLC3, Ref(2)P/SQSM1) have on traumatic injury outcomes. Using both severe and mild repetitive injury conditions the acute mortality indexes, longevity profiles, molecular and behavioral changes (locomotor, sleep) for individual fly genotypes were assessed. Compared to control cohorts (w1118/+), heterozygous chico mutants (chico1/+) demonstrated resistance, while aged flies (+2-weeks) or autophagy mutants (Atg8a1, Ref(2)Pc/e, Ref(2)Pe/+) showed heightened trauma sensitivity. Alterations that promote or impair autophagic function, longevity and stress responses were examined. Overall, this injury paradigm illustrates the effectiveness of using model systems to characterize conserved genetic factors that influence neuronal autophagy during complex trauma response. It also raises the potential for developing unique screens and therapies for patients that have experienced TBI.

genetics↗

bioRxiv2019

Large-scale nuclear remodeling and transcriptional deregulation occur on both derivative chromosomes after Mantle cell lymphoma chromosomal translocation

Recurrent chromosomal translocations are found in many blood and solid cancers. Balanced translocations, frequent in lymphoid malignancies, lead to the formation of two aberrant derivative (der) chromosomes. This event often leads to overexpression of an oncogene. In many cases, the expression of an oncogene is not enough to produce a malignant phenotype; however, most part of the studies focus on the events involving the chromosome where the oncogene is located, but rarely the other der chromosome where other oncogenic alterations may potentially arise. Mantle cell lymphoma (MCL), an aggressive B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma, is a perfect example of this. In 85% of the cases, it is characterized by the translocation t(11;14), which leads to the overexpression of cyclin D1 (CCND1) gene which results juxtaposed to the immunoglobulin heavy chain (IGH) gene on the der14 chromosome. This feature alone is not sufficient to induce oncogenesis. Here we focused on the der11 chromosome. We demonstrated that expression of 88 genes located in a 15mb region close to the translocation breakpoint on the der11 was deregulated both in the GRANTA-519 MCL cell line and in B-cells from MCL patients. We found that a large segment of der11containing deregulated genes was relocated from its normal position in the nuclear periphery towards the center of the nucleus in close proximity to the nucleolus where the abundant nucleolar protein nucleolin binds a subset of genes located close to the breakpoint and activates their expression. This finding allowed to identify new potential oncogenes involved in MCL and the mechanisms of their upregulation.

cancer biology↗

bioRxiv2019

Neuronal identity is maintained in the adult brain through KAT3-dependent enhancer acetylation

Very little is known about the mechanisms responsible for maintaining cell identity in mature tissues. The paralogous type 3 lysine acetyltransferases (KAT3) CBP and p300 are both essential during development, but their specific functions in nondividing differentiated cells remains unclear. Here, we show that when both proteins are simultaneously knocked-out in excitatory neurons of the adult brain, the mice express a rapidly progressing neurological phenotype associated with reduced dendritic complexity and electrical activity, the transcriptional shutdown of neuronal genes, and a dramatic loss of H3K27 acetylation and pro-neural transcription factor binding at neuronal enhancers. The neurons lacking both KAT3 rapidly acquire a molecularly undefined fate with no sign of dedifferentiation, transdifferentiation or death. Restoring CBP expression or lysine acetylation reestablished neuronal-specific transcription. Our experiments demonstrate that KAT3 proteins act as fate-keepers in excitatory neurons and other cell types by jointly safeguarding chromatin acetylation levels at cell type-specific enhancers throughout life.

cell biology↗

bioRxiv2019

Immediate and deferred epigenomic signature of neuronal activation

Activity-driven transcription plays an important role in many brain processes, including those underlying memory and epilepsy. Here, we combine the genetic tagging of neuronal nuclei and ribosomes with various sequencing-based techniques to investigate the transcriptional and chromatin changes occurring at hippocampal excitatory neurons upon synchronous activation during status epilepticus and sparse activation during novel context exploration. The transcriptional burst, which affects both nucleus-resident non-coding RNAs and numerous protein-coding genes involved in neuroplasticity, is associated with a dramatic increase in chromatin accessibility of activity-regulated genes and enhancers, de novo binding of activity-regulated transcription factors, augmented promoter-enhancer interactions, and the formation of gene loops that bring together the TSS and TTS of strongly induced genes to sustain the fast re-loading of RNAPII complexes. Remarkably, some chromatin occupancy changes and interactions remain long after neuronal activation and may underlie the changes in neuronal responsiveness and circuit connectivity observed in these neuroplasticity paradigms.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2018

Topokaryotyping demonstrates single cell variability and stress dependent variations in nuclear envelope associated domains

Analysis of large-scale interphase genome positioning with reference to a nuclear landmark has recently been studied using sequencing-based single cell approaches. However, these approaches are dependent upon technically challenging, time consuming and costly high throughput sequencing technologies, requiring specialized bioinformatics tools and expertise. Here, we propose a novel, affordable and robust microscopy-based single cell approach, termed Topokaryotyping, to analyze and reconstruct the interphase positioning of genomic loci relative to a given nuclear landmark, detectable as banding pattern on mitotic chromosomes. This is accomplished by proximity-dependent histone labeling, where biotin ligase BirA fused to nuclear envelope marker Emerin was coexpressed together with Biotin Acceptor Peptide (BAP)-histone fusion followed by (i) biotin labeling, (ii) generation of mitotic spreads, (iii) detection of the biotin label on mitotic chromosomes and (iv) their identification by karyotyping. Using Topokaryotyping, we identified both cooperativity and stochasticity in the positioning of emerin-associated chromatin domains in individual cells. Furthermore, the chromosome-banding pattern showed dynamic changes in emerin-associated domains upon physical and radiological stress. In summary, Topokaryotyping is a sensitive and reliable technique to quantitatively analyze spatial positioning of genomic regions interacting with a given nuclear landmark at the single cell level in various experimental conditions.

cell biology↗