Our Alumni Alper Kucukural (PHDBIO' 09), a computational biologist in Melissa Moore’s Laboratory, and collaborators recent publication was highlighted as the Journal of Biological Chemistry’s “Paper of the Week” in the January 14th issue. Papers of the Week are selected by JBC’s Associate Editors and Editorial Board Members and represent the top 1% of papers reviewed in terms of significance and overall importance. The paper describes the first genome-wide analysis of neuronal RNA binding sites for TDP-43. TDP-43 is an RNA binding protein that has been linked to both ALS and FTD. The work reveals that TDP-43 binds a broad array of transcripts whose protein products have been implicated in neurodegeneration. In addition to being selected as JBC Paper of the Week, the Alzheimer Research Forum has started a discussion about TDP-43 and the neuronal targets that Dr. Kucukural and colleagues have identified.
