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This press release is copyright Nature.
VOL.453 NO.7197 DATED 12 JUNE 2008
This press release contains:
· Summaries of newsworthy papers:
Drug design: New target for Alzheimer’s drugs
Thermosensors: Locating the comfort zone
Behaviour: We take more risks when potential pay-offs are well defined
Immunology: Sequence of response
Extraterrestrial chemistry: The carbene catchers
Wave physics: Anderson localization of matter waves
And finally… Leaf the temperature alone
· Mention of papers to be published at the same time with the same embargo
· Geographical listing of authors
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[1] Drug design: New target for Alzheimer’s drugs (pp 925-929; N&V)
Biochemists have discovered how certain drugs with promising properties for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease work. The findings, published this week in Nature, could help towards the development of new drugs.
A hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease is the accumulation of amyloid-beta peptide that forms plaques in the brain. Aβ42 (the 42-residue form of amyloid-beta peptide) is created when an enzyme called gamma-secretase cuts up a larger precursor protein, APP. Gamma-secretase modulators (GSMs) are promising drug candidates for treating disease but little is known about how they work. Thomas Kukar and colleagues now show that some GSMs work by directly targeting the APP substrate instead of the enzyme itself. As well as reducing the generation of Aβ42, the team also found that the drugs stopped proteins from aggregating. The overall result is a double-pronged attack in reducing plaque formation and disease.
The research provides proof-of-principle for a new family of substrate-targeted drugs for Alzheimer’s and other diseases, say the authors.
CONTACT
Thomas Kukar (Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, FL, USA)
Tel: +1 904 953 6542; E-mail: [email protected]
Thomas Kodadek (University of Texas, Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, USA) N&V author
Tel: +1 214 648 1239; E-mail: [email protected]
[2] Thermosensors: Locating the comfort zone (AOP)
DOI: 10.1038/nature07001
***This paper will be published electronically on Nature's website on 11 June 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 12 June, but at a later date. ***
Flies, unlike humans, can’t manipulate the temperature of their surroundings so they need to pick the best spot for flourishing. A paper in this week’s Nature reveals that they have internal thermosensors to help them, in addition to those located on their antennae.
Paul Garrity and colleagues have discovered that the fruitfly Drosophila has four large heat-responsive neurons located in its brain. These are activated at temperatures just above the fly’s preferred temperature by an ion channel in the cell membrane known as dTrpA1, which itself acts as a molecular sensor of warmth.
This internal warmth-sensing pathway helps the fly to avoid slightly raised temperatures and acts together with a cold-avoidance pathway in the antennae to set the fly's preferred temperature — enabling the fly to pick its optimal ambient temperature range for survival.
CONTACT
Paul Garrity (Brandeis University, Waltham, MA, USA)
Tel: +1 781 736 3127; E-mail: [email protected]
[3] Behaviour: We take more risks when potential pay-offs are well defined (pp 917-920)
People are more prepared to gamble on risky courses of action, rather than taking a safe option, when the differences between the various possible outcomes are well defined, new research suggests. In contrast, if the different outcomes are hard to distinguish, we are far more likely to select a safe option, even if the probability of the risky choice has not in fact changed at all.
The research, published in this week’s Nature, shows that people might be more inclined to cling to certainty when the differences between potential outcomes — such as pay-backs in a gambling game or return rates on financial investments — are hard to assess.
Researchers led by Arnon Lotem gave volunteers a choice of two computer buttons, marked ‘R’ for risky and ‘S’ for safe. ‘S’ resulted in a pay-off of 3 credits with absolute certainty and ‘R’ led to a pay-off of 4 credits with 0.8 certainty, although players only learned these pay-offs through trial and error as they flashed up on screen. Players tended towards the risky strategy when these pay-offs were represented as simple numbers. However, when the numerals 3 and 4 were replaced with clouds of either 30 or 40 dots, making them much more difficult to distinguish, players changed tack and veered towards the more certain outcome.
The researchers subjected honeybees to a similar game, involving sugar solutions of varying concentrations, with matching results, showing that we may not differ from animals in how we weigh up the world’s risks.
CONTACT
Arnon Lotem (Tel-Aviv University, Israel)
Tel: +972 3 640 8381; E-mail: [email protected]
[4] Immunology: Sequence of response (AOP)
DOI: 10.1038/nature07106
***This paper will be published electronically on Nature's website on 11 June 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 12 June, but at a later date. ***
Immunologists have uncovered a molecular mechanism that alerts the immune system to the presence of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. The research, reported online this week in Nature, could help to improve current therapies for HCV.
RIG-I is a known cellular receptor that recognizes the presence of viral genetic material — a sure sign that a cell is infected — and signals to the immune system to attack. Now, Michael Gale and colleagues have identified a specific pattern — a polyuridine motif — from the HCV genome that is recognized by RIG-I. Similar motifs are also present in the genomes of other viruses, including rabies, Ebola and measles.
As well as helping us to understand how the immune system responds to viral infections, the findings could be useful in the design of additives for vaccines to ‘boost’ immune responses.
CONTACT
Michael Gale (University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA, USA)
Tel: +1 206 685 7953; E-mail: [email protected]
[5] Extraterrestrial chemistry: The carbene catchers (pp 906-909; N&V)
Carbenes — molecules containing a carbon atom with only two bonds instead of the usual four — are often highly reactive and very short-lived. A paper in this week’s Nature describes the preparation and characterization of hydroxymethylene, a particularly elusive carbene rumoured to be a participant in the formation of small sugar molecules in extraterrestrial environments.
