NATURE AND THE NATURE RESEARCH JOURNALS PRESS RELEASE
For papers that will be published online on 14 December 2008
This press release is copyrighted to the Nature journals mentioned below.
This press release contains:
· Summaries of newsworthy papers:
Cell Biology: Less scarring for broken hearts
Neuroscience: Loud and clear
Nature: Lullaby learning
Genetics: Neuronal function implicated in obesity risk
Nature: Live, fast, die old
Geoscience: A rotating surface shell on Mars
Nature: Avoiding overreaction
And finally…Medicine: Vaccine mystery solved
· 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.
[1] Cell Biology: Less scarring for broken hearts
DOI: 10.1038/ncb1811
A process that controls excessive formation of scar tissue following a heart attack is described online in Nature Cell Biology this week. Preventing this process allows for improved recovery of heart function post injury.
Myocardial infarction, commonly known as heart attack, is responsible for 13% of deaths worldwide and is a leading cause of death in developed countries. Thomas Sato and co-workers studied a mouse gene encoding the protein sFRP2, which negatively regulates the activity of an enzyme crucial for frog and fish embryonic development. They find that in mice, sFRP2 enhances the activity of the same enzyme in breaking down a precursor of collagen, the main component deposited in scar tissue. Collagen formation is dependent on the breakdown of this precursor protein during excessive formation of scar tissue, which is known to impair recovery of heart function. Thus, sFRP2 normally enhances collagen deposition in the scar tissue and prevents heart recovery.
The authors show that mice that do not carry the Sfrp2 gene have less scar tissue than normal mice after an injury that restricts blood flow through the heart. These mice have an improved recovery of their heart function, suggesting that inhibiting sFRP2 may be an effective approach to controlling excessive scarring and improving cardiac function after myocardial infarction.
Author contact:
Thomas Sato (Cornell University, New York, NY, USA)
Tel: +1 212 746 6013; E-mail: [email protected]
[2] Neuroscience: Loud and clear
DOI: 10.1038/nn.2239
Rats with hearing deficits can be trained to overcome their sound identification problems, something researchers previously only speculated was possible. The animals, raised to struggle to distinguish one sound from another, display improved neuronal fidelity, according to research in Nature Neuroscience this week.
Temporal processing is important for distinguishing speech from background noise. It has been suggested that deficits in temporal processing in young children can lead to delayed and impaired language development, as well as problems in reading.
Previous studies have shown that it is possible to improve neuronal responses which affect temporal processing with training, but these were all carried out in unimpaired adults. Xiaoming Zhou and Michael Merzenich look at whether this training could alter the neural responses in developmentally impaired rats. They found that in animals that had reduced cortical responses initially, due to being raised in an abnormal environment, training improved the ability to distinguish a target noise from many different background noises. This was accompanied by an improvement in the temporal fidelity of cortical neuron responses that was maintained for at least 2 months after the training ended.
In humans, it has been suggested that intensive training to improve temporal processing in children is successful as it helps them code auditory information better. This study suggests that behavioral training affects auditory responses in an area normally involved in temporal processing.
Author contact:
Xiaoming Zhou (East China Normal University, Shanghai, China)
E-mail: [email protected]
[3] Nature: Lullaby learning
DOI: 10.1038/nature07615
The reorganization of neural activity during sleep helps songbirds to develop the vocal skills they display while awake, reports a paper in this week’s Nature.
Sleep is well known to have a role in learning processes, including the development of speech. However, the neural mechanisms involved in the night-time consolidation of learning are poorly established.
Sylvan Shank and Daniel Margoliash report that when young zebra finches listen and then replay an adult tutor’s song, the activity of premotor neurons in the brain alters during the next night’s sleep. These changes in night-time activity are reflected in improvements in the singing of the young birds on the following day.
The authors suggest that sensory representations of events occurring during the day alter premotor networks in the brain during sleep when learning a new skill.
Author contact:
Daniel Margoliash (University of Chicago, IL, USA)
Tel: +1 773 702 3224; E-mail: [email protected]
[4] & [5] Genetics: Neuronal function implicated in obesity risk
DOI: 10.1038/ng.274
DOI: 10.1038/ng.287
Several new genetic risk factors for obesity have been identified, according to two studies published online this week in Nature Genetics. Most of these genes are expressed in the nervous system, highlighting a role for neuronal control of food intake in regulating weight.
