NATURE AND THE NATURE RESEARCH JOURNALS PRESS RELEASE
For papers that will be published online on 04 April 2010
This press release is copyrighted to the Nature journals mentioned below.
This press release contains:
· Summaries of newsworthy papers:
Medicine: Thalidomide’s latest comeback
Geoscience: Nitrous oxide emissions from thawing permafrost
Geoscience: Ancient acidic waters on Mars
Genetics: Genetic variants associated with brain aneurysm
Immunology: Exploitation by an expert virus
Genetics: Structural variation in the human genome
Nature: Alpha-cells unexpectedly versatile
Methods: Quantifying human tumour proteins
And finally…Nature: Molecular basis of water tasting
· 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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[1] Medicine: Thalidomide’s latest comeback
DOI: 10.1038/nm.2131
Thalidomide may be useful for the treatment of a hereditary condition that affects the blood vessels, suggests a report online in this week’s Nature Medicine.
Hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia (HHT) is an inherited disorder characterized by malformations of the blood vessels. Many patients develop recurrent, difficult-to-treat nosebleeds, which can severely affect quality of life. Franck Lebrin and his colleagues report that treating HHT patients with thalidomide reduces the severity and frequency of nosebleeds. In an experimental mouse model of HHT, thalidomide treatment rescued vessel wall defects through a mechanism involving a growth factor known as PDGF. Biopsies of the nasal surface tissue from patients with HHT showed that similar mechanisms may explain the effects of thalidomide treatment in humans.
Thalidomide was originally used to treat nausea during pregnancy in the 1960s, but the drug was removed from the market after severe congenital defects appeared in newborns. More recently, thalidomide has experienced a revival and is being used to treat certain forms of cancer. Its potential use in people with HHT adds to the resurgence of this famous drug.
Author contact:
Franck Lebrin (INSERM, Paris, France)
Tel: +33 144 271 675; E-mail: [email protected]
[2] Geoscience: Nitrous oxide emissions from thawing permafrost
DOI: 10.1038/ngeo803
Permafrost soils release large quantities of the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide following thawing and re-saturation of the soil, according to a study published online this week in Nature Geoscience.
Twenty-five per cent of the land surface in the Northern Hemisphere is underlain by permafrost, and global warming threatens to thaw these soils. Bo Elberling and colleagues used laboratory experiments to examine the effect of thawing on nitrous oxide production in permafrost soils collected from Greenland. Thawing and drainage of the soils had little impact on nitrous oxide production. However, re-saturation of the drained soils with meltwater from the frozen soils — as would happen following thawing — increased nitrous oxide production by over 20 times. Nearly a third of the nitrous oxide produced in this process escaped into the atmosphere.
Author contact:
Bo Elberling (University of Copenhagen, Denmark)
Tel: +45 3532 2520; E-mail: [email protected]
[3]Geoscience: Ancient acidic waters on Mars
DOI: 10.1038/ngeo831
The acidic surface waters that once bathed Meridiani Planum on Mars could have been generated by interactions between groundwater and the early martian atmosphere, according to a paper published online this week in Nature Geoscience. Meridiani Planum, visited by the NASA rover Opportunity, is host to a number of rock formations thought to be formed in acidic water.
Joel Hurowitz and colleagues used data obtained by Opportunity to assess the geochemical pathways that could have led to the formation of the rocks. Their geochemical calculations showed that as iron-rich, fairly neutral groundwater reached the surface, the iron could have been rapidly oxidized by exposure to ultraviolet radiation or atmospheric oxygen. The resulting chemical reactions would have acidified the water remaining on the surface.
The team suggests that the prevalence of the acidic surface water was a consequence of the martian climate drying.
Author contact:
Joel Hurowitz (Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA)
Tel: +1 818 354 4044; E-mail: [email protected]
[4] Genetics: Genetic variants associated with brain aneurysm
DOI: 10.1038/ng.563
Three new genetic variants are associated with increased risk of intracranial aneurysm, reports a study published online this week in Nature Genetics.
Intracranial aneurysm, also called cerebral or brain aneurysm, is a balloon-like bulging of an artery in the brain, that may leak or rupture. Such bleeding in the brain often leads to severe neurologic damage and death. Intracranial aneurysms occur in approximately 2% of the general population; and of those who experience aneurismal hemorrhage, over 50% will die within 30 minutes.
Murat Gunel and colleagues performed a genome-wide analysis of nearly 6,000 patients with intracranial aneurysm from Europe and Japan. They discovered three new genetic loci that are associated with risk of intracranial aneurysm.
