WWW.NATURE.COM/NATURE
This press release is copyright Nature.
VOL.444 NO.7116 DATED 09 NOVEMBER 2006
This press release contains:
· Summaries of newsworthy papers:
Regenerative medicine: Retinal transplants help restore sight
Climate change: New Antarctic ice core yields detailed climatic insights
Infectious disease: SIV endemic in wild gorillas?
Neuroscience: How to keep a steady eye
Astronomy: Moon’s surface shaped by ‘recent’ gas release?
And finally… Chillies and spiders share similar scare tactics
· Mention of papers to be published at the same time with the same embargo
· Geographical listing of authors
Editorial contacts: While the best contacts for stories will always be the authors themselves, in some cases the Nature editor who handled the paper will be available for comment if an author is unobtainable. Editors are contactable via Ruth Francis on +44 20 7843 4562. Feel free to get in touch with Nature's press contacts in London, Washington and Tokyo (as listed at the end of this release) with any general editorial inquiry.
Warning: This document, and the Nature papers to which it refers, may contain information that is price sensitive (as legally defined, for example, in the UK Criminal Justice Act 1993 Part V) with respect to publicly quoted companies. Anyone dealing in securities using information contained in this document or in advanced copies of Nature’s content may be guilty of insider trading under the US Securities Exchange Act of 1934.
The Nature journals press site is at http://press.nature.com
· PDFs for the Articles, Letters, Progress articles, Review articles, Insights and Brief Communications in this issue will be available on the Nature journals press site from 1400 London time / 0900 US Eastern time on the Friday before publication.
· PDFs of News & Views, News Features, Correspondence and Commentaries will be available from 1400 London time / 0900 US Eastern time on the Monday before publication
PICTURES: While we are happy for images from Nature to be reproduced for the purposes of contemporaneous news reporting, you must also seek permission from the copyright holder (if named) or author of the research paper in question (if not).
HYPE: We take great care not to hype the papers mentioned on our press releases, but are sometimes accused of doing so. If you ever consider that a story has been hyped, please do not hesitate to contact us at [email protected], citing the specific example.
PLEASE CITE NATURE AND OUR WEBSITE www.nature.com/nature AS THE SOURCE OF THE FOLLOWING ITEMS. IF PUBLISHING ONLINE, PLEASE CARRY A HYPERLINK TO http://www.nature.com/nature
[1] Regenerative medicine: Retinal transplants help restore sight (pp 203-207; N&V)
A paper in this week’s Nature shows that non-dividing retinal cells implanted into adult mouse retina can generate new photoreceptors, suggesting a possible way to regenerate the photoreceptors lost during many forms of blindness.
Previously, stem cells transplanted into the adult retina have not integrated correctly and it was thought that the retinal environment inhibits regeneration. Robin Ali and colleagues extracted immature retinal cells from newborn mice at a time when many rod photoreceptors are normally being generated, and transplanted them into adult mouse retinas.
They show that the cells differentiate into rods, form synaptic connections and, when transplanted into certain mouse models of inherited retinal degeneration, improve the animals’ response to light. Surprisingly, they found that this was possible only using rod precursor cells during a specific time window of development, when they have stopped dividing (rather than proliferating stem cells). The results suggest that precursor cells grown from human adult or embryonic stem cells might also serve to restore sight, and challenge the assumption that stem cells offer the best prospect for tissue repair.
CONTACT
Robin Ali (UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, London, UK)
Tel: +44 207 608 6817; E-mail: [email protected]
Please note the author is on leave from 02 November until 20 November so it will be easier to contact:
Robert Maclaren (University of Oxford, UK)
Tel: +44 7702 727 853; E-mail: [email protected]
Laure Thomas (Medical Research Council Press Office)
Tel: +44 207 637 6011 or +44 7818 428 297 (out of hours);
E-mail: [email protected]
Thomas A Reh (University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA)
Tel: +1 206 543 5069/8043; E-mail: [email protected]
(N&V author)
[2] Climate change: New Antarctic ice core yields detailed climatic insights (pp 195-198; N&V)
Analysis of a new, high-resolution ice core in Antarctica suggests that the abrupt millennial-scale climate changes of the past 150,000 years were closely linked between hemispheres. The finding supports the idea that the Atlantic Ocean currents connect Greenland and Antarctica in a bipolar seesaw.
In this week's Nature, Hubertus Fischer and colleagues describe a temperature reconstruction from a new Antarctic ice core that matches the resolution of earlier results from Greenland very well. Each of the twenty-five abrupt temperature variations indicated by Greenland ice cores has a direct counterpart in the Antarctic ice. Moreover, the size of the temperature variations in both hemispheres also corresponds directly.