Variation in only two genes has been consistently implicated in susceptibility to common forms of obesity. Joel Hirschhorn and colleagues carried out a ‘meta-analysis’ of genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of more than 30,000 individuals and identified six new loci associated with body weight. Each of the candidate genes at these loci is expressed at high levels in the brain and hypothalamus.
In a separate study, Gudmar Thorleifsson and colleagues carried out a GWAS of similar size and identified seven new loci associated with measures of obesity, most of which were also found in the Hirschhorn study.
Although these common variants each contribute only a small amount to variation in body weight, it is possible that rare variants at the same loci will have more significant effects on body weight in some people.
Author contacts:
Joel Hirschhorn (Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Boston, MA, USA) Author paper [4]
Tel: +1 617 919 2129; E-mail: [email protected]
Gudmar Thorleifsson (deCODE Genetics, Reykjavik, Iceland) Author paper [5]
Tel: +354 570 1900; E-mail: [email protected]
Media contact:
Edward Farmer (deCODE Genetics)
Tel: +1 646 417 4555; E-mail: [email protected]
[6] Nature: Live, fast, die old
DOI: 10.1038/nature07583
A key enzyme that helps prolong life in worms that fast intermittently is reported in this week’s Nature.
Eating less can extend lifespan in various species including some mammals, but the downside is you have to cut calories. Intermittent fasting (IF), however, can produce the same effect even when there is little or no decrease in calorie intake. Eisuke Nishida and colleagues show that RHEB-1 — an enzyme that catalyses the breakdown of the nucleotide GTP — is needed for IF-induced longevity.
Caenorhabditis elegans worms that fasted every two days increased their lifespan by around 50%. They were also more resistant to heat and oxidative stress and showed fewer signs of age-related physical decline than controls given free access to food. The results indicate that IF extends lifespan by influencing various mechanisms, including stress resistance, protein quality control and genome integrity.
Author contact:
Eisuke Nishida (Kyoto University, Japan)
Tel: +81 75 753; E-mail: [email protected]
[7] Geoscience: A rotating surface shell on Mars
DOI: 10.1038/ngeo392
The migration of volcanic activity in the Tharsis region of Mars could have been caused by rotation of the planet’s outermost rigid shell relative to its internal layers, according to a study online in Nature Geoscience. The possibility of large-scale horizontal motion of this shell — which behaves similarly to a single tectonic plate — has not been previously demonstrated.
Shijie Zhong used three-dimensional numerical models to simulate the slow churning of Mars’s interior in response to the cooling of the planet. The results suggest that a plume of hot material rising through the planet’s interior led to the earliest volcanism in the Tharsis region, simultaneously triggering rotation of the outer shell. As the shell moved southward over the stationary plume — like a sheet of cardboard over a candle — it shifted the location of the volcanism.
Although this motion is similar to the movement of a tectonic plate over a plume on Earth, such as the Hawaiian hotspot, Mars is composed of only a single plate that moves as a whole relative to the interior of the planet.
Author contact:
Shijie Zhong (University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA)
Tel: +1 303 735 5095; E-mail: [email protected]
[8] Nature: Avoiding overreaction
DOI: 10.1038/nature07580
Cells exposed to chronic, low-dose ultraviolet light use a molecular repair pathway that lets them patch up damage while dividing normally, a Nature paper reveals.
Laboratories routinely blast cells with unnaturally high doses of ultraviolet light to measure the response to DNA damage. The effects of more environmentally relevant ultraviolet levels are less well documented, however. Takashi Hishida and colleagues show that yeast cells exposed to these ultraviolet levels use a strategy called ‘postreplication repair’ that lets them replicate their DNA even though it is damaged.
This is different to the high-dose ultraviolet situation, where cells stop dividing, giving them time to ‘snip out’ an extensive number of DNA lesions. Such a strategy would be counter-productive in everyday, low-dose ultraviolet light, where the amount of damage is more easily managed.