Author contact:
Murat Gunel (Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA)
Tel: +1 203 737 2096; E-mail: [email protected]
[5] Immunology: Exploitation by an expert virus
DOI: 10.1038/ni.1858
HIV-1 virus takes advantage of immune cell signaling pathways in order to promote its replication according, to a new report published this week in Nature Immunology. The finding points to another potential vulnerability point whereby establishment of HIV-1 infection might be halted soon after initial exposure.
HIV-1, the virus that causes AIDS, is captured by antigen-presenting dendritic cells (DCs), which can transport the virus from mucosal entry sites to lymph nodes. It can be transferred to abundant CD4+ T cells – its preferred host cell. Teunis Geijtenbeek and colleagues show that, in early stages of infection, HIV-1 promotes its own replication by utilizing two signaling pathways in DCs. One pathway is initiated by DC-SIGN – a surface receptor that captures the virus and which triggers activation of a key transcription factor called NF-kappaB. A second signal, triggered by uncoating and capture of the HIV-1 viral genome, by an internal nucleic acid sensor leads to phosphorylation of another host protein called RNAPII. Both signals are required for RNAPII to generate full-length viral genome copies necessary for early viral replication. Interference of either pathway blocked establishment of HIV-1 infection in DCs and transmission to T cells.
Author contact:
Teunis Geijtenbeek (University of Amsterdam, Netherlands)
Tel: +31 205 666 309; E-mail: [email protected]
[6] & [7] Genetics: Structural variation in the human genome
DOI: 10.1038/ng.564
DOI: 10.1038/ng.555
Two studies focusing on improving methods for the identification and analysis of structural variants - also known as copy number variants (CNVs) - are published online this week in Nature Genetics. Structural genetic variants, which are characterized by deletions, duplications, and similar mutations, establish the bulk of differences between any two human genomes. Each study provides a resource for characterizing large amounts of structural variation in individual human genomes.
Jeong-Sun Seo and colleagues performed a high-resolution analysis on the genomes of 30 Asian individuals from Korea, China and Japan. They then integrated whole-genome sequence data from three individuals, including one newly sequenced genome of a Korean female, and identified 3,547 CNVs that are potentially Asian-specific.
In a separate study, Matthew Hurles and colleagues analyzed three individual genomes and mapped over 300 CNVs with precise, base-pair resolution. Their findings revealed new insights into the underlying mutational mechanisms of CNVs.
Author contacts:
Matthew Edward Hurles (Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Cambridge, UK.)
Tel: +44 1223 495377; E-mail: [email protected]
Jeong-Sun Seo (Seoul National University, Korea)
Tel: +82 2 740 8246; E-mail: [email protected]
[8] Nature: Alpha-cells unexpectedly versatile
DOI: 10.1038/nature08894
Pancreatic beta-cells can be regenerated from an unlikely source — pancreatic alpha-cells, a study in Nature suggests. The results hint that the adult pancreas may be more plastic than was previously thought, and may aid the design of regenerative therapies for diabetes.
The adult pancreas contains various cell types including insulin-producing beta-cells and glucagon-producing alpha-cells. Transgenic mice in which virtually all beta-cells are eliminated using a toxin are able to regenerate new beta-cells if they are initially kept alive with insulin supplementation, Pedro Herrera and colleagues show. Many of these new cells are derived from alpha-cells, which become reprogrammed to secrete insulin as well as glucagon.
Alpha-cells have not been considered a potential cell source for diabetic beta-cell therapy, until now. And the authors speculate that a near or total-loss of beta-cells, such as that seen in type 1 diabetes, may cause the release of a signal that encourages beta-cells to regenerate. Understanding the related mechanisms should aid therapeutic design.
Author contact:
Pedro Herrera (University of Geneva, Switzerland)
Tel: +41 22 379 5225; E-mail: [email protected]
[9] Methods: Quantifying human tumour proteins
DOI 10.1038/nmeth.1446
A method for quantifying proteins in human tumour tissue is reported in a paper published online this week in Nature Methods. This approach could lead to new insights in tumour biology.
Proteomics – the study of cellular proteins on a large scale – is routinely carried out using mass spectrometry technology. Many approaches have been developed to quantitatively measure protein levels in biological samples by mass spectrometry. One of these methods is known as SILAC, or stable isotope labeling by amino acids in cell culture. Using SILAC, proteins in a biological sample that serves as an internal quantitative standard are marked or ‘labeled’ with amino acids containing ‘heavy’ isotopes such that their mass is shifted on the mass spectrum. This is in comparison to the test sample, which is left unlabeled. This allows very accurate quantitative analysis of the test sample by mass spectrometry. However, this method can typically only be applied to cells or organisms that can be fully metabolically labeled with heavy amino acids.