The new core spans a 150,000-year period, and its success is due largely to its geographical location. The core was drilled in an area facing the South Atlantic with plenty of snowfall. This means it has more centimetres of ice per year than other East Antarctic ice cores, and can yield direct comparisons with information collected from Greenland cores.
The new results dismiss the idea that the large temperature fluctuations in Greenland could have been just local events, and point to the Atlantic Ocean circulation as the mechanism for heat transport.
CONTACT
Hubertus Fischer (Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research Glaciology,
Bremerhaven, Germany)
Tel: +49 471 4831 1174; E-mail: [email protected]
Please note the author will not be in his office on the 08 and 09 November so can be reached at these times on his mobile phone:
Tel: +49 175 893 0172
Erik J Steig (University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA)
Tel: +1 206 685 3715; E-mail: [email protected]
[3] Infectious disease: SIV endemic in wild gorillas? (p164)
Simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), the ape-like form of HIV, may be endemic in wild gorilla populations, a Brief Communication in this week's Nature suggests. The animals are still hunted for food and medicinal uses, so it's possible that these practices might pose a risk to humans.
Martine Peeters and colleagues analysed hundreds of fecal samples taken from chimpanzees and gorillas living in remote forest regions of Cameroon. Samples from both species contained antibodies that were reactive against HIV-1, but RNA analysis indicated that the gorillas were infected with a different strain of SIV that is closely related to an HIV-1 lineage (group O) found in humans in west central Africa.
Because the gorillas lived nearly 400 kilometres apart, it's likely that SIV infection is endemic in gorillas, as it is in chimpanzees. And the authors suspect that chimpanzees were the original reservoir of immunodeficiency viruses now found in chimpanzees, gorillas and humans. The survey focused on the western species of gorilla (Gorilla gorilla), and it's not yet known whether SIV is prevalent in the eastern species (Gorilla beringei). Additional field studies are needed to establish the scale of the problem in wild gorillas.
CONTACT
Martine Peeters (University of Montpellier, France)
Tel: + 33 467 41 62 97; E-mail: [email protected]
[4] Neuroscience: How to keep a steady eye (AOP)
DOI: 10.1038/nature05279
***This paper will be published electronically on Nature's website on 08 November at 1800 London time / 1300 US Eastern time (which is also when the embargo lifts) as part of our AOP (ahead of print) programme. Although we have included it on this release to avoid multiple mailings it will not appear in print on 09 November, but at a later date.***
Researchers have identified a brain circuit that they believe enables us to view the world stably even though our eyes move constantly.
It’s well known that, when viewing a scene, our eyes flit around from one location to another. Yet our perception of the scene remains steady. Online this week in Nature, Marc Sommer and Robert Wurtz describe a brain circuit that may control this perceptual stability in monkeys.
The circuit relays information about these quick eye movements from the midbrain via the thalamus to the frontal cortex, where neurons alter their receptive field to anticipate the effects of the movements. A similar circuit is likely to exist in human brains, the authors say.
CONTACT
Marc Sommer (University of Pittsburgh, PA, USA)
Tel: +1 412 268 4486; E-mail: [email protected]
Robert Wurtz (National Eye Institute, Bethesda, MD, USA)
Tel: +1 301 496 7170; E-mail: [email protected]
[5] Astronomy: Moon’s surface shaped by ‘recent’ gas release? (pp 184-186)
‘Fresh’ features spotted on the Moon’s surface may have been formed from within as little as 10 million years ago, a paper in this week’s Nature proposes.
Peter Schultz and colleagues describe unusually fresh-appearing surface features, and propose that they were formed as gases escaped from deep-seated fractures within the Moon. The discovery may explain why both the Apollo and Lunar Prospector missions detected evidence of radon being released from the Moon’s interior. Such areas may offer insights into the Moon’s deep interior and the team suggest they should be sites for further exploration by upcoming missions.
CONTACT
Peter Schultz (Brown University, Providence, RI, USA)
Tel: +1 401 863 3546; E-mail: [email protected]
[6] And finally… Chillies and spiders share similar scare tactics (pp 208-212)
Researchers have identified three molecules in tarantula venom that help make the spider’s bite so painful. The peptides activate the same receptor as the hot component of chilli peppers, suggesting that tarantulas and chilli plants use similar scare tactics to help ward off predators.