Author contact:
Takashi Hishida (Osaka University, Japan)
Tel: +81 6 6879 83619; E-mail: [email protected]
[9] And finally…Medicine: Vaccine mystery solved
DOI: 10.1038/nm.1894
In the 1960s, a vaccine against the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) mysteriously failed to protect children and even made the disease worse. An article in Nature Medicine this week reports data that explain this mystery 40 years later.
RSV—the agent that causes bronchiolitis—is a leading cause of hospitalization in infants worldwide. Over 40 years ago, a formalin-inactivated RSV vaccine was used to immunize children, but it failed to provide protection from the virus and even led to severe disease. A widely accepted explanation for the vaccine’s failure was that formalin disrupted protective antigens—portions of the virus that should have induced the production of protective antibodies.
Fernando Polack and his colleagues now show that the lack of protection was due instead to low antibody affinity for the protective antigens. The maturation of the antibodies was impaired by poor stimulation of Toll-like receptors (TLRs)—immune molecules key for the detection of pathogens. When the authors gave a TLR activator together with a failed vaccine to mice, the mixture provided protection from RSV.
The study explains why the inactivated vaccine did not protect the children, hampering RSV vaccine development for four decades. It also suggests that inactivated RSV vaccines may be rendered effective by inclusion of TLR agonists in their formulation, and it identifies affinity maturation as a key factor for the safe immunization of infants.
Author contact:
Fernando Polack (Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA)
Tel: +1 443 287 6407; E-mail: [email protected]
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Items from other Nature journals to be published online at the same time and with the same embargo:
Nature (http://www.nature.com/nature)
[10] Messenger RNA targeting to endoplasmic reticulum stress signalling sites
DOI: 10.1038/nature07641
[11] The unfolded protein response signals through high-order assembly of Ire1
DOI: 10.1038/nature07661
NATURE BIOTECHNOLOGY (http://www.nature.com/naturebiotechnology)
[12] Understanding the physical properties that control protein crystallization by analysis of large-scale experimental data
DOI: 10.1038/nbt.1514
NATURE CELL BIOLOGY (http://www.nature.com/naturecellbiology)
[13] Midbody ring disposal by autophagy is a post-abscission event of cytokinesis
DOI: 10.1038/ncb1813
[14] Auxin transport through non-hair cells sustains root-hair development
DOI: 10.1038/ncb1815
[15] Activation of ATM depends on chromatin interactions occurring before induction of DNA damage
DOI: 10.1038/ncb1817
NATURE CHEMICAL BIOLOGY (http://www.nature.com/nchembio)
[16] Structural and functional characterization of 2-oxo-histidine in oxidized PerR protein
DOI: 10.1038/nchembio.133
NATURE GENETICS (http://www.nature.com/naturegenetics)
[17] New sequence variants associated with bone mineral density
DOI: 10.1038/ng.284
[18] Germline mutations in WTX cause a sclerosing skeletal dysplasia but do not predispose to tumorigenesis
DOI: 10.1038/ng.270
[19] Somatic mutations in angiopoietin receptor gene TEK cause solitary and multiple sporadic venous malformations
DOI: 10.1038/ng.272
NATURE GEOSCIENCE (http://www.nature.com/ngeo)
[20] Earth’s ionospheric outflow dominated by hidden cold plasma
DOI: 10.1038/ngeo387
[21] Global mass wasting at continental margins during Ordovician high meteorite influx
DOI: 10.1038/ngeo386