Matthias Mann and colleagues now describe a twist to the SILAC approach that allows them to quantify proteins in primary human tissue, which cannot be metabolically labeled. Human tissues, including tumours, are made up of many different cell types expressing proteins at different levels. To represent the different cell types and proteins found in a particular tumour, the team labeled a mixture of several different immortalized human cancer cell lines with heavy amino acids. They use this mixture as an internal standard for mass spectrometry–based quantification of the tumour tissue proteome. With this ‘super-SILAC’ method, they were able to accurately quantify a large number of proteins in primary human tumour tissues, including breast and brain tumours.
Besides being useful for the study of tumor biology, the super-SILAC approach could be applied for the discovery of protein biomarkers for the early detection of cancer.
Author contact:
Matthias Mann (Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry, Martinsried, Germany)
Tel: +49 89 8578 2557; E-mail: [email protected]
[10] And finally…Nature: Molecular basis of water tasting
DOI: 10.1038/nature09011
The molecular basis behind the fruitfly’s ability to taste water is revealed in this week’s Nature.
Kristin Scott and colleagues have identified a type of sensory neuron that is activated by water. The neurons express Pickpocket 28 (PPK28), a pore-forming protein that spans the plasma membrane and mediates the cellular and behavioural response to water — the loss of ppk28 abolishes water sensitivity and the flies drink less.
PPK28 belongs to a family of proteins that are involved in the detection of mechanical, acid and salt stimuli. The authors suggest that different members of this ion channel family may help to regulate osmosensation in other animals including humans.
Author contact:
Kristin Scott (University of California at Berkeley, CA, USA)
Tel: +1 510 643 4144; 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)
[11] Isolation of the elusive supercomplex that drives cyclic electron flow in photosynthesis
DOI: 10.1038/nature08885
[12] Recognition of a signal peptide by the signal recognition particle
DOI: 10.1038/nature08870
[13] MicroRNA-mediated integration of haemodynamics and Vegf signalling during angiogenesis
DOI: 10.1038/nature08889
NATURE CELL BIOLOGY (http://www.nature.com/naturecellbiology)
[14] Mitotic cell-cycle progression is regulated by CPEB1 and CPEB4-dependent translational control
DOI: 10.1038/ncb2046
[15] The CHK2–BRCA1 tumour suppressor pathway ensures chromosomal stability in human somatic cells
DOI: 10.1038/ncb2051
NATURE CHEMICAL BIOLOGY (http://www.nature.com/nchembio)
[16] Acetylation regulates Cyclophilin A catalysis, immunosuppression and HIV isomerisation
DOI: 10.1038/nchembio.342
[17] Structural and mechanistic basis for a novel mode of glycosyltransferase inhibition
DOI: 10.1038/nchembio.343
[18] Activation of membrane-permeant caged PtdIns(3)P induces endosomal fusion in cells
DOI: 10.1038/nchembio.348
[19] Electro-chemical coupling in the voltage-dependent phosphatase Ci-VSP
DOI: 10.1038/nchembio.349
NATURE CHEMISTRY (http://www.nature.com/nchem)
[20] Catalyst selection based on intermediate stability measured by mass spectrometry
DOI: 10.1038/nchem.614
[21] A novel organic redox electrolyte rivals triiodide/iodide in dye-sensitized solar cells
DOI: 10.1038/nchem.610
NATURE GEOSCIENCE (http://www.nature.com/ngeo)
[22] Links between eccentricity forcing and the 100,000-year glacial cycle
DOI: 10.1038/ngeo828
NATURE IMMUNOLOGY (http://www.nature.com/natureimmunology)
[23] Production of an antigenic peptide by insulin-degrading enzyme
DOI: 10.1038/ni.1862
NATURE MATERIALS (http://www.nature.com/naturematerials)
[24] Giant solid-state barocaloric effect in the Ni–Mn–In magnetic shape-memory alloy
DOI: 10.1038/nmat2731
[25] Epitaxial SrTiO3 films with electron mobilities exceeding 30,000 cm2 V-1 s-1
DOI: 10.1038/nmat2750
NATURE METHODS (http://www.nature.com/nmeth)
