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This press release is copyright Nature.
VOL.454 NO.7208 DATED 28 AUGUST 2008
This press release contains:
· Summaries of newsworthy papers:
Ageing: A long and healthy life
Hearing: Encouraging hair growth
Astrophysics: Dark secrets of Milky Way’s satellite galaxies
Ocean ecology: Viruses affect the carbon cycle
Stem cells: Reprogramming without pluripotency
Earth science: Unravelling current coils in the Earth’s geodynamo
Physics: Altered states
Cancer: Rethinking Hedgehog signalling
Physics: Quantum boost
Developmental biology: BDNF and chromatin remodelling
And finally… Kids learn to share by age 7–8
· Mention of papers to be published at the same time with the same embargo
· Geographical listing of authors
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[1] Ageing: A long and healthy life (pp 1065-1071)
Many scientists work on mechanisms that determine lifespan in model organisms such as worms, flies and mice, but what will it take to develop strategies to increase human lifespan? In a Review in Nature this week, Jan Vijg and Judith Campisi discuss current knowledge and outline questions for future research.
The inevitability of ageing and death has fascinated humanity; the epic story of Gilgamesh the Sumerian king tells of his desire to escape death and his ultimate realization that only through lasting works of culture can he achieve immortality. Today research on laboratory organisms such as yeast, worms and mice encourages the notion that we may yet manipulate lifespan with drugs, genetic knowledge or nutritional fine-tuning. The authors discuss current knowledge and argue that it is too early to say whether ageing and death in humans can be postponed by many decades. They believe that only a more complete understanding of basic ageing mechanisms and their relationship with disease will allow us to develop integrated strategies to increase human health and lifespan.
CONTACT
Jan Vijg (Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, USA)
Tel: +1 718 678 1151; E-mail: [email protected]
Judith Campisi (Buck Institute, Berkeley, CA, USA)
Tel: +1 510 486 4416; E-mail: [email protected]
[2] Hearing: Encouraging hair growth (AOP)
DOI: 10.1038/nature07265
***This paper will be published electronically on Nature's website on 27 August 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 28 August, but at a later date. ***
A crucial step in the direction of therapies to treat deafness and inner-ear disease is published online in Nature this week. Researchers use gene therapy in mice during development and show that they can grow functional hair cells that have the potential to reduce hearing loss in adult mice.
Cochlear hair cells form the sound-sensing apparatus of vertebrates, and their loss or damage gives rise to hearing impairment. Mammals are not able to regenerate hair cells but John Brigande and colleagues show that in utero gene transfer of Atoh1 into the mouse inner ear can induce non-sensory cells to become hair cells. Previous research looking at Atoh1 has not assessed whether the new cells are functional, but the team report this to be the case. The fact that the gene transfer in utero produces extra, functional hair cells could be the basis for translational therapies in human patients in the future.
CONTACT
John Brigande (Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, OR, USA)
Tel: +1 503 494 2933; E-mail: [email protected]
Please note this author is profoundly hard of hearing. To contact this author, please email and he will return your call using a captioning service.
[3] Astrophysics: Dark secrets of Milky Way’s satellite galaxies (pp 1096-1097)
The Milky Way has at least 23 satellite galaxies that shine with luminosities ranging from a thousand to more than a hundred million times that of the Sun. A paper in this week’s Nature discusses the masses of these galaxies, providing potentially useful clues about galaxy formation at small scales.
Louis Strigari and colleagues have compiled velocity measurements of stars in these Milky Way satellites, which they use to determine the masses of the galaxies. They turn out all to have a common central mass of about 10 million times that of the Sun, despite the huge range in optical luminosities.
The results indicate that the least luminous of these galaxies are strongly dominated by ‘dark matter’ — invisible material that can be traced only by its gravitational pull.
CONTACT
Louis Strigari (University of California, Irvine, CA, USA) Author
Tel: +1 949 824 6149; E-mail: [email protected]
Please note this author will be travelling from 28 August. In his absence it may be better to contact one of the following:
James Bullock (University of California, Irvine, CA, USA) Co-author
Tel: +1 949 824 7727; E-mail: [email protected]
Manoj Kaplinghat (University of California, Irvine, CA, USA) Co-author
Tel: +1 949 824 8541; E-mail: [email protected]
[4] Ocean ecology: Viruses affect the carbon cycle (pp 1084-1087)
Viruses have an unexpected role in the carbon cycle, according to research published this week in Nature. The finding calls for a reappraisal of global models of carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus cycling, and nutrient flows through the food chain.
Deep-sea sediments contain large reservoirs of carbon in the form of microbial biomass, but the dynamics of this ecosystem are largely unknown. Roberto Danovaro and colleagues report that viral infection and killing of these microbes releases an estimated 0.37 to 0.63 gigatonnes of carbon per year into the food chain. At the deep dark bottom of the sea where food is scarce, this process marks a significant contribution to the flow of energy and nutrients.
