1
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Hong CKY, Ramu A, Zhao S, Cohen BA. Effect of genomic and cellular environments on gene expression noise. Genome Biol 2024; 25:137. [PMID: 38790076 PMCID: PMC11127367 DOI: 10.1186/s13059-024-03277-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/07/2022] [Accepted: 05/13/2024] [Indexed: 05/26/2024] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Individual cells from isogenic populations often display large cell-to-cell differences in gene expression. This "noise" in expression derives from several sources, including the genomic and cellular environment in which a gene resides. Large-scale maps of genomic environments have revealed the effects of epigenetic modifications and transcription factor occupancy on mean expression levels, but leveraging such maps to explain expression noise will require new methods to assay how expression noise changes at locations across the genome. RESULTS To address this gap, we present Single-cell Analysis of Reporter Gene Expression Noise and Transcriptome (SARGENT), a method that simultaneously measures the noisiness of reporter genes integrated throughout the genome and the global mRNA profiles of individual reporter-gene-containing cells. Using SARGENT, we perform the first comprehensive genome-wide survey of how genomic locations impact gene expression noise. We find that the mean and noise of expression correlate with different histone modifications. We quantify the intrinsic and extrinsic components of reporter gene noise and, using the associated mRNA profiles, assign the extrinsic component to differences between the CD24+ "stem-like" substate and the more "differentiated" substate. SARGENT also reveals the effects of transgene integrations on endogenous gene expression, which will help guide the search for "safe-harbor" loci. CONCLUSIONS Taken together, we show that SARGENT is a powerful tool to measure both the mean and noise of gene expression at locations across the genome and that the data generatd by SARGENT reveals important insights into the regulation of gene expression noise genome-wide.
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Affiliation(s)
- Clarice K Y Hong
- The Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology, School of Medicine, Washington University in St. Louis, Saint Louis, MO, 63110, USA
- Department of Genetics, School of Medicine, Washington University in St. Louis, Saint Louis, MO, 63110, USA
| | - Avinash Ramu
- The Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology, School of Medicine, Washington University in St. Louis, Saint Louis, MO, 63110, USA
- Department of Genetics, School of Medicine, Washington University in St. Louis, Saint Louis, MO, 63110, USA
| | - Siqi Zhao
- The Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology, School of Medicine, Washington University in St. Louis, Saint Louis, MO, 63110, USA
- Department of Genetics, School of Medicine, Washington University in St. Louis, Saint Louis, MO, 63110, USA
| | - Barak A Cohen
- The Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology, School of Medicine, Washington University in St. Louis, Saint Louis, MO, 63110, USA.
- Department of Genetics, School of Medicine, Washington University in St. Louis, Saint Louis, MO, 63110, USA.
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2
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Turpin B, Bijman EY, Kaltenbach HM, Stelling J. Efficient design of synthetic gene circuits under cell-to-cell variability. BMC Bioinformatics 2023; 24:460. [PMID: 38062373 PMCID: PMC10701960 DOI: 10.1186/s12859-023-05538-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/28/2022] [Accepted: 10/18/2023] [Indexed: 12/18/2023] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Synthetic biologists use and combine diverse biological parts to build systems such as genetic circuits that perform desirable functions in, for example, biomedical or industrial applications. Computer-aided design methods have been developed to help choose appropriate network structures and biological parts for a given design objective. However, they almost always model the behavior of the network in an average cell, despite pervasive cell-to-cell variability. RESULTS Here, we present a computational framework and an efficient algorithm to guide the design of synthetic biological circuits while accounting for cell-to-cell variability explicitly. Our design method integrates a Non-linear Mixed-Effects (NLME) framework into a Markov Chain Monte-Carlo (MCMC) algorithm for design based on ordinary differential equation (ODE) models. The analysis of a recently developed transcriptional controller demonstrates first insights into design guidelines when trying to achieve reliable performance under cell-to-cell variability. CONCLUSION We anticipate that our method not only facilitates the rational design of synthetic networks under cell-to-cell variability, but also enables novel applications by supporting design objectives that specify the desired behavior of cell populations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Baptiste Turpin
- Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering (D-BSSE) and SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, ETH Zurich, 4058, Basel, Switzerland
| | - Eline Y Bijman
- Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering (D-BSSE) and SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, ETH Zurich, 4058, Basel, Switzerland
| | - Hans-Michael Kaltenbach
- Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering (D-BSSE) and SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, ETH Zurich, 4058, Basel, Switzerland
| | - Jörg Stelling
- Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering (D-BSSE) and SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, ETH Zurich, 4058, Basel, Switzerland.