Much is known of the specific spider toxins that cause shock, paralysis and death, but the molecules that promote pain and inflammation are less well characterized. In this week’s Nature, David Julius and colleagues describe three peptides, isolated from the venom of the West Indian tarantula Psalmopoeus cambridgei, that bind to and activate a particular receptor on sensory neurons to cause pain. When the newly discovered peptides are injected directly into the hind paw of a mouse, inflammation can be seen and the mice act as if in pain, but only if they have the receptor.
The receptor, which allows ions to pass across the membrane of the cell, is also activated by capsaicin, the active component of chilli peppers. So the study suggests that P. cambridgei and chilli plants use similar signalling mechanisms to cause pain and scare predators away.
The newly discovered peptides are also unusual because they trigger an excitatory response. Peptides with similar structures that bind to other ion channels are already known, but cause inhibitory responses.
CONTACT
David Julius (University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA)
Tel: +1 415 476 0431; E-mail: [email protected]
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE…
[7] Great Himalayan earthquakes and the Tibetan plateau (pp 165-170)
[8] Single-mode heat conduction by photons (pp 187-190; N&V)
[9] Boundary lubrication under water (pp 191-194)
[10] Light from sonication of crystal slurries (p163)
ADVANCE ONLINE PUBLICATION
***This paper will be published electronically on Nature's website on 08 November at 1800 London time / 1300 US Eastern time (which is also when the embargo lifts) as part of our AOP (ahead of print) programme. Although we have included it on this release to avoid multiple mailings it will not appear in print on 09 November, but at a later date.***
[11] A protein interaction network for pluripotency of embryonic stem cells
DOI: 10.1038/nature05284
GEOGRAPHICAL LISTING OF AUTHORS…
The following list of places refers to the whereabouts of authors on the papers numbered in this release. For example, London: 4 - this means that on paper number four, there will be at least one author affiliated to an institute or company in London. The listing may be for an author's main affiliation, or for a place where they are working temporarily. Please see the PDF of the paper for full details.
BELGIUM
Brussels: 2
CAMEROON:
Yaoundé: 3
DENMARK
Copenhagen: 2
FINLAND
Helsinki: 8
FRANCE
Gif-sur-Yvette: 2
Grenoble: 8
Montpellier: 3
Orsay: 2
Saint-Martin-d’Heres: 2
GERMANY
Bremerhaven: 2
Heidelberg: 2
Leipzig: 2
Neuherberg: 2
Potsdam: 2
ISRAEL
Rehovot: 9
ITALY
Florence: 2
Milan: 2
Rome: 2
Trieste: 2
Venice: 2
JAPAN
Kyoto: 1
NORWAY
Tromso: 2
SWEDEN
Lund: 9
Stockholm: 2
SWITZERLAND
Bern: 2
Dubendorf: 2
THE NETHERLANDS
Utrecht: 2
UNITED KINGDOM
Cambridge: 2
London: 1, 2
Nottingham: 3
Oxford: 9
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Alabama
Birmingham: 3
Arizona
Tuscon: 5
California
Berkeley: 6
San Francisco: 6
Colorado
Boulder: 7
Illinois
Urbana: 10
Maryland
Baltimore: 9
Bethesda: 4
Massachusetts
Boston: 11
Michigan
Ann Arbor: 1
New York
New York: 6
Rhode Island
Providence: 5
Texas
Houston: 6
PRESS CONTACTS…
For North America and Canada
Katie McGoldrick, Nature Washington
Tel: +1 202 737 2355; E-mail: [email protected]
From Japan, Korea, China, Singapore and Taiwan
Itsumi Kitahara, Nature Tokyo
Tel: +81 3 3267 8751; Fax: +81 3 3267 87
E-mail: [email protected]
For the UK/Europe/other countries not listed above
Katherine Anderson, Nature London
Tel: +44 20 7843 4502; E-mail [email protected]
About Nature Publishing Group
Nature Publishing Group (NPG) is a division of Macmillan Publishers Ltd, dedicated to serving the academic, professional scientific and medical communities. NPG's flagship title, Nature, was first published in 1869. Other publications include Nature research journals, Nature Reviews, Nature Clinical Practice and a range of prestigious academic journals including society-owned publications. NPG also provides news content through [email protected] and scientific career information through Naturejobs.
NPG is a global company with headquarters in London and offices in New York, San Francisco, Washington DC, Boston, Tokyo, Paris, Munich, Hong Kong, Melbourne, Delhi, Mexico City and Basingstoke. For more information, please go to <www.nature.com>.