Given that deep-sea ecosystems cover about 65% of the Earth’s surface, this research has important implications for understanding biomass production and biogeochemical cycles on a global scale.
CONTACT
Roberto Danovaro (Polytechnic University of Marche, Ancona, Italy)
Tel: +39 071 220 4654; E-mail: [email protected]
Please note this author is currently working in the Fiji islands with limited email access.
It may be better to contact:
Antonio Dell'Anno (Polytechnic University of Marche, Ancona, Italy)
Tel: +39 071 220 4328; E-mail: [email protected]
[5] Stem cells: Reprogramming without pluripotency (AOP)
DOI: 10.1038/nature07314
***This paper will be published electronically on Nature's website on 27 August 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 28 August, but at a later date. ***
Researchers have converted mature cells in the mouse pancreas to insulin-secreting cells. Using a new genetic strategy, they were able to avoid first converting them to a primitive, pluripotent state. The team went on to show that they can reduce hyperglycaemia in diabetic mice.
Douglas Melton and colleagues show that exocrine cells of the pancreas can be converted, in vivo, to insulin-secreting endocrine cells. On the basis of earlier studies of key transcription factors involved in pancreatic development, the team defined three factors that reprogram differentiated pancreatic exocrine cells in adult animals into cells with hallmarks of insulin-secreting beta-cells. The cells were able to improve the condition of hyperglycaemic mice with induced diabetes.
The cells generated in this study were not glucose responsive; however, the research published online in Nature this week provides a proof of concept that accessible and relatively abundant cells of one type may be directly converted into rare and therapeutically important cell types such as beta-cells.
CONTACT
Douglas Melton (Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA)
Tel: +1 617 495 1812; E-mail: [email protected]
[6] Earth science: Unravelling current coils in the Earth’s geodynamo (pp 1016-1109; N&V)
The Earth’s magnetic field is generated by flow within its iron-rich outer core. A paper in this week’s Nature uses computer simulations to find out how this flow field is organized.
Computer simulations have played an important role in improving our understanding of the ‘geodynamo’ that generates the Earth’s magnetic field, but such numerical simulations within the parameter regime directly relevant to the Earth’s core is beyond the power of today’s supercomputers. Akira Kageyama and colleagues have used the Earth Simulator, one of the fastest computers in the world, to run a geodynamo simulation that is the nearest yet to the real thing.
In the simulation both the convection flow and magnetic field structures are qualitatively different from those found in lower-resolution simulations, with convection taking the form of sheet plumes or radial sheet jets, rather than columnar cell structures, as previously observed.
CONTACT
Akira Kageyama (Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, Yokohama, Japan)
Tel: +81 45 778 5856; E-mail: [email protected]
Ulrich Christensen (Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany) N&V author
Tel: +49 5556 979 542; E-mail: [email protected]
[7] Physics: Altered states (pp 1072-1078; N&V)
The enigmatic relationship between ‘pseudogaps’ and superconductivity is viewed in a new light this week in Nature. The research investigates the mysteries of the pseudogap, an energy gap that appears in both superconducting and non-superconducting states, and finds very different behaviours.
J. C. Seamus Davis and colleagues look at the electronic excitations underlying superconducting and pseudogap states. They find states in momentum space that correspond to the expected delocalized electron pairs responsible for superconductivity, and some unusual states localized in real space that correspond to the pseudogap. The relationship between these two excitation types provides a new perspective on the still enigmatic relationship between the pseudogap and superconductivity, and strengthens the conceptual connection with the properties of the insulating parent compounds, where electron localization in real space is central to their behaviour.
CONTACT
J. C. Seamus Davis (Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA)
Tel: +1 607 254 8965; E-mail: [email protected]
Tetsuo Hanaguri (RIKEN, Wako, Saitama, Japan) N&V author
Tel: +81 48 467 5428; E-mail; [email protected]
[8] Cancer: Rethinking Hedgehog signalling (AOP)
DOI: 10.1038/nature07275
***This paper will be published electronically on Nature's website on 27 August 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 28 August, but at a later date. ***
A common developmental signalling pathway promotes cancer in a surprising way, according to research published online this week in Nature. The finding calls for a reappraisal of how anti-cancer drugs targeting this pathway work, and whether this may result in unexpected side effects.
Hedgehog signalling provides the information needed for an embryo to develop properly and has also been shown to be involved in cancer. Frederic de Sauvage and colleagues show that hedgehog factors secreted from cancer cells do not act on the tumour directly, as was previously thought. Instead, they act on other neighbouring cells which support cancer growth. The research has important implications for the development of drugs that inhibit this signalling pathway.
