NATURE AND THE NATURE RESEARCH JOURNALS PRESS RELEASE
For papers that will be published online on 25 February 2007
This press release is copyrighted to the Nature journals mentioned below.
This press release contains:
* Summaries of newsworthy papers:
New role for gut-lining cells? - Nature
Making a splash, or not - Nature Physics
Ballistic breakthrough - Nature Nanotechnology
NanoBuds are here - Nature Nanotechnology
Genetic variant associated with triglyceride levels - Nature Genetics
Genetic variant protects against four infectious diseases - Nature Genetics
Potential therapeutic target in Down syndrome - Nature Neuroscience
Proteins a la carte - Nature Methods
* Mention of papers to be published at the same time with the same embargo
* Geographical listing of authors
PDFs of all the papers mentioned on this release can be found in the relevant journal’s section of http://press.nature.com. Press contacts for the Nature journals are listed at the end of this release.
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PLEASE CITE THE SPECIFIC NATURE JOURNAL AND WEBSITE AS THE SOURCE OF THE FOLLOWING ITEMS. IF PUBLISHING ONLINE, PLEASE CARRY A HYPERLINK TO THE APPROPRIATE JOURNAL’S WEBSITE.
*********************************NATURE************************************************
(<http://www.nature.com/nature>)
[1] Immunology: New role for gut-lining cells?
DOI: 10.1038/nature05590
Intestinal epithelial cells, once thought simply to act as a barrier to pathogenic microorganisms, may have a key role in shaping the function of immune cells, a paper published online in Nature this week suggests.
Mice with an I-kappa-B kinase-beta gene deletion in gut epithelial cells can not fend off infection with the gut parasite Trichuris. They do not develop the appropriate immune response, overproduce a range of inflammatory cytokine proteins and develop severe intestinal inflammation, David Artis and colleagues report.
The findings may have broad implications for understanding the physiological basis of immunity and inflammation in many different diseases of the intestinal tract, including colon cancer and inflammatory bowel disease.
Author contact:
David Artis (University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA)
Tel: +1 215 898 7920; E-mail: [email protected]
Other papers from Nature to be published online at the same time and with the same embargo:
[2] Relating ligand binding to activation gating in CNGA2 channels
DOI: 10.1038/nature05596
[3] Tyrosine kinase receptor RET is a key regulator of Peyer’s Patch organogenesis
DOI: 10.1038/nature05597
[4] Structure of an ABC transporter in complex with its binding protein
DOI: 10.1038/nature05626
[5] Hippocampal remapping and grid realignment in entorhinal cortex
DOI: 10.1038/nature05601
[6] Claudin-1 is a hepatitis C virus co-receptor required for a late step in entry
DOI: 10.1038/nature05654
[7] C5L2 is critical for the biological activities of the anaphylatoxins C5a and C3a
DOI: 10.1038/nature05559
[8] Stepwise protein-mediated RNA folding directs assembly of telomerase ribonucleoprotein
DOI: 10.1038/nature05600
********************************NATURE PHYSICS******************************
(http://www.nature.com/naturephysics)
[9] Making a splash, or not
DOI: 10.1038/nphys545
Two spheres of the same size, shape and material hitting water at the same speed can produce different splashes, report Lydéric Bocquet and colleagues in the March issue of Nature Physics. The surface treatment of the spheres is the only difference.
Spheres that attract water - that is, with hydrophilic surfaces - cause almost no splash, whereas hydrophobic spheres can generate big splashes. The key lies in the wetting properties of the surface. For a hydrophobic sphere, made by a thin coating of silane (SiH4) chains a few nanometres thick, the impact creates an air cavity, which leads to a splash. In contrast, liquid reaches up the sides of a hydrophilic sphere during impact so that no air can enter and therefore no splash occurs.
This result is surprising because the traditional explanation for high-speed impacts ignores surface effects. Being able to control the degree of splashing, particularly when splashes are undesirable, such as when ships slam into waves, would be useful.
