A new collaborative paper in Cerebral Cortex led by the lab of A/Prof. Michael Piper (School of Biomedical Sciences, UQ) has revealed a role of the transcription factor NFIX (Nucleor Factor I X) in neuroblast migration within the adult mouse ventricular - subventricular zone. Conditional ablation of NFIX from neural stem or progenitor cells, or neuroblasts causes migration defects due to aberrant neuroblast branching, partly resulted from an increased expression of the guanylyl cyclase natriuretic peptide receptor 2 (Npr2). Congratulations to the team, especially Oressia and Lachlan from the Piper Lab! 

The CASS Foundation has awarded Jocelyn a travel grant to present at the upcoming annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience (SfN), which will be held on November 3-7, 2018 in San Diego, USA. Congratulations! 

In addition to her role as a panel member of a career development workshop and presentation of an invited talk, Jocelyn also had the opportunity to meet Prof. Rendy Schekman (2013 Nobel Laureate in Medicine) of UC Berkeley at the recent ComBio2018 meeting in Sydney. Thanks to ASBMB for promoting and supporting our ECRs. 

We are delighted to have 3 new students joining the lab in July 2018. They are River Huang (PhD student), Huimin Guo (MSc student) and Wendy Kao (Honours student). River was supported by a highly competitive UQ Research Training Scholarship. Congrats and warm welcome to our newest members in the lab.  

Jocelyn's new review article in the Journal of Neurochemistry is now online. ​N6-methyladenosine (m6A), the most prevalent internal modification on eukaryotic RNA, modulates transcript stability, splicing and translation efficiency. Activity-dependent m6A in the central nervous system provides a versatile and important mechanism to control RNA structure and function. This review article provides the current knowledge of m6A function and mechanism in neurobiology, highlighting the critical roles of m6A-epitranscriptomic regulation in multiple aspects of the mammalian nervous system, from neural development to plasticity in learning and memory.

Jocelyn is one of 19 awardees of the Young Investigator Travel Awards from the Asian-Pacific Society for Neurochemistry (APSN). Jocelyn will have an opportunity to present a talk in a Young Investigator Colloquium at the 15th APSN Meeting in August 2018, in Macau. Congratulations!

Dr. Asami Oguro-Ando (University of Exeter) and Victor were co-awarded a QUEX Institute Initiative Grant, which funds a new collaborative project between the two labs on the role of cell adhesion molecules on neurodegeneration. 

Tianyi Zhu et al. (Volume 430/3) show that active ubiquitination of FTO mediates its proteasomal degradation, as well as its translocation into the nucleus during nutrient deprivation. The cover depicts an artistic rendition of FTO translocation into nuclei, which are stained by DAPI. The small puncta represent ubiquitinated FTO as revealed by the proximity ligation assay using anti-FTO and anti-ubiquitin antibodies.

​Cell artwork by Jocelyn Widagdo. Background visual design by Miriam Bucheli (Elsevier/Scientific Editor and Visual Designer).

A major collaborative paper led by A/Prof. Bruno van Swinderen (QBI, UQ) has just been published in Cell Reports, describing the effect of a widely used general anaesthetic, propofol, in impairing the presynaptic release of neurotransmitters. Propofol restricts syntaxin 1a mobility on presynaptic membranes, a process that is dependent on another SNARE molecule, SNAP-25. Members of the Anggono Lab who were involved in this study include James Steeves (former Research Assistant) and Shu Liu (former Wen Zhou Scholar). [Press Release]

Tianyi, Hilary and Jocelyn have just published a research article in the Journal of Molecular Biology, reporting that the fat mass and obesity-associated (FTO) protein undergoes post-translational ubiquitination at Lys-216 of the N-terminal catalytic domain. By using the CRISPR/Cas-9 approach, they further showed that FTO K216R knock-in cells have a slower rate of FTO protein turnover. In addition, these cells display a defect in FTO translocation into the nucleus following amino acid starvation. Great effort by the team and congrats! 

Six members of the Anggono Lab attended the 37th annual meeting of the Australasian Neuroscience Society (ANS), which was held at the International Convention Centre in Sydney from 3 to 6 Dec 2017. Victor presented a talk at the "Synaptic Dysfunction in Neurodegenerative Diseases" symposium, while Jocelyn and Sumasri each gave a presentation in the "Synaptic Function and Plasticity" session. Meanwhile, Iris, Joanne, Tianyi and Sumasri also presented posters at the meeting. 

Joanne's image of a dendrite, "Rainbow after STORM" was named as the runner up of the ANS students' Images of Neuroscience photographic competition. Congratulations! 

Victor received an NHMRC Project Grant to study the molecular mechanism of glutamate receptor trafficking (with A/Prof. Brett Collins, IMB, UQ).

Jocelyn was also awarded an Early Career Researcher Grant from The University of Queensland to further advancing her work on the epitranscriptomic mechanisms of learning and memory. Congratulations!

Joanne and Sumasri represented the Anggono Lab in the 8th Brisbane Cell & Developmental Biology Meeting, which was held on Nov 21, 2017 at the Translational Research Institute (TRI). Sumasri presented a poster while Joanne was selected to present a short talk. Joanne also won the Best Imaging Competition with her work, "The BrainSTORM". Congrats!

Victor was one of fifteen Australian young scientists selected as a YSEP Fellow. The 2017 YSEP Fellows travelled to China from 22 October to 4 November 2017. This program was supported by the Australian Department of Industry, Science and Technology and the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology. Victor visited and presented seminars at the following institutions:

• Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences
• McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Peking University
• Center for Neuroscience, Zhejiang University
• Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences
• Institute of Neuroscience, Chinese Academy of Sciences

In this article, which has just been published in the Frontiers of Molecular Neuroscience, we review recent advances in the field and provide insights into the role of protein ubiquitination in regulating AMPA receptor trafficking and function in health and disease.

The Anggono Lab was well represented at the inaugural Australian C. elegans symposium, which was held at the Queensland Brain Institute, Brisbane, 25-27 October 2017. Joanne, Sumasri and Iris each gave a talk in the Synapse Formation and Function session. 

Victor presented a poster entitled "GluA1 ubiquitination mediates amyloid-β-induced loss of surface AMPA receptors" at the Australia Dementia Forum 2017, which was held at the Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre, 15 - 17 October 2017, and we were delighted to receive the Best Poster Award under the theme of Intervention. Victor also had the opportunity to present our research progress at the Forum, as part of the group presentation by the Clem Jones Centre for Ageing Dementia Research led by our Director, Prof. Jürgen Götz.

A major work from the Woodin Lab (University of Toronto) has just been published in eLife, in which Victor is a co-author. This is the first report describing the native KCC2 interactome in the brain. They found that KCC2 interacts with PACSIN1 (also known as syndapin1) to regulate synaptic inhibition in neurons. 

Jocelyn and Victor presented talks at the 26th biennial meeting of the International Society for Neurochemistry in Paris, France (20-24 August, 2017).

​Welcome Varun and Wendy to the Anggono Lab. Varun comes from the Kadener Lab (The Hebrew University, Israel) and will stay in our lab for 3 months as an occupational trainee, while Wendy, a 3rd year undergraduate student at UQ, will receive training in basic molecular biology skills. 

Joanne and Victor publish a collaborative paper with the Coulson Lab (UQ) in Frontiers in Neuroscience, reporting the role of G-protein-coupled Inwardly Rectifying Potassium (GIRK/Kir3) channels and p75 neurotrophin receptors in mediating potassium efflux during Aβ-induced neuronal death.