Biology subjects

Pokusaeva, V. O.

Publications and source records attributed to Pokusaeva, V. O..

2 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2023

Gap junctions arbitrate binocular course control in flies

Animals utilize visual motion cues to maintain stability and navigate accurately. The optomotor response, a reflexive behavior for visual stabilization, has been used to study this visuomotor transformation. However, there is a disparity between the simplicity of this behavior and the intricate circuit components believed to govern it. Here we bridge this divide by exploring the course control repertoire in Drosophila and establishing a direct link between behavior and the underlying circuit motifs. Specifically, we demonstrate that visual motion information from both eyes plays a crucial role in movement control through bilateral interactions facilitated by gap junctions. These electrical interactions augment the classic stabilization behavior by inverting the response direction and the behavioral strategy. Our findings reveal how animals combine monocular motion cues to generate a variety of behaviors, determine the functional role of the circuit components, and show that gap junctions can mediate non-linear operations with a decisive role in animal behavior.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2019

Strand asymmetry influences mismatch repair during single-strand annealing

BackgroundBiases of DNA repair can shape the nucleotide landscape of genomes at evolutionary timescales. However, such biases have not yet been measured in chromatin for lack of technologies. ResultsHere we develop a genome-wide assay whereby the same DNA lesion is repaired in different chromatin contexts. We insert thousands of barcoded transposons carrying a reporter of DNA mismatch repair in the genome of mouse embryonic stem cells. Upon inducing a double-strand break between tandem repeats, a mismatch is generated when the single strand annealing repair pathway is used. Regardless of the mismatch, we observed a 60-80% bias in the resolution in favor of one strand. The location of the lesion in the genome and the type of mismatch had little influence on the bias in this context. Instead, changing the position of the double-strand break in the reporter gave a complete reversion of the bias. ConclusionThese results suggest that the processing of the double-strand break has a major influence on the repair of mismatches during single-strand annealing, irrespective of the surrounding chromatin context.

genomics↗