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3
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Wan Y, Cohen J, Szenk M, Farquhar KS, Coraci D, Krzysztoń R, Azukas J, Van Nest N, Smashnov A, Chern YJ, De Martino D, Nguyen LC, Bien H, Bravo-Cordero JJ, Chan CH, Rosner MR, Balázsi G. Nonmonotone invasion landscape by noise-aware control of metastasis activator levels. Nat Chem Biol 2023; 19:887-899. [PMID: 37231268 PMCID: PMC10299915 DOI: 10.1038/s41589-023-01344-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/12/2022] [Accepted: 04/18/2023] [Indexed: 05/27/2023]
Abstract
A major pharmacological assumption is that lowering disease-promoting protein levels is generally beneficial. For example, inhibiting metastasis activator BACH1 is proposed to decrease cancer metastases. Testing such assumptions requires approaches to measure disease phenotypes while precisely adjusting disease-promoting protein levels. Here we developed a two-step strategy to integrate protein-level tuning, noise-aware synthetic gene circuits into a well-defined human genomic safe harbor locus. Unexpectedly, engineered MDA-MB-231 metastatic human breast cancer cells become more, then less and then more invasive as we tune BACH1 levels up, irrespective of the native BACH1. BACH1 expression shifts in invading cells, and expression of BACH1's transcriptional targets confirm BACH1's nonmonotone phenotypic and regulatory effects. Thus, chemical inhibition of BACH1 could have unwanted effects on invasion. Additionally, BACH1's expression variability aids invasion at high BACH1 expression. Overall, precisely engineered, noise-aware protein-level control is necessary and important to unravel disease effects of genes to improve clinical drug efficacy.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yiming Wan
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, USA
- Louis and Beatrice Laufer Center for Physical and Quantitative Biology, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, USA
| | - Joseph Cohen
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, USA
- Louis and Beatrice Laufer Center for Physical and Quantitative Biology, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, USA
| | - Mariola Szenk
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, USA
- Louis and Beatrice Laufer Center for Physical and Quantitative Biology, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, USA
| | - Kevin S Farquhar
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, USA
- Louis and Beatrice Laufer Center for Physical and Quantitative Biology, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, USA
- Genetics and Epigenetics Graduate Program, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, UT Health Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Houston, TX, USA
| | - Damiano Coraci
- Louis and Beatrice Laufer Center for Physical and Quantitative Biology, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, USA
| | - Rafał Krzysztoń
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, USA
- Louis and Beatrice Laufer Center for Physical and Quantitative Biology, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, USA
| | - Joshua Azukas
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, USA
| | - Nicholas Van Nest
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, USA
- Louis and Beatrice Laufer Center for Physical and Quantitative Biology, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, USA
| | - Alex Smashnov
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, USA
- Louis and Beatrice Laufer Center for Physical and Quantitative Biology, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, USA
| | - Yi-Jye Chern
- Department of Pharmacological Sciences, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, USA
- Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Roswell Park Cancer Institute, Buffalo, NY, USA
| | - Daniela De Martino
- Department of Medicine, Division of Hematology and Oncology, Tisch Cancer Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA
| | - Long Chi Nguyen
- Ben May Department for Cancer Research, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA
| | - Harold Bien
- Louis and Beatrice Laufer Center for Physical and Quantitative Biology, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, USA
| | - Jose Javier Bravo-Cordero
- Department of Medicine, Division of Hematology and Oncology, Tisch Cancer Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA
| | - Chia-Hsin Chan
- Department of Pharmacological Sciences, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, USA
- Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Roswell Park Cancer Institute, Buffalo, NY, USA
| | - Marsha Rich Rosner
- Ben May Department for Cancer Research, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA
| | - Gábor Balázsi
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, USA.
