NATURE AND THE NATURE RESEARCH JOURNALS PRESS RELEASE
For papers that will be published online on 10 January 2010
This press release is copyrighted to the Nature journals mentioned below.
This press release contains:
· Summaries of newsworthy papers:
Neuroscience: How light can hurt
Geoscience: India pulled towards Asia
Genetics: Genetic variants influence heart function
Chemical Biology: A new peek at PI(3)K inhibitors
And finally…Geoscience: Heat flow on Enceladus
· 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.
Warning: This document, and the Nature journal 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 advance copies of a Nature journal’s content, may be guilty of insider trading under the US Securities Exchange Act of 1934.
PICTURES: To obtain artwork from any of the journals, you must first obtain permission from the copyright holder (if named) or author of the research paper in question (if not).
NOTE: Once a paper is published, the digital object identifier (DOI) number can be used to retrieve the abstract and full text from the journal web site (abstracts are available to everyone, full text is available only to subscribers). To do this, add the DOI to the following URL: http://dx.doi.org/ (For example, http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ng730). For more information about DOIs and Advance Online Publication, see http://www.nature.com/ng/aop/.
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 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] Neuroscience: How light can hurt
DOI: 10.1038/nn.2475
A possible reason for why light makes the pain of migraines worse is described online in Nature Neuroscience this week. The work reports a previously unknown connection between light-sensitive cells in the eye and certain nerve cells in the brain that are crucial to migraine pain perception.
Rami Burstein and colleagues found that many blind migraine sufferers still avoid light. However, blind patients who had lost the entire eye, or the optic nerve that connects the eye to the brain, did not avoid light. It therefore appeared that light exacerbation of migraine pain does involve light detected in the eye, presumably via a special class of retinal neurons that are intrinsically light sensitive and contribute to the regulation of daily rhythms, but that are known not to contribute to vision.
To test this idea, the team studied rats, where they could directly search for connections from the retina to pain areas in the brain. They found that retinal axons, including some from the intrinsically light sensitive neurons, were indeed sending connections to a group of nerve cells in the area of the brain, known as the thalamus, that are already known to receive and transmit pain signals related to migraine. This connection may explain how light exacerbates migraine pain.
Author contact:
Rami Burstein (Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, MA, USA)
Tel: +1 617 735 2832; E-mail: [email protected]
[2] Geoscience: India pulled towards Asia
DOI: 10.1038/ngeo725
The ongoing movement of India towards Central Asia could be driven by a downward pull from the Indian continental plate, according to a study published online this week in Nature Geoscience. This work provides a different interpretation of the forces that governed the collision of India and Asia between about 55 and 30 million years ago and subsequent convergence.
Fabio Capitanio and colleagues used a numerical model to explore the balance of forces during the collision of the Asian and Indian continental plates, probably the most spectacular convergence of continental plates on Earth. They find that once its upper crust was scraped off in the collision zone, the Indian plate was denser than the underlying mantle, and would have continued to drag India towards Asia. The authors therefore suggest that the collision of the two continental plates that generated the Himalayas did not stop plate movement because the bulk of the Indian plate was sufficiently dense to sink into the underlying mantle.
In an accompanying News and Views article, Dietmar Müller says “Capitanio and colleagues have provided a fresh view to the long-standing problem of understanding the sequence of events before and after the collision of India and Asia”.
Author contacts:
Fabio Capitanio (Monash University, Clayton, Australia)
Tel: +61 3 990 53 160; E-mail: [email protected]
Dietmar Müller (University of Sydney, Australia) N&V author
Tel: +61 2 9036 6533; E-mail: [email protected]
[3], [4] & [5] Genetics: Genetic variants influence heart function
DOI: 10.1038/ng.511
DOI: 10.1038/ng.516
DOI: 10.1038/ng.517
Three independent studies have identified genetic factors that influence heart rate and other electrocardiogram measurements. The studies, online this week in Nature Genetics, offer new insight into common genetic variants that influence electrical activity in the heart.
Cardiac conduction is the rate by which the heart conducts electrical impulses. The electrocardiogram (ECG) is a common clinical test that is used to evaluate the function of the cardiac conduction system and assess heart rate variability. Heart rate is usually expressed as beats per minute, while the other measurements obtained from the ECG define time intervals of specific steps in the cardiac cycle. In a normally beating heart, an electrical signal initially spreads from the right atrium to the left atrium, which is represented by the P wave on the ECG. Consequently, the electrical signal leads to ventricular contraction, which corresponds to the QRS duration. The PR interval is the length of time from the beginning of the P-wave to the beginning of the QRS duration.