Author contact:
Lydéric Bocquet (Université Claude-Bernard, Lyon, France)
Tel: +33 4 72 44 82 53; E-mail: [email protected]
Other papers from Nature Physics to be published online at the same time and with the same embargo:
[10] Electrical detection of spin transport in lateral ferromagnet-semiconductor devices
DOI: 10.1038/nphys543
[11] Entanglement percolation in quantum networks
DOI: 10.1038/nphys549
*************************NATURE NANOTECHNOLOGY***********************************
(<http://www.nature.com/nnano>)
[12] Ballistic breakthrough
DOI: 10.1038/nnano.2007.36
The process used to read information from magnetic disk drives can be quantized according to a paper to be published online this week in Nature Nanotechnology.
Although quantum mechanics is more than 100 years old, physicists are always interested in new examples of phenomena that contradict our intuition. In the everyday world, the speed of a tennis ball, for instance, can have any value from zero metres per second upwards. The energy of an electron in a hydrogen atom, on the other hand, can only have certain values (for example, -13.6, -3.4 and -1.5 electron volts), but not any of the values in between. Bernard Doudin and colleagues have now observed similar quantum behaviour in the electrical current through an atom-sized contact made of cobalt.
Cobalt is magnetic, so it is not surprising that the current through the contact changes when a magnetic field is applied to it. However, Doudin and co-workers find that the current changes in discrete steps - quantum jumps - making this the first experimental observation of quantized magnetoresistance. They also suggest that the effect can be seen at room temperature which could have applications in memory and data storage.
Author contact:
Bernard Doudin (Institut de Physique et Chimie des Materiaux de Strasbourg, France)
Tel: +33 38 81 07142; E-mail: [email protected]
[13] NanoBuds are here
DOI: 10.1038/nnano.2007.37
A paper to be published in the March issue of Nature Nanotechnology reports a new hybrid form of carbon - dubbed ‘NanoBuds’ by the team that discovered it.
Carbon comes in many different forms, from the graphite found in pencils to the world’s most expensive diamonds. Albert Nasibulin and colleagues created the new material from two existing forms of carbon - fullerene molecules, which are also known as buckyballs, and carbon nanotubes. Discovered in the 1980s, fullerenes are round molecules that look like extremely small footballs. Carbon nanotubes were discovered in the early 1990s and are formed by rolling flat sheets of carbon molecules into tiny tubes that measure just a few nanometres across.
The fullerene molecules are attached to the side of the carbon nanotubes, just like buds on the branch of a tree - hence the name - and can be made in a relatively simple one-step process. The next step will be to explore the properties of the new material with a view to using it in applications.
Author contact:
Albert Nasibulin (Helsinki University of Technology, Finland)
Tel: +35 8503 397 538; E-mail: [email protected]
Other papers from Nature Nanotechnology to be published online at the same time and with the same embargo:
[14] Supported lipid bilayer/carbon nanotube hybrids
DOI: 10.1038/nnano.2007.34
[15] Microcavity effects and optically pumped lasing in single conjugated polymer nanowires
DOI: 10.1038/nnano.2007.35
[16] Applications of dip-pen nanolithography
DOI: 10.1038/nnano.2007.39
********************************NATURE GENETICS ****************************
(<http://www.nature.com/naturegenetics>)
[17] Genetic variant associated with triglyceride levels
DOI: 10.1038/ng1984
Scientists have identified a rare genetic variant that is associated with lower levels of triglycerides, according to a study to be published online this week in Nature Genetics. Triglycerides are the stored form of fat, and elevated levels have been linked to risk of coronary artery disease.
The genetic contribution to common diseases takes the form of common variants-those found at frequencies greater than 5%-and rare variants. One strategy to identify rare variants is to resequence candidate genes in a number of individuals. Jonathan Cohen and colleagues report the first application of this strategy in a large population. The authors studied more than 3,500 individuals from the Dallas Heart Study, whose lipid and glucose metabolism has been characterized in detail. They sequenced the gene ANGPTL4, which encodes a hormone involved in lipid metabolism, in each of these individuals. They found that those individuals with the lowest levels of triglycerides had more variation in ANGPTL4, and one variant in particular was associated with a 27% reduction in triglyceride levels, compared with individuals who lack the variant.
This association was confirmed in two other large population-based studies. Overall, this study confirms the value of the resequencing approach in identifying genetic variants that influence disease-related traits.
