Youjun Wu

Oct 22, 2024 | biorxiv.org | Philipp N Ostermann |Youjun Wu |Scott Bowler |Mohammad Adnan Siddiqui

AbstractNeurocognitive impairment is a prevalent and important co-morbidity in virologically suppressed people living with HIV (PLWH), yet the underlying mechanisms remain elusive and treatments lacking. Here, we explored for the first time, use of participant-derived directly induced neurons (iNs) to model neuronal biology and injury in PLWH. iNs retain age- and disease-related features of the donors, providing unique opportunities to reveal novel aspects of neurological disorders.

Sep 13, 2024 | biorxiv.org | Susie Kim |Youjun Wu |Marc Hammarlund |Corbin J Renken

AbstractNeurons rely on local protein synthesis to rapidly modify the proteome of neurites distant from the cell body. A prerequisite for local protein synthesis is the presence of ribosomes in the neurite, but the mechanisms of ribosome transport in neurons remain poorly defined. Here, we find that ribosomes hitchhike on mitochondria for their delivery to the dendrite of a sensory neuron in C. elegans.