Peter Schreiner and colleagues managed to trap hydroxymethylene in an argon matrix cooled to only 11 degrees above absolute zero. But hey presto — after a few brief moments, the molecule rearranges to become common-or-garden formaldehyde.
The molecule’s ephemeral nature makes it an unlikely participant in the photocatalytic production of simple carbohydrates in space or in prebiotic environments on Earth.
CONTACT
Peter Schreiner (Justus-Liebig-Universität, Giessen, Germany)
Tel: +49 641 99 34300; E-mail: [email protected]
Markku Räsänen (University of Helsinki, Finland) N&V author
Tel: +358 9 191 40 281; E-mail: [email protected]
[6] & [7] Wave physics: Anderson localization of matter waves (pp 891-894; 895-898; N&V)
Anderson localization of waves in disordered media was originally predicted fifty years ago, in the context of transport of electrons in crystals. It occurs when interference between multiple scattering paths stops diffusion — but although it has been reported for light waves, microwaves, sound waves and electron gases, it hasn’t been observed so far for matter waves of any type. Two papers in this week’s Nature now describe the phenomenon in a Bose–Einstein condensate of ultracold atoms.
Philippe Bouyer and colleagues directly image the atomic density profiles as a function of time, and find that weak disorder leads to the formation of a stationary type of wavefunction that is the signature of Anderson localization. Massimo Inguscio and co-workers demonstrate the effect by investigating the transport properties and spatial and momentum distributions of the atoms.
The highly controllable nature of these systems may render them useful in investigations of the interplay between disorder and interaction, as well as in uncovering exotic quantum phases.
CONTACT
Philippe Bouyer (Université Paris-Sud, Palaiseau, France) Author paper [6]
Tel: +33 1 64 53 33 43; E-mail: [email protected]
Massimo Inguscio (University of Florence, Italy) Author paper [7]
Tel: +39 055 457 2465; E-mail: [email protected]
Daniel Steck (University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, USA) N&V author
Tel: +1 541 346 5313; E-mail: [email protected]
[8] And finally… Leaf the temperature alone (AOP)
DOI: 10.1038/nature
***This paper will be published electronically on Nature's website on 11 June 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 12 June, but at a later date. ***
The temperature within a leaf is not affected by its surrounding air temperature, according to new research. This contradicts previous understanding, and may explain why climate doesn’t have a large effect on leaf traits.
An interesting quirk of the ‘leaf economics spectrum’ is that climate doesn’t have as great an impact on leaf morphology and physiology as one might think. Brent Helliker and Suzanna Richter show that during periods in which plants assimilate carbon, temperatures within leaves remain at around 21.4 °C, whether the leaf is in the subtropics or the polar regions — a range of 50° of latitude.
The research, published online in this week’s Nature, goes against received wisdom that the temperature and relative humidity in an actively photosynthesizing leaf are the same as that of the surrounding air.
CONTACT
Brent Helliker (University of Pennsylvania - Biology, Philadelphia, PA, USA)
Tel: +1 215 746 6217; E-mail: [email protected]
Suzanna Richter (University of Pennsylvania - Earth Science, Philadelphia, PA, USA)
Tel: +1 215 898 5724; E-mail: [email protected]
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE…
[9] What we can do and what we cannot do with FMRI (pp 869-878)
[10] Continental mantle signature of Bushveld magmas and coeval diamonds (pp 910-913)
ADVANCE ONLINE PUBLICATION
***These papers will be published electronically on Nature's website on 11 June 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 them on this release to avoid multiple mailings they will not appear in print on 12 June, but at a later date. ***
[11] SMAD proteins control DROSHAmediated microRNA maturation
DOI: 10.1038/nature07086
[12] Osteoclast size is controlled by Fra-2 through LIF/LIF-receptor signalling and hypoxia
DOI: 10.1038/nature07019
[13] Structural basis of specific tRNA aminoacylation by a small in vitro selected ribozyme
DOI: 10.1038/nature07033
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.
AUSTRIA
Vienna: 12
FRANCE
Paris: 6
GERMANY
Darmstadt: 1
Giessen: 5
Hamburg: 12
HUNGARY
Budapest: 5
IRELAND
Dublin: 1
ISRAEL
Haifa: 3
Rehovot: 3
Tel-Aviv : 3
ITALY
Florence: 7
Povo: 7
Rome: 7
JAPAN
Tokyo: 13
SINGAPORE
Singapore: 12
SOUTH AFRICA
Rondebosch: 10
SPAIN
Madrid: 12
SWITZERLAND
Lausanne: 1
UNITED KINGDOM
Manchester: 9
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
California
La Jolla: 1, 2
District of Columbia
Washington: 10
Florida
Jacksonville: 1
Georgia
Athens: 5
Massachusetts
Boston: 1, 11
Waltham: 2
New Jersey
Piscataway: 4
Pennsylvania
Philadelphia: 8
Texas
Dallas: 4
Washington
Seattle: 4, 13
PRESS CONTACTS…
From North America and Canada
Katherine Anderson, Nature New York
Tel: +1 212 726 9231; E-mail: [email protected]
Katie McGoldrick, Nature Washington
Tel: +1 202 737 2355; E-mail: [email protected]
From Japan, Korea, China, Singapore and Taiwan
Mika Nakano, Nature Tokyo
Tel: +81 3 3267 8751; E-mail: [email protected]
From the UK/Europe/other countries not listed above
Jen Middleton, Nature London
Tel: +44 20 7843 4502; E-mail [email protected]
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