- Louis and Beatrice Laufer Center for Physical and Quantitative Biology, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, USA.
- Stony Brook Cancer Center, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, USA.
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4
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Calia GP, Chen X, Zuckerman B, Weinberger LS. Comparative analysis between single-cell RNA-seq and single-molecule RNA FISH indicates that the pyrimidine nucleobase idoxuridine (IdU) globally amplifies transcriptional noise. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2023:2023.03.14.532632. [PMID: 36993609 PMCID: PMC10055090 DOI: 10.1101/2023.03.14.532632] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 04/29/2023]
Abstract
Stochastic fluctuations (noise) in transcription generate substantial cell-to-cell variability, but the physiological roles of noise have remained difficult to determine in the absence of generalized noise-modulation approaches. Previous single-cell RNA-sequencing (scRNA-seq) suggested that the pyrimidine-base analog (5'-iodo-2'-deoxyuridine, IdU) could generally amplify noise without substantially altering mean-expression levels but scRNA-seq technical drawbacks potentially obscured the penetrance of IdU-induced transcriptional noise amplification. Here we quantify global-vs.-partial penetrance of IdU-induced noise amplification by assessing scRNA-seq data using numerous normalization algorithms and directly quantifying noise using single-molecule RNA FISH (smFISH) for a panel of genes from across the transcriptome. Alternate scRNA-seq analyses indicate IdU-induced noise amplification for ~90% of genes, and smFISH data verified noise amplification for ~90% of tested genes. Collectively, this analysis indicates which scRNA-seq algorithms are appropriate for quantifying noise and argues that IdU is a globally penetrant noise-enhancer molecule that could enable investigations of the physiological impacts of transcriptional noise.
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Affiliation(s)
- Giuliana P. Calia
- Gladstone|UCSF Center for Cell Circuitry, University of California, San Francisco, CA 94158
| | - Xinyue Chen
- Gladstone|UCSF Center for Cell Circuitry, University of California, San Francisco, CA 94158
| | - Binyamin Zuckerman
- Gladstone|UCSF Center for Cell Circuitry, University of California, San Francisco, CA 94158
| | - Leor S. Weinberger
- Gladstone|UCSF Center for Cell Circuitry, University of California, San Francisco, CA 94158
- Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of California, San Francisco, CA 94158
- Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, University of California, San Francisco, CA 94158
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5
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Engineering receptors in the secretory pathway for orthogonal signalling control. Nat Commun 2022; 13:7350. [PMID: 36446786 PMCID: PMC9708828 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-35161-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/02/2022] [Accepted: 11/21/2022] [Indexed: 12/02/2022] Open
Abstract
Synthetic receptors targeted to the secretory pathway often fail to exhibit the expected activity due to post-translational modifications (PTMs) and/or improper folding. Here, we engineered synthetic receptors that reside in the cytoplasm, inside the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), or on the plasma membrane through orientation adjustment of the receptor parts and by elimination of dysfunctional PTMs sites. The cytoplasmic receptors consist of split-TEVp domains that reconstitute an active protease through chemically-induced dimerization (CID) that is triggered by rapamycin, abscisic acid, or gibberellin. Inside the ER, however, some of these receptors were non-functional, but their activity was restored by mutagenesis of cysteine and asparagine, residues that are typically associated with PTMs. Finally, we engineered orthogonal chemically activated cell-surface receptors (OCARs) consisting of the Notch1 transmembrane domain fused to cytoplasmic tTA and extracellular CID domains. Mutagenesis of cysteine residues in CID domains afforded functional OCARs which enabled fine-tuning of orthogonal signalling in mammalian cells.