Author contact:
Jonathan Cohen (University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, USA)
Tel: +1 214 648 4774; E-mail: [email protected]
[18] Genetic variant protects against four infectious diseases
DOI: 10.1038/ng1976
A genetic variant associated with protection against four different infectious diseases is described in an online study this week in Nature Genetics. The variant, which is significantly more likely to be found in individuals who remain disease-free, is estimated to reduce the risk of disease by approximately half.
Proteins called ‘toll-like receptors’ (TLRs) are involved in the immune response to a variety of pathogens. Adrian Hill and colleagues reasoned that variation in a protein called Mal, which is a critical mediator of signaling by TLRs, might make certain individuals more or less susceptible to infectious disease. The authors determined the frequency of 33 single-nucleotide variants in the gene encoding Mal in more than 6,000 individuals from Gambia, Kenya, the UK and Vietnam with or without pneumococcal disease, bacteremia, malaria and tuberculosis - diseases that account for more than 5 million deaths each year in the developing world.
Author contacts
Adrian Hill (University of Oxford, UK)
Tel: +44 1865 287575; E-mail: [email protected]
Luke O’Neill (Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland)
Tel: +353 1 896 2439; E-mail: [email protected]
Other papers from Nature Genetics to be published online at the same time and with the same embargo
[19] A module of negative feedback regulators defines growth factor signaling
DOI: 10.1038/ng1987
[20] Epistatic buffering of fitness loss in yeast double deletion strains
DOI: 10.1038/ng1986
*********************************NATURE NEUROSCIENCE ************************
(<http://www.nature.com/natureneuroscience>)
[21] Potential therapeutic target in Down syndrome
DOI: 10.1038/nn1860
Blocking the actions of an inhibitory neurotransmitter can improve performance in several memory tasks in a mouse model of Down syndrome, reports a Brief Communication in Nature Neuroscience this week.
Down syndrome is the most common form of human mental retardation and is caused by the triplication of chromosome 21. Individuals with Down syndrome often have deficits in their memory for facts and events, called declarative memory. The Down syndrome model mouse, which has an extra copy of a segment of chromosome 16 - homologous to human chromosome 21 - shows some of the features of the human disorder, including deficits in declarative memory. The mutant mice also demonstrate excessive inhibition - mediated by the neurotransmitter GABA - in their brains.
Craig Garner and colleagues report that subtly reducing inhibitory function in these mice can rescue their cognitive deficits. The authors treated Down syndrome mice for two weeks with one of two drugs that inhibit the GABA receptor. Both drugs improved their performance in two declarative memory tasks. Moreover, this improvement lasted for up to two months after the drug treatment was stopped. The authors also found a normalization of long-term potentiation, which is the ability of synapses to undergo long-lasting changes in synaptic strength, considered a correlate of learning and memory. Although these findings need to be validated by clinical studies, they suggest that GABA might represent a potential therapeutic target to improve cognitive impairments in Down syndrome.
Author contact:
Craig Garner (Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA, USA)
Tel: +1 650 724 2730; E-mail: [email protected]
Other papers from Nature Neuroscience to be published online at the same time and with the same embargo:
[22] Anticonvulsant and anesthetic effects of a fluorescent neurosteroid analog activated by visible light
DOI: 10.1038/nn1862
[23] The Drosophila DC0 mutation suppresses age-related memory impairment without affecting lifespan
DOI: 10.1038/nn1863
*******************************NATURE METHODS******************************
(<http://www.nature.com/nmeth>)
[24] Proteins a la carte
DOI: 10.1038/nmeth1016
A method to incorporate non-naturally occurring amino acids into proteins in mammalian cells is to be published online this week in Nature Methods. This is the first time the process has been successfully accomplished in mammalian cells and will allow scientists to ‘custom make’ proteins with new chemical properties useful for research, industry and medicine.
Protein synthesis is a three-step process in which the information encoded on the DNA is translated into a string of amino acids; first DNA is transcribed to mRNA, then enzymes - aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases - match each of the twenty naturally occurring amino acids with its corresponding transfer RNA (tRNA). The tRNAs then read the sequence on the mRNA and incorporate amino acids in the correct order into the growing protein.