Hilma Holm and colleagues analyzed approximately 20,000 individuals of European ancestry and identified one variant at the gene MYH6 that is associated with heart rate. They also found that variants at the genes TBX5 and SCN10A were both associated with PR interval and QRS duration. John Chambers and colleagues carried out an analysis of 6543 Indian Asians and found that the same variant in SCN10A also is associated with PR interval in the Indian Asian population. The team performed replication testing in 6243 Indian Asians and 5370 Europeans and confirmed that the variant at SCN10A is associated with prolonged cardiac conduction, Finally, Arne Pfeufer and colleagues report a meta-analysis of 28,517 European individuals and identified nine loci associated with PR interval, which include TBX5 and SCN10A.
Author contacts:
Hilma Holm (deCODE Genetics, Reykjavik, Iceland) Author paper [3]
Tel: +354 5 702 830; E-mail: [email protected]
Edward Farmer (deCODE Genetics) Media contact paper [3]
Tel: +44 7796 010107; E-mail: [email protected]
John Chambers (Imperial College, London, UK) Author paper [4]
Tel: +44 7866 365776; E-mail: [email protected]
Jaspal Kooner (Imperial College, London, UK) Co-author paper [4]
Tel: +44 20 8383 3240; E-mail: [email protected]
Arne Pfeufer (Helmholtz Zentrum München, Neuherberg, Germany) Author paper [5]
Tel: +49 89 3187 3545; E-mail: [email protected]
[6] Chemical Biology: A new peek at PI(3)K inhibitors
DOI: 10.1038/nchembio.293
A first glimpse at the structure of an important drug target is reported online this week in Nature Chemical Biology. The enzyme – PI(3)K – has been implicated in a wide range of diseases including cancer and immunological diseases and a number of inhibitors have entered clinical trials. It’s hoped the research will provide important insights for designing better drug candidates.
There are a number of closely related variants, or ‘isoforms’, of PI(3)K and it is becoming clear that the specificity of inhibitors for these isoforms will affect the therapeutic potential of drug candidates. Roger Williams and colleagues now report the first crystal structure of a specific isoform of a PI(3)K – the delta isoform – both by itself and in complex with a wide range of isoform-selective and non-selective drugs that inhibit its function. Together, these structures reveal clues as to how these inhibitors achieve both potency and selectivity.
The PI(3)K delta isoform has been particularly implicated in immune inflammation, leukemias and some additional cancers and these structural insights are expected to open up better drug leads for these diseases.
Author contact:
Roger Williams, (MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK)
Tel: +44 1223 402171; E-mail: [email protected]
[7] And finally…Geoscience: Heat flow on Enceladus
DOI: 10.1038/ngeo731
The large jets of water vapour that are observed only in the southern polar region of Saturn’s moon Enceladus can be explained as a manifestation of a waning event of catastrophic renewal of the moon’s crust. Research, published online this week in Nature Geoscience, suggests that such episodes of strong convection could also have played a part in shaping the surfaces of other icy satellites in the Solar System.
Craig O’Neill and Francis Nimmo simulated convection of Enceladus’s ice mantle. They find that occasional episodes during which parts of Enceladus’s ice mantle are recycled into the moon’s interior could explain the present activity and heat loss in the body’s South Polar Region, as well as the heavily deformed surface observed on Enceladus. They estimate that catastrophic convection events occur every 100 to 1,000 million years and last about 10 million years.
The authors conclude that we are currently observing Enceladus in one of its rare phases of resurfacing that make up only about 1–10% of the time.