[22] Age of stratospheric air unchanged within uncertainties over the past 30 years
DOI: 10.1038/ngeo388
NATURE MATERIALS (http://www.nature.com/naturematerials)
[23] Spin polarization in half-metals probed by femtosecond spin excitation
DOI: 10.1038/nmat2341
[24] Tunable magnetic exchange interactions in manganese-doped inverted core–shell ZnSe–CdSe nanocrystals
DOI: 10.1038/nmat2342
Nature MEDICINE (http://www.nature.com/naturemedicine)
[25] Neurotoxic autoantibodies mediate congenital cortical impairment of offspring in maternal lupus
DOI: 10.1038/nm.1892
NATURE METHODS (http://www.nature.com/nmeth)
[26] Infrared laser-mediated gene induction in targeted single cells in vivo
DOI: 10.1038/nmeth.1278
[27] Empirically controlled mapping of the Caenorhabditis elegans protein-protein interactome network
DOI: 10.1038/nmeth.1279
[28] Integrated network analysis platform for protein-protein interactions
DOI: 10.1038/nmeth.1282
[29] Cost-effective strategies for completing the interactome
DOI: 10.1038/nmeth.1283
[30] Sensitive, specific polymorphism discovery in bacteria using massively parallel sequencing
DOI: 10.1038/nmeth.1286
NATURE NANOTECHNOLOGY (http://www.nature.com/nnano)
[31] Imaging the electrical conductance of individual carbon nanotubes with photothermal current microscopy
DOI: 10.1038/nnano.2008.363
[32] Processing and properties of highly enriched double-wall carbon nanotubes
DOI: 10.1038/nnano.2008.364
[33] Multimodal optical sensing and analyte specificity using single-walled carbon nanotubes
DOI: 10.1038/nnano.2008.369
Nature NEUROSCIENCE (http://www.nature.com/natureneuroscience)
[34] Trait anxiety and impoverished prefrontal control of attention
DOI: 10.1038/nn.2242
NATURE PHOTONICS (http://www.nature.com/nphoton)
[35] Ultrafast active plasmonics
DOI: 10.1038/nphoton.2008.249
[36] High k-space lasing in a dual-wavelength quantum cascade laser
DOI: 10.1038/nphoton.2008.250
[37] Magnetic field assisted terahertz quantum cascade laser operating up to 225 K
DOI: 10.1038/nphoton.2008.251
Nature PHYSICS (http://www.nature.com/naturephysics)
[38] Nonlinear response of the vacuum Rabi resonance
DOI: 10.1038/nphys1154
[39] Attosecond phase locking of harmonics emitted from laser-produced plasmas
DOI: 10.1038/nphys1155
Nature STRUCTURAL & MOLECULAR BIOLOGY (http://www.nature.com/natstructmolbiol)
[40] Crystal structure of TIPE2 provides insights into immune homeostasis
DOI: 10.1038/nsmb.1522
[41] Structure of the motor subunit of type I restriction-modification complex EcoR124I
DOI: 10.1038/nsmb.1523
[42] miR-29 miRNAs activate p53 by targeting p85alpha and CDC42
DOI: 10.1038/nsmb.1533
[43] Histone H3 tail clipping regulates gene expression
DOI: 10.1038/nsmb.1534
[44] An atypical RNA polymerase involved in RNA silencing shares small subunits with RNA polymerase II
DOI: 10.1038/nsmb.1539
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***FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: The following papers were published online on Nature Biotechnology’s website on Friday 05 December at 2000 London time (GMT) / 1500 US Eastern time; and on Nature Neuroscience’s website on 08 December at 2000 London time (GMT) / 1500 US Eastern time respectively; so are no longer under embargo. The rest of the papers on this press release remain under embargo until 1800 London time (GMT) / 1300 US Eastern time on Sunday 14 December 2008.***
[45] Analysis of histone 2B-GFP retention reveals slowly cycling hematopoietic stem cells
DOI: 10.1038/nbt.1517
[46] Bi-stable neural state switches
DOI: 10.1038/nn.2247
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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.
