Transposable elements have both detrimental and beneficial effects on their host genome. Tetrahymena is a unicellular eukaryote that deals with transposable elements in a unique way. It has a separate somatic and germline genome in two nuclei in a single cell. During sexual reproduction, a small RNA directed system compares the germline and somatic genome to identify transposable elements and related sequences. These are subsequently marked by heterochromatin and excised. In this Review, current knowledge of this system and the gaps therein are discussed. Additionally, the possibility to exploit the Tetrahymena machinery for genome editing and its advantages over the widely used CRISPR-Cas9 system will be explored. While the bacterial derived CRISPR-Cas9 has difficulty to access eukaryotic chromatin, Tetrahymena proteins are adept at acting in a chromatin context. Furthermore, Tetrahymena based gene therapy in humans might be a safer alternative to Cas9 because the latter can trigger an immune response.This study investigated the developmental cascades of marital quality, harsh discipline, and child externalizing behavior in a Chinese sample of 976 father-mother dyads and their children (initial Mage = 7.63 years, 52.2% boys). Marital quality, harsh discipline, and child externalizing behavior were assessed at three annual measurement occasions. Cascade models indicated the unidirectional rather than bidirectional relations between the variables over and above within-time covariance and across-time stability. Both increased maternal and paternal marital quality in a given year predicted decreases in child externalizing behavior in the next year. Child externalizing behavior in a given year predicted increases in both maternal and paternal harsh discipline in the next year. Moreover, increased paternal but not maternal marital quality in a given year predicted decreases in psychological aggression rather than corporal punishment in the next year. Moreover, the indirect effect of marital quality on child externalizing behavior through harsh discipline was not found. In addition, the potential indirect effect of marital quality on harsh discipline through child externalizing behavior was observed. These findings highlight the importance of examining developmental cascades across family subsystems and efforts to improve marital relationship to promote child adjustment as well as parent-child interaction during middle childhood in Chinese society.Macroautophagy is a catabolic process critical for the degradation of intracellular material, but its physiological functions in vertebrates are not fully understood. Here, we discuss our recent finding that macroautophagy plays a role in lamellar body maturation. The lamellar body is a lysosome-related organelle and stores phospholipid-containing surfactant complexes that reduce the surface tension of the air-water interface in order to inflate the airspace in lungs and swim bladders. In the epithelial cells of these organs, autophagosomes fuse with immature lamellar bodies to increase their size and lipid contents. This function is essential for respiration after birth in mice and for maintaining buoyancy in zebrafish. These findings unveil a novel function of macroautophagy in the maturation of surfactant-containing lamellar bodies.Cerebrovascular events have emerged as a central feature of the clinical syndrome associated with Sars-CoV-2 infection. This increase in infection-related strokes is marked by atypical presentations including stroke in younger patients and a high rate of hemorrhagic transformation after ischemia. A variety of pathogenic mechanisms may underlie this connection. Efforts to identify synergism in the pathophysiology underlying stroke and Sars-CoV-2 infection can inform the understanding of both conditions in novel ways. In this review, the molecular cascades connected to Sars-CoV-2 infection are placed in the context of the cerebral vasculature and in relationship to pathways known to be associated with stroke. Cytokine-mediated promotion of systemic hypercoagulability is suggested while direct Sars-CoV-2 infection of cerebral endothelial cells may also contribute. Endotheliopathy resulting from direct Sars-CoV-2 infection of the cerebral vasculature can modulate ACE2/AT1R/MasR signaling pathways, trigger direct viral activation of the complement cascade, and activate feed-forward cytokine cascades that impact the blood-brain barrier. All of these pathways are already implicated as independent mechanisms driving stroke and cerebrovascular injury irrespective of Sars-CoV-2. Recognizing the overlap of molecular pathways triggered by Sars-CoV-2 infection with those implicated in the pathogenesis of stroke provides an opportunity to identify future therapeutics targeting both Sars-CoV-2 and stroke thereby reducing the impact of the global pandemic.To determine whether white matter network disruption mediates the association between MRI markers of cerebrovascular disease (CeVD) and cognitive impairment. Participants (n = 253, aged ≥60 years) from the Epidemiology of Dementia in Singapore study underwent neuropsychological assessments and MRI. CeVD markers were defined as lacunes, white matter hyperintensities (WMH), microbleeds, cortical microinfarcts, cortical infarcts and intracranial stenosis (ICS). White matter microstructure damage was measured as fractional anisotropy and mean diffusivity by tract based spatial statistics from diffusion tensor imaging. Cognitive function was summarized as domain-specific Z-scores.Lacunar counts, WMH volume and ICS were associated with worse performance in executive function, attention, language, verbal and visual memory.  https://www.selleckchem.com/products/bms-1166.html  These three CeVD markers were also associated with white matter microstructural damage in the projection, commissural, association, and limbic fibers. Path analyses showed that lacunar counts, higher WMH volume and ICS were associated with executive and verbal memory impairment via white matter disruption in commissural fibers whereas impairment in the attention, visual memory and language were mediated through projection fibers.Our study shows that the abnormalities in white matter connectivity may underlie the relationship between CeVD and cognition. Further longitudinal studies are needed to understand the cause-effect relationship between CeVD, white matter damage and cognition.