Peter Schultz and colleagues changed an aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase in such a way that it paired the tRNA normally recognizing a stop codon - a sequence that terminates protein synthesis - with an unnatural amino acid. Instead of terminating protein synthesis this tRNA now incorporates an unnatural amino acid into the protein with high fidelity and efficiency and without being toxic for the cells
Author contact:
Peter Schultz (Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA, USA)
Tel: +1 858 784 9300; E-mail: [email protected]
Additional information:
Michael Ibba (Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA)
Tel: +1 614 292 2120; E-mail: [email protected]
Other papers from Nature Methods to be published online at the same time and with the same embargo:
[25] Nanofabricated quartz cylinders for angular trapping: DNA supercoiling torque detection
DOI: 10.1038/nmeth1013
[26] Imaging receptor microdomains on leukocyte subsets in live mice
DOI: 10.1038/nmeth1018
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Items from other Nature journals to be published online at the same time and with the same embargo:
NATURE CHEMICAL BIOLOGY (http://www.nature.com/nchembio <http://www.nature.com/nchembio>)
[27] Structure-guided development of affinity probes for tyrosine kinases using chemical genetics
DOI: 10.1038/nchembio866
[28] An RNA G quadruplex in the 5´ UTR of the NRAS proto-oncogene modulates translation
DOI: 10.1038/nchembio864
NATURE MATERIALS (<http://www.nature.com/naturematerials>)
[29] Radiation-induced amorphization resistance and radiation tolerance in structurally related oxides
DOI: 10.1038/nmat1842
[30] The mechanism of morphogenesis in a phase-separating concentrated multicomponent alloy
DOI: 10.1038/nmat1845
[31] Terahertz time-domain spectroscopy and the quantitative monitoring of mechanochemical cocrystal formation
DOI: 10.1038/nmat1848
Nature MEDICINE (<http://www.nature.com/naturemedicine>)
[32] In vivo imaging of siRNA delivery and silencing in tumors
DOI: 10.1038/nm1486
[33] Humanization of autoantigen
DOI: 10.1038/nm1496
Nature BIOTECHNOLOGY (http://www.nature.com/naturebiotechnolgy)
[34] Endothelial cells derived from human embryonic stem cells form durable blood vessels in vivo
DOI: 10.1038/nbt1287
[35] An integrated mass spectrometric and computational framework for the analysis of protein interaction networks
DOI: 10.1038/nbt1289
Nature IMMUNOLOGY (<http://www.nature.com/natureimmunology>)
[36] Selection of Foxp3+ regulatory T cells specific for self antigen expressed and presented by Aire+ medullary thymic epithelial cells
DOI: 10.1038/ni1444
[37] Alloreactive T cells respond specifically to multiple distinct peptide-MHC complexes
DOI: 10.1038/ni1446
Nature STRUCTURAL & MOLECULAR BIOLOGY (<http://www.nature.com/natstructmolbiol>)
[38] Factor B structure provides insights into activation of the central protease of the complement system
DOI: 10.1038/nsmb1210
[39] Two different Argonaute complexes are required for siRNA generation and heterochromatin assembly in fission yeast
DOI: 10.1038/nsmb1211
[40] Structure and nuclear import function of the C terminal domain of influenza virus polymerase PB2 subunit
DOI: 10.1038/nsmb1212
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***The following article will be published on Nature Cell Biology’s website at 1000 GMT/ 0500 US Eastern time on Wednesday 21 February, which is when the embargo will lift. This does not affect the rest of this press release which is still under embargo until 1800 GMT / 1300 US Eastern time Sunday 25 February.***
NATURE CELL BIOLOGY
(<http://www.nature.com/naturecellbiology>)
[41] Autoregulation of an E2 enzyme by ubiquitin-chain assembly on its catalytic residue
DOI: 10.1038/ncb1558
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GEOGRAPHICAL LISTING OF AUTHORS
The following list of places refers to the whereabouts of authors on the papers numbered in this release. 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.