ARGENTINA
Buenos Aires: 9
AUSTRALIA
Sydney: 17, 18
BELGIUM
Brussels: 19
Ghent: 27
Namur: 27
CANADA:
Quebec: 43
CHINA
Beijing: 40
Shanghai: 2
CZECH REPUBLIC
Nove Hrady: 41
DENMARK
Aarhus: 4
Ballerup: 17
Copenhagen: 4
Glostrup: 4
Herlev: 17
FINLAND
Helsinki: 5, 28
Jakobstad: 5
Kuopio: 5
Oulu: 5, 19, 38
Savitaipale: 5
Tampere: 28
Turku: 28
FRANCE
Bordeaux: 18
Gif-sur-Yvette: 23
Grenoble: 16
La Tronche: 27
Lyon: 15
Nantes: 18
Paris: 18
Villeurbanne: 15
GERMANY
Berlin: 46
Bielefeld: 23
Dresen: 36
Essen: 5
Frankfurt: 22
Garching: 39
Goettingen: 23, 33
Hamburg: 41
Hannover: 1
Heidelberg: 22
Martinsried: 13, 44
Munich: 5
Munster: 18
Neuherberg: 5
GREECE
Crete: 39
ICELAND
Akureyri: 17
Reykjavik: 4, 17
IRELAND
Dublin: 27
ISRAEL
Tel Aviv: 15
ITALY
Cagliari: 5
Genoa: 25
Rome: 5
JAPAN
Kanagawa: 8, 27
Kyoto: 6, 26
Nagoya: 26
Osaka: 8, 26
Sendai: 22
Tokyo: 26
NETHERLANDS
Nijmegen: 4
Rotterdam: 5
Utrecht: 27
NEW ZEALAND
Dunedin: 18
NORWAY
Bergen: 18
RUSSIA
Moscow: 39
SOUTH AFRICA
Cape Town: 30
SOUTH KOREA
Seoul: 42
SPAIN
Madrid: 9
SWEDEN
Malmo: 5
Uppsala: 20
SWITZERLAND
Lausanne: 5
Zurich: 41
UNITED KINGDOM
Aberdeen: 21
Belfast: 18, 39
Brighton: 8
Bristol: 5, 14
Cambridge: 5, 34, 43, 44
Edinburgh: 14, 18
Exeter: 5
Glasgow: 5
Leeds: 5
Leicester: 5
London: 5, 18
Manchester: 18
Norwich: 44
Nottingham: 14
Oxford: 5
Sheffield: 36
Southampton: 5, 35
York: 14
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Alabama
Tuscaloosa: 23
California
Berkeley: 22, 34
Davis: 24
La Jolla: 29
Los Angeles: 5, 37
San Francisco: 2, 10, 11, 27
Santa Cruz: 11
Stanford: 46
Colorado
Boulder: 7, 22
Connecticut
New Haven: 38
District of Columbia
Washington: 9, 24
Florida
Miami: 22
Tallahassee: 37
Georgia
Atlanta: 33, 35
Illinois
Chicago: 3
Evanston: 32
Urbana: 33
Maryland
Baltimore: 4, 5, 9
Bethesda: 5, 15
Gaithersburg: 5
Massachusetts
Boston: 5, 19, 27, 30, 45
Cambridge: 5, 23, 27, 30, 31, 33, 37, 45
Charlestown: 27
Great Barrington: 14
Lowell: 36
Michigan
Ann Arbor: 5
Detroit: 29
New Hampshire
Durham: 20
New Jersey
Piscataway: 12
Princeton: 36, 41
New Mexico
Albuquerque: 37
Los Alamos: 24
New York
Bronx: 25
Buffalo: 12
Ithaca: 31
Manhasset: 25
New York: 1, 9, 12, 13, 27
White Plains: 25
Pennsylvania
King of Prussia: 5
Philadelphia: 40
Texas
Houston: 18
Virginia
Alexandria: 33
Washington
Seattle: 18
Wisconsin
Madison: 1
PRESS CONTACTS…
For media inquiries relating to embargo policy for all the Nature Research Journals:
Rachel Twinn (Nature London)
Tel: +44 20 7843 4658; E-mail: [email protected]
Katherine Anderson (Nature New York)
Tel: +1 212 726 9231; E-mail: [email protected]
Ruth Francis (Head of Press, 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 Geoscience (London)
Heike Langenberg
Tel: +44 20 7843 4042; E-mail: [email protected]
Nature Immunology (New York)
Laurie Dempsey
Tel: +1 212 726 9372; E-mail: [email protected]
Nature Materials (London)
Alison Stoddart
Tel: +44 20 7843 4593; E-mail: [email protected]
Nature Medicine (New York)
Juan Carlos Lopez
Tel: +1 212 726 9325; E-mail: [email protected]
Nature Methods (New York)
Hugh Ash
Tel: +1 212 726 9627; E-mail: [email protected]
Nature Nanotechnology (London)
Peter Rodgers
Tel: +44 20 7014 4019; Email: [email protected]
Nature Neuroscience (New York)
Kalyani Narasimhan
Tel: +1 212 726 9319; E-mail: [email protected]
Nature Photonics (Tokyo)
Oliver Graydon
Tel: +81 3 3267 8776; 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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