[26] Conditional Gene Expression and RNAi Using MEC-8-Dependent Splicing in C. elegans
DOI: 10.1038/nmeth.1445
[27] Optimized localization-analysis for single-molecule tracking and super-resolution microscopy
DOI: 10.1038/nmeth.1447
[28] Fast, single-molecule localization that achieves theoretically minimum uncertainty
DOI: 10.1038/nmeth.1449
NATURE NANOTECHNOLOGY (http://www.nature.com/nnano)
[29] Carbon nanotubes degraded by neutrophil myeloperoxidase induce less pulmonary inflammation
DOI: 10.1038/nnano.2010.44
[30] Penetration of thin C60 films by metal nanoparticles
DOI: 10.1038/nnano.2010.45
[31] Facile synthesis of high-quality graphene nanoribbons
DOI: 10.1038/nnano.2010.54
[32] Electron diffractive imaging of oxygen atoms in nanocrystals at sub-angstrom resolution
DOI: 10.1038/nnano.2010.55
Nature NEUROSCIENCE (http://www.nature.com/natureneuroscience)
[33] Control of submillisecond synaptic timing in binaural coincidence detectors via a somatically directed gradient of Kv1 channels
DOI: 10.1038/nn.2530
[34] Neuropeptide feedback modifies odor-evoked dynamics in C. elegans olfactory neurons
DOI: 10.1038/nn.2526
[35] The exon junction complex component Magoh controls brain size by regulating neural stem cell division
DOI: 10.1038/nn.2527
NATURE PHOTONICS (http://www.nature.com/nphoton)
[36] XFROG phase measurement of threshold harmonics in a Keldysh-scaled system
DOI: 10.1038/nphoton.2010.38
[37] Experimental quantum-enhanced estimation of a lossy phase shift
DOI: 10.1038/nphoton.2010.39
[38] Exciton–polariton spin switches
DOI: 10.1038/nphoton.2010.79
Nature PHYSICS (http://www.nature.com/naturephysics)
[39] Particle–hole symmetry breaking in the pseudogap state of Bi2201
DOI: 10.1038/nphys1632
[40] Observation of hidden phases in supersolid 4He
DOI: 10.1038/nphys1630
Nature STRUCTURAL & MOLECULAR BIOLOGY (http://www.nature.com/natstructmolbiol)
[41] Single-molecule stepping and structural dynamics of myosin X
DOI: 10.1038/nsmb.1785
[42] Diversity in DNA recognition by p53 revealed by crystal structures with Hoogsteen base pairs
DOI: 10.1038/nsmb.1800
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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.
BELGIUM
Brussels: 23
Rixensart: 23
CANADA:
Montreal: 21
Toronto: 7
CHILE
Santiago: 26
DENMARK
Copenhagen: 2, 17
Lyngby: 27
FINLAND
Helsinki: 4
Kuopio: 4
FRANCE
Paris: 1, 4, 23, 38
GERMANY
Berlin: 15
Bonn: 4
Corbeil-Essonnes: 23
Dortmund: 30
Dresden: 4, 41
Duisburg: 24
Essen: 4
Frankfurt am Main: 4
Freiburg: 30
Heidelberg: 15, 18
Jena: 15
Kiel: 4
Marburg: 15
Martinsried: 9
Munich: 4
Sankt Augustin: 4
Tubingen: 4
HUNGARY
Pecs: 4
IRELAND
Dublin: 29
ISRAEL
Rehovot: 42
ITALY
Bari: 32
Lecce: 32
Rome: 38
Trieste: 32
JAPAN
Chiba: 4
Ibaraki: 39
Kanagawa: 4
Nara: 8
Okayama: 11
Osaka: 39
Saitama: 11
Sapporo: 11
Tokyo: 4
NETHERLANDS
Amsterdam: 5, 15, 20
Delft: 28
Leiden: 1
Nieuwegein: 1
Rotterdam: 4
Utrecht: 1, 4, 20
NORWAY
Longyearbyen: 2
POLAND
Torun: 37
Warsaw: 37
SOUTH KOREA
Daejeon: 40
Seoul: 7
SPAIN
Barcelona: 4, 14, 24
San Cugat del Valles: 4
SWEDEN
Stockholm: 29
SWITZERLAND
Geneva: 4, 8
Lausanne: 21, 38
Zurich: 4
THAILAND
Nakhon Ratchasima: 39
UNITED KINGDOM
Cambridge: 3, 4, 6, 7, 12, 16
Manchester: 13
Newcastle: 1
Oxford: 4, 12, 37
Sheffield: 4
Southampton: 38
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
California
Berkeley: 10, 19, 39
Menlo Park: 39
Palo Alto: 26
Pasadena: 3
San Francisco: 19
Santa Barbara: 22, 25
Stanford: 12, 27, 31, 39
Connecticut
New Haven: 4
Maryland
Baltimore: 35
Bethesda: 35
Massachusetts
Boston: 6, 7, 35
Cambridge: 3
Worcester: 13, 41
Michigan
Ann Arbor: 36
New Mexico
Albuquerque: 28
New York
New York: 26, 33, 34, 42
Stony Brook: 36
Ohio
Columbus: 36
Pennsylvania
Philadelphia: 41
Pittsburgh: 29
Texas
Austin: 33
West Virginia
Morgantown: 29
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 Cell Biology (London)
Sowmya Swaminathan
Tel: +44 20 7843 4656; E-mail: [email protected]
Nature Chemical Biology (Boston)
Sarah Daniels
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]
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