ALGERIA
Algiers: 18
AUSTRIA
Vienna: 36
CANADA
Toronto: 7
CHINA
Shanghai: 34
CZECH REPUBLIC
Hradec Kralove: 35
DENMARK
Copenhagen: 17
FINLAND
Espoo: 13
Helsinki: 13
FRANCE
Gif-sur-Yvette: 30
Grenoble: 40
Marseille: 9
Strasbourg: 12
Villeurbanne: 9
GAMBIA
Fajara: 18
GERMANY
Berlin: 1
Bremen: 2
Dortmund: 27
Garching: 11
Heidelberg: 40
Jena: 2
Mainz: 15
Munich: 1
Schmalkalden: 2
GUINEA
Conakry: 18
GUINEA-BISSAU
Bissau: 18
IRELAND
Cork: 15
Dublin: 18
ISRAEL
Rehovot: 19
Tel Aviv: 19
ITALY
Trieste: 5
JAPAN
Chiba: 23
Ibaraki: 13, 29
Kobe: 39
Sapporo: 33
Tokyo: 23
KENYA
Kilifi: 18
KOREA
Seoul: 13
NETHERLANDS
Leiden: 38
Utrecht: 38
POLAND
Krakow: 20
SENEGAL
Dakar: 18
SPAIN
Barcelona: 11
Castelldefels: 11
SWITZERLAND
Basel: 36
Zurich: 4, 35
UNITED KINGDOM
Birmingham: 6
Cambridge: 13, 28, 31
London: 3, 18, 29
Oxford: 18
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
California
Berkeley: 8, 17, 27
La Jolla: 1, 24, 36
Palo Alto: 19, 21
San Diego: 24, 36
San Francisco: 7, 27
Walnut Creek: 17
Connecticut
New Haven: 41
Illinois
Evanston: 16, 30
Maine
Scarborough: 34
Massachusetts
Boston: 27, 32, 34, 36, 39
Cambridge: 8, 27, 34
Michigan
East Lansing: 13
Minnesota
Minneapolis: 10
Missouri
St Louis: 22, 37
Nebraska
Lincoln: 12
New Mexico
Los Alamos: 10, 29
New York
Ithaca: 14, 25
New York: 6, 26
Ohio
Athens: 24
Oklahoma
Norman: 13
Pennsylvania
Philadelphia: 1
Texas
Dallas: 17
Houston: 17, 19
Wisconsin
Milwaukee: 33
VIETNAM
Ho Chi Minh City: 18
PRESS CONTACTS…
For media inquiries relating to embargo policy for all the Nature Research Journals:
Katherine Anderson (Nature London)
Tel: +44 20 7843 4502; E-mail: [email protected]
Ruth Francis (Senior Press Officer, Nature, London)
Tel: +44 20 7843 4562; E-mail: [email protected]
For media inquiries relating to editorial content/policy for the Nature Research Journals, please contact the journals individually:
Nature Biotechnology (New York)
Peter Hare
Tel: +1 212 726 9284; E-mail: [email protected]
Nature Cell Biology (London)
Bernd Pulverer
Tel: +44 20 7843 4892; E-mail: [email protected]
Nature Chemical Biology (Boston)
Andrea Garvey
Tel: +1 617 475 9241, E-mail: [email protected]
Nature Genetics (New York)
Orli Bahcall
Tel: +1 212 726 9311; E-mail: [email protected]
Nature Immunology (New York)
Laurie Dempsey
Tel: +1 212 726 9372; E-mail: [email protected]
Nature Materials (London)
Maria Bellantone
Tel: +44 20 7843 4556; E-mail: [email protected]
Nature Medicine (New York)
Juan Carlos Lopez
Tel: +1 212 726 9325; E-mail: [email protected]
Nature Methods (New York)
Allison Doerr
Tel: +1 212 726 9393; E-mail: [email protected]
Nature Nanotechnology (London)
Peter Rodgers
Tel: +44 20 7014 4019; Email: <[email protected]>
Nature Neuroscience (New York)
Sandra Aamodt (based in California)
Tel: +1 530 795 3256; E-mail: [email protected]
Nature Physics (London)
Alison Wright
Tel: +44 20 7843 4555; E-mail: [email protected]
Nature Structural & Molecular Biology (New York)
Michelle Montoya
Tel: +1 212 726 9326; E-mail: [email protected]
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