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6
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Gerhardt KP, Rao SD, Olson EJ, Igoshin OA, Tabor JJ. Independent control of mean and noise by convolution of gene expression distributions. Nat Commun 2021; 12:6957. [PMID: 34845228 PMCID: PMC8630168 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-27070-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/10/2021] [Accepted: 11/03/2021] [Indexed: 11/28/2022] Open
Abstract
Gene expression noise can reduce cellular fitness or facilitate processes such as alternative metabolism, antibiotic resistance, and differentiation. Unfortunately, efforts to study the impacts of noise have been hampered by a scaling relationship between noise and expression level from individual promoters. Here, we use theory to demonstrate that mean and noise can be controlled independently by expressing two copies of a gene from separate inducible promoters in the same cell. We engineer low and high noise inducible promoters to validate this result in Escherichia coli, and develop a model that predicts the experimental distributions. Finally, we use our method to reveal that the response of a promoter to a repressor is less sensitive with higher repressor noise and explain this result using a law from probability theory. Our approach can be applied to investigate the effects of noise on diverse biological pathways or program cellular heterogeneity for synthetic biology applications.
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Affiliation(s)
- Karl P Gerhardt
- Department of Bioengineering, Rice University, 6100 Main Street, Houston, TX, 77005, USA
| | - Satyajit D Rao
- Department of Bioengineering, Rice University, 6100 Main Street, Houston, TX, 77005, USA
| | - Evan J Olson
- Department of Bioengineering, Rice University, 6100 Main Street, Houston, TX, 77005, USA
| | - Oleg A Igoshin
- Department of Bioengineering, Rice University, 6100 Main Street, Houston, TX, 77005, USA
- Department of Biosciences, Rice University, 6100 Main Street, Houston, TX, 77005, USA
- Center for Theoretical Biophysics, Rice University, 6100 Main Street, Houston, TX, 77005, USA
- Department of Chemistry, Rice University, 6100 Main Street, Houston, TX, 77005, USA
| | - Jeffrey J Tabor
- Department of Bioengineering, Rice University, 6100 Main Street, Houston, TX, 77005, USA.
- Department of Biosciences, Rice University, 6100 Main Street, Houston, TX, 77005, USA.
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7
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Tan D, Chen R, Mo Y, Gu S, Ma J, Xu W, Lu X, He H, Jiang F, Fan W, Wang Y, Chen X, Huang W. Quantitative control of noise in mammalian gene expression by dynamic histone regulation. eLife 2021; 10:65654. [PMID: 34379055 PMCID: PMC8357418 DOI: 10.7554/elife.65654] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/10/2020] [Accepted: 06/23/2021] [Indexed: 12/11/2022] Open
Abstract
Fluctuation ('noise') in gene expression is critical for mammalian cellular processes. Numerous mechanisms contribute to its origins, yet the mechanisms behind large fluctuations that are induced by single transcriptional activators remain elusive. Here, we probed putative mechanisms by studying the dynamic regulation of transcriptional activator binding, histone regulator inhibitors, chromatin accessibility, and levels of mRNAs and proteins in single cells. Using a light-induced expression system, we showed that the transcriptional activator could form an interplay with dual functional co-activator/histone acetyltransferases CBP/p300. This interplay resulted in substantial heterogeneity in H3K27ac, chromatin accessibility, and transcription. Simultaneous attenuation of CBP/p300 and HDAC4/5 reduced heterogeneity in the expression of endogenous genes, suggesting that this mechanism is universal. We further found that the noise was reduced by pulse-wide modulation of transcriptional activator binding possibly as a result of alternating the epigenetic states. Our findings suggest a mechanism for the modulation of noise in synthetic and endogenous gene expression systems.