CONTACT
Frederic de Sauvage (Genentech, San Francisco, CA, USA)
Tel: +1 650 225 5841; E-mail: [email protected]
[9] Physics: Quantum boost (pp 1098-1101)
Quantum communication over 100 km traditionally fails, but in Nature this week a team of researchers gets past one of the stumbling blocks. Yu-ao Chen and colleagues demonstrate entanglement swapping with storage and retrieval of light from atomic quantum memories.
To overcome the distance problem, caused by photon losses in the transmission channel, Briegel, Dür, Cirac and Zoller (BDCZ) introduced the concept of quantum repeaters, combining entanglement swapping and quantum memory to efficiently extend the achievable distances. Their implementation has proved challenging owing to the difficulty of integrating a quantum memory. Yuan and colleagues establish the essential element needed to realize quantum repeaters with stationary atomic qubits as quantum memories and flying photonic qubits as quantum messengers.
CONTACT
Yu-ao Chen (University of Heidelberg, Germany)
Tel: +49 6221 549451; E-mail: [email protected]
[10] Developmental biology: BDNF and chromatin remodelling (AOP)
DOI: 10.1038/nature07238
***This paper will be published electronically on Nature's website on 27 August 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 28 August, but at a later date. ***
Biologists have worked out a mechanism for how a key developmental protein can influence gene expression, a finding that boosts our understanding of how the early nervous system forms.
Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is a protein that influences the expression of many genes in the developing nervous system and also prompts production of the signalling molecule nitric oxide (NO). In this week’s Nature, Antonella Riccio and colleagues show that the NO synthesis triggered by BDNF leads to nitrosylation of several proteins in the nucleus of cortical neurons, including a histone deacetylase (HDAC) enzyme. Nitrosylation of the HDAC leads to its release from the chromatin of BDNF-dependent genes, which allows histone acetylation and activation of genes linked to neuronal development.
CONTACT
Antonella Riccio (University College London, UK)
Tel: +44 207 679 7814; E-mail: [email protected]
[11] And finally… Kids learn to share by age 7–8 (pp 1079-1083; N&V)
Children learn the principles of fairness and equality by the age of 7–8, according to the results of a new experiment that reveals the willingness of kids to consider others. Children of this age are just as likely as adults to do the right thing by their friends, in contrast to kids of age 3–4, who are almost universally selfish.
Researchers led by Ernst Fehr asked 229 Swiss schoolchildren of varying ages to play sharing games involving the ultimate kids’ currency: sweets. Children were placed in pairs, and one of them was given the choice between two options, such as “one for me, none for you” versus one sweet each. Although often the child doing the choosing would receive one sweet regardless of their choice, many of the younger children (aged 3–4) still chose to deprive their fellow partner of a sweet. In contrast, those at age 7–8 routinely chose the fairest options, the researchers report in this week’s Nature.
This behaviour sets humans apart from other animals such as chimpanzees, which remain resolutely selfish throughout life. However, children in the study were not completely fair: in tests where the children were offered two sweets with the option to share, they tended to do so only with children that they knew. This, the authors suggest, may reflect humans’ inherently parochial attitude, which is thought to be crucial in the evolution of cooperative societies.
CONTACT
Ernst Fehr (University of Zurich, Switzerland)
Tel: +41 44 634 3709; E-mail: [email protected]
Michael Tomasello (Max-Planck-Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany) N&V author
Tel: +49 341 3550 401; E-mail: [email protected]
Felix Warneken (Max-Planck-Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany) N&V author
Tel: +49 341 3550 437; E-mail: [email protected]
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE…
[12] Misfolded proteins partition between two distinct quality control compartments (pp 1088-1095)
[13] Late Pliocene Greenland glaciation controlled by a decline in atmospheric CO2 levels (pp 1102-1105)
ADVANCE ONLINE PUBLICATION
***This paper will be published electronically on Nature's website on 27 August 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 28 August, but at a later date. ***
[14] Structure of the guide-strand-containing argonaute silencing complex
DOI: 10.1038/nature07315
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: 9
CHINA
Anhui: 9
FRANCE
Marseille: 4
Villefranche-sur-Mer: 4
GERMANY
Erfurt: 7
Heidelberg: 9
ITALY
Ancona: 4
JAPAN
Ibaraki: 7
Saitama: 7
Tokyo: 7
Yokohama: 6
SWITZERLAND
Zurich: 11
UNITED KINGDOM
Bristol: 13
Cambridge: 3, 13
Leeds: 13
London: 10
St Andrews: 7
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
California
Berkeley: 1, 7
Irvine: 3
Novato: 1
Pasadena: 3
South San Francisco: 8
Stanford: 2, 12
Colorado
Boulder: 7
Connecticut
New Haven: 3
Massachusetts
Boston: 5
Cambridge: 3, 5, 8
New York
Bronx: 1
Ithaca: 7
New York: 14
Upton: 7
North Carolina
Morehead City: 4
Oregon
Portland: 2
Utah
Salt Lake City: 2
Wisconsin
Madison: 2
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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