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Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is an incurable neurodegenerative disease that affects neurons in the brain and spinal cord, causing loss of muscle control, and eventually leads to death. Phosphorylated transactive response DNA binding protein‐43 (TDP‐43) is the major pathological protein in both sporadic and familial ALS, forming cytoplasmic aggregates in over 95% of cases. Of the 10–15% of ALS cases that are familial, mutations in TDP‐43 represent about 5% of those with a family history. We have developed anin vitrooverexpression model by introducing three familial ALS mutations (A315T, M337V, and S379P) in the TDP‐43 (TARDBP) gene which we define as 3X‐TDP‐43. This overexpression model TDP‐43 shows deficits in autophagy flux and colocalization of TDP‐43 with stress granules. We also observe a progressive shift of TDP‐43 to the cytoplasm in this model. This overexpression model shows a reduction in solubility of phosphorylated TDP‐43 from RIPA to urea soluble. Four glycolytic enzymes, phosphoglycerate kinase one (PGK1), aldolase A (ALDOA), enolase 1 (ENO1), and pyruvate dehydrogenase kinase 1 (PDK1) show significant time‐dependent decreases in 3X‐TDP‐43 expressing cells. Shotgun proteomic analysis shows global changes in the importin subunit alpha‐1 (KPNA2), heat shock 70 kDa protein 1A (HSPA1A), and protein disulfide‐isomerase A3 (PDIA3) expression levels and coimmunoprecipitation reveals that these proteins complex with TDP‐43. Overall, these results suggest that the 3X‐TDP‐43 model may provide new insights into pathophysiology and an avenue for drug screeningin vitrofor those suffering from ALS and related TDP‐43 proteinopathies. 

The employment settings for autistic individuals in the USA is grim. As more children are diagnosed with ASD, the number of adolescent and young adult with ASD will increase as well over the next decade. Based on reports, one of the main challenges in securing and retaining employment for individual with ASD is difficulty in communicating and working with others in workplace settings. Most vocational trainings focused on technical skills development and very few addresses teamwork skills development. In this study, we present the design of a collaborative virtual environment (CVE) that support autistic individual to develop their teamwork skills by working together with a partner in a shared virtual space. This paper described the CVE architecture, teamwork-based tasks design and quantitative measures to evaluate teamwork skills. A system validation was also carried out to validate the system design. The results showed that our CVE was able to support multiple users in the same shared environment, the tasks were tolerable by users, and all the quantitative measures are recorded accordingly.