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Affiliation(s)
- Deng Tan
- School of Life Sciences, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China.,Department of Chemistry, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China
| | - Rui Chen
- School of Life Sciences, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China
| | - Yuejian Mo
- School of Life Sciences, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China
| | - Shu Gu
- School of Life Sciences, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China
| | - Jiao Ma
- School of Life Sciences, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China
| | - Wei Xu
- Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Gene Regulation and Systems Biology, School of Life Sciences, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China
| | - Xibin Lu
- Core Research Facilities, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China
| | - Huiyu He
- School of Life Sciences, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China
| | - Fan Jiang
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China
| | - Weimin Fan
- School of Life Sciences, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China
| | - Yili Wang
- Core Research Facilities, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China
| | - Xi Chen
- Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Gene Regulation and Systems Biology, School of Life Sciences, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China
| | - Wei Huang
- School of Life Sciences, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China
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8
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Makowiecka A, Mazurkiewicz E, Mrówczyńska E, Malek N, Battistella A, Lazzarino M, Nowak D, Mazur AJ. Changes in Biomechanical Properties of A375 Cells Due to the Silencing of TMSB4X Expression Are Not Directly Correlated with Alterations in Their Stemness Features. Cells 2021; 10:cells10040769. [PMID: 33807338 PMCID: PMC8067020 DOI: 10.3390/cells10040769] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/24/2021] [Revised: 03/24/2021] [Accepted: 03/28/2021] [Indexed: 12/27/2022] Open
Abstract
Thymosin β4 (Tβ4) is a small, 44-amino acid polypeptide. It has been implicated in multiple processes, including cell movement, angiogenesis, and stemness. Previously, we reported that melanoma cell lines differ in Tβ4 levels. Studies on stable clones with silenced TMSB4X expression showed that Tβ4 impacted adhesion and epithelial-mesenchymal transition progression. Here, we show that the cells with silenced TMSB4X expression exhibited altered actin cytoskeleton’s organization and subcellular relocalization of two intermediate filament proteins: Nestin and Vimentin. The rearrangement of the cell cytoskeleton resulted in changes in the cells’ topology, height, and stiffness defined by Young’s modulus. Simultaneously, only for some A375 clones with a lowered Tβ4 level, we observed a decreased ability to initiate colony formation in soft agar, tumor formation in vivo, and alterations in Nanog’s expression level transcription factor regulating stemness. Thus, we show for the first time that in A375 cells, biomechanical properties are not directly coupled to stemness features, and this cell line is phenotypically heterogeneous.
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Affiliation(s)
- Aleksandra Makowiecka
- Department of Cell Pathology, Faculty of Biotechnology, University of Wroclaw, 50-383 Wrocław, Poland; (E.M.); (E.M.); (N.M.); (D.N.)
- Istituto Officina dei Materiali-National Research Council, I-34149 Trieste, Italy; (A.B.); (M.L.)
- Correspondence: or (A.M.); (A.J.M.); Tel.: +48-71-375-6206 (A.J.M.)
| | - Ewa Mazurkiewicz
- Department of Cell Pathology, Faculty of Biotechnology, University of Wroclaw, 50-383 Wrocław, Poland; (E.M.); (E.M.); (N.M.); (D.N.)
| | - Ewa Mrówczyńska
- Department of Cell Pathology, Faculty of Biotechnology, University of Wroclaw, 50-383 Wrocław, Poland; (E.M.); (E.M.); (N.M.); (D.N.)
| | - Natalia Malek
- Department of Cell Pathology, Faculty of Biotechnology, University of Wroclaw, 50-383 Wrocław, Poland; (E.M.); (E.M.); (N.M.); (D.N.)
| | - Alice Battistella
- Istituto Officina dei Materiali-National Research Council, I-34149 Trieste, Italy; (A.B.); (M.L.)
| | - Marco Lazzarino
- Istituto Officina dei Materiali-National Research Council, I-34149 Trieste, Italy; (A.B.); (M.L.)
| | - Dorota Nowak
- Department of Cell Pathology, Faculty of Biotechnology, University of Wroclaw, 50-383 Wrocław, Poland; (E.M.); (E.M.); (N.M.); (D.N.)
| | - Antonina Joanna Mazur
- Department of Cell Pathology, Faculty of Biotechnology, University of Wroclaw, 50-383 Wrocław, Poland; (E.M.); (E.M.); (N.M.); (D.N.)
- Correspondence: or (A.M.); (A.J.M.); Tel.: +48-71-375-6206 (A.J.M.)
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