Author contact:
Craig O’Neill (Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia)
Tel: +61 2 9850 9673; E-mail: [email protected]
****************************************************************
Items from other Nature journals to be published online at the same time and with the same embargo:
Nature (http://www.nature.com/nature)
[8] Hsp90 prevents phenotypic variation by suppressing the mutagenic activity of transposons
DOI: 10.1038/nature08739
NATURE CHEMICAL BIOLOGY (http://www.nature.com/nchembio)
[9] A causative link between the structure of aberrant protein oligomers and their toxicity
DOI: 10.1038/nchembio.283
[10] Chemical decay of an antibiotic inverts selection for resistance
DOI: 10.1038/nchembio.289
NATURE CHEMISTRY (http://www.nature.com/nchem)
[11] Analysis of the reactivity and selectivity of fullerene dimerization reactions at the atomic level
DOI: 10.1038/nchem.482
[12] Towards quantum chemistry on a quantum computer
DOI: 10.1038/nchem.483
[13] Random two-dimensional string networks based on divergent coordination assembly
DOI: 10.1038/nchem.503
NATURE GENETICS (http://www.nature.com/naturegenetics)
[14] Genome-wide association study of ankylosing spondylitis identifies multiple non-MHC susceptibility loci
DOI: 10.1038/ng.513
[15] Common variants at 2q37.3, 8q24.21, 15q21.3, and 16q24.1 influence chronic lymphocytic leukemia risk
DOI: 10.1038/ng.510
NATURE GEOSCIENCE (http://www.nature.com/ngeo)
[16] Moisture variability in the southwestern United States linked to abrupt glacial climate change
DOI: 10.1038/ngeo707
[17] Influence of Bering Strait flow and North Atlantic circulation on glacial sea-level changes
DOI: 10.1038/ngeo729
NATURE MATERIALS (http://www.nature.com/naturematerials)
[18] Current-driven spin torque induced by the Rashba effect in a ferromagnetic metal layer
DOI: 10.1038/nmat2613
[19] Nanopatterning Si(111) surfaces as a selective surface-chemistry route
DOI: 10.1038/nmat2611
[20] Three-dimensional jamming and flows of soft glassy materials
DOI: 10.1038/nmat2615
[21] Ordered mesoporous alpha-MoO3 with iso-oriented nanocrystalline grains for next-generation thin-film pseudocapacitors
DOI: 10.1038/nmat2612
Nature MEDICINE (http://www.nature.com/naturemedicine)
[22] Crucial role of interleukin-7 in T helper type 17 survival and expansion in autoimmune disease
DOI: 10.1038/nm.2077
NATURE METHODS (http://www.nature.com/nmeth)
[23] Genome-scale DNA methylation mapping of clinical samples at single-nucleotide resolution
DOI: 10.1038/nmeth.1414
NATURE NANOTECHNOLOGY (http://www.nature.com/nnano)
[24] Above-bandgap voltages from ferroelectric photovoltaic devices
DOI:10.1038/nnano.2009.451
Nature NEUROSCIENCE (http://www.nature.com/natureneuroscience)
[25] TSC2-Rheb signaling regulates EphA-mediated axon guidance
DOI: 10.1038/nn.2477
NATURE PHOTONICS (http://www.nature.com/nphoton)
[26] Coherent excitation of Rydberg atoms in micrometre-sized atomic vapour cells
DOI: 10.1038/nphoton.2009.260
[27] A matterless double slit
DOI: 10.1038/nphoton.2009.261
[28] Highly power-efficient quantum cascade lasers
DOI: 10.1038/nphoton.2009.262
[29] Quantum cascade lasers that emit more light than heat
DOI: 10.1038/nphoton.2009.263
Nature PHYSICS (http://www.nature.com/naturephysics)
[30] Superconductivity in one-atomic-layer metal films grown on Si(111)
DOI: 10.1038/nphys1499
[31] Ultrafast energy transfer between water molecules
DOI: 10.1038/nphys1498
[32] A hitherto unrecognized source of low-energy electrons in water
DOI: 10.1038/nphys1500
[33] Ferroelectricity in a one-dimensional organic quantum magnet
DOI: 10.1038/nphys1503
Nature STRUCTURAL & MOLECULAR BIOLOGY (http://www.nature.com/natstructmolbiol)
[34] Structural basis for the Rho- and phosphoinositide-dependent localization of the exocyst subunit Sec3
DOI: 10.1038/nsmb.1722
[35] Alda-1 is an agonist and chemical chaperone for the common human aldehyde dehydrogenase 2 variant
DOI: 10.1038/nsmb.1737
[36] An APP inhibitory domain containing the Flemish mutation modulates gamma-secretase activity for Abeta Production
DOI: 10.1038/nsmb.1743
[37] APOBEC3 proteins mediate the clearance of foreign DNA from human cells
DOI: 10.1038/nsmb.1744
[38] Allosteric regulation of Argonaute proteins by miRNAs
DOI: 10.1038/nsmb.1736
[39] Comprehensive discovery of endogenous Argonaute binding sites in C. elegans
DOI: 10.1038/nsmb.1745
*****************************************************************
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.
AUSTRALIA
Brisbane : 12, 14
Canberra: 17
Clayton : 2
Sydney: 7
BELGIUM
Louvain-la-Neuve: 17
CANADA:
Alberta: 14
Toronto: 14
Vancouver: 13
CHINA
Beijing: 30
Hong Kong: 30
Shanghai: 22
DENMARK
Copenhagen: 15
FRANCE
Champs sur Marne: 20
Gif-sur-Yvette: 17
Grenoble: 18
Palaiseau: 12
Strasbourg: 13
Toulouse: 19
GERMANY
Berlin: 32
Frankfurt: 31
Garching: 13, 32
Giessen: 21
Heidelberg: 27, 32
Karlsruhe: 13
Mainz: 5
Marburg:
Munich: 5
Neuherberg: 5
Saarbrucken: 23
Stuttgart: 26
ICELAND
Kopavogur: 5
Reykjavik: 3, 5
ITALY
Bari: 8
Cagliari: 5
Florence: 8
Lecce: 8
Rome: 2, 8
JAPAN
Chiba: 34
Saitama: 11, 34
Tokyo: 11, 33, 34
Tsukuba: 11, 33
Wako: 33
Yokohama: 34
JORDAN
Zarqa: 31
NETHERLANDS
Amsterdam: 4
Leiden: 5
Rotterdam: 5
The Hague: 5
NORWAY
Oslo: 3
Tromso: 3
Trondheim: 3
SPAIN
Barcelona: 15, 18
Santiago de Compostela: 15
SWEDEN
Lund: 15
Stockholm: 15, 25
Uppsala: 15
SWITZERLAND
Geneva: 6
Zurich: 2, 9
TAIWAN
HsinChu: 24
UNITED KINGDOM
Bath: 14
Bournemouth: 15
Bristol: 14
Cambridge: 6, 9, 14, 24
Cardiff: 15
Hull: 15
Leicester: 15
Liverpool: 15
London: 2, 4
Middlesex: 4
Newcastle: 15
Oxford: 12, 14, 16
Sutton: 15
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Arizona
Tucson: 16
California
Berkeley: 24, 31
City of Industry: 28
Hollywood: 5
Irvine: 9
La Jolla: 6, 25, 39
Los Angeles: 14, 21
Malibu: 21
San Francisco: 6, 14, 37
Santa Cruz: 7
Sherman Oaks: 14
Stanford: 35
Colorado
Boulder: 17
Illinois
Evanston: 29
Indiana
Indianapolis: 35
Maryland
Baltimore: 5, 28, 38
Bethesda: 14
Massachusetts
Boston: 1, 5, 10, 23, 25
Cambridge: 10, 12, 17, 23
Framingham: 5
Michigan
Ann Arbor: 5
Minnesota
Minneapolis: 5, 37
Missouri
Kirksville: 12
New Jersey
Piscataway: 19
Princeton: 28
New York
New York: 36
North Carolina
Winston-Salem: 5
Ohio
Cleveland: 5
Oklahoma
Norman: 26
Oregon
Hillsboro: 19
Pennsylvania
Allentown: 19
University Park: 30
Texas
Houston: 14, 22
Richardson: 19
Utah
Salt Lake City: 1
Washington
Seattle: 5
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]
Neda Afsarmanesh (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)
Michael Francisco
Tel: +1 212 726 9288; E-mail: [email protected]
Nature Chemical Biology (Boston)
Andrea Garvey
Tel: +1 617 475 9241, E-mail: [email protected]
Nature Chemistry (London)
Stuart Cantrill
Tel: +44 20 7014 4018; E-mail: [email protected]
Nature Genetics (New York)
Myles Axton
Tel: +1 212 726 9324; 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)
Vincent Dusastre
Tel: +44 20 7843 4531; 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)
Sabbi Lall
Tel: +1 212 726 9326; E-mail: [email protected]
About Nature Publishing Group (NPG):
Nature Publishing Group (NPG) is a publisher of high impact scientific and medical information in print and online. NPG publishes journals, online databases and services across the life, physical, chemical and applied sciences and clinical medicine.
Focusing on the needs of scientists, Nature (founded in 1869) is the leading weekly, international scientific journal. In addition, for this audience, NPG publishes a range of Nature research journals and Nature Reviews journals, plus a range of prestigious academic journals including society-owned publications. Online, nature.com provides over 5 million visitors per month with access to NPG publications and online databases and services, including Nature News and NatureJobs plus access to Nature Network and Nature Education’s Scitable.com.
Scientific American is at the heart of NPG’s newly-formed consumer media division, meeting the needs of the general public. Founded in 1845, Scientific American is the oldest continuously published magazine in the US and the leading authoritative publication for science in the general media. Together with scientificamerican.com and 15 local language editions around the world it reaches over 3 million consumers and scientists. Other titles include Scientific American Mind and Spektrum der Wissenschaft in Germany.
Throughout all its businesses NPG is dedicated to serving the scientific and medical communities and the wider scientifically interested general public. Part of Macmillan Publishers Limited, NPG is a global company with principal offices in London, New York and Tokyo, and offices in cities worldwide including Boston, Buenos Aires, Delhi, Hong Kong, Madrid, Barcelona, Munich, Heidelberg, Basingstoke, Melbourne, Paris, San Francisco, Seoul and Washington DC. For more information, please go to www.nature.com.
