THE NATURE RESEARCH JOURNALS PRESS RELEASE
For papers that will be published online on 5 February 2006
This press release is copyrighted to the Nature journals mentioned below.
This press release contains:
* Summaries of newsworthy papers:
* Sugar-coating it - Nature Chemical Biology
* A taste of the unexpected - Nature Neuroscience
* Releasing immune cells from the bone marrow - Nature Immunology
* 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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more information about DOIs and Advance Online Publication, see
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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.
******************NATURE CHEMICAL BIOLOGY**************************
http://www.nature.com/nchembio
http://www.nature.com/natureneuroscience
[1] Sugar-coating it
DOI: 10.1038/nchembio767
An easy and rapid method for characterizing the sugar coat on the outside of
bacteria, which can be a critical factor in bacterial infection, is reported
in the March issue of Nature Chemical Biology. Bacteria are often surrounded
by a sugar coating, which is involved in initiating infection and evading
the immune system. Studying this sugar coat has been challenging because the
specific sugars around the bacteria can quickly change during the course of
infection, and the techniques for studying bacterial sugars are too slow to
investigate these dynamic changes.
Lara Mahal and colleagues have solved this problem by developing a
microarray; a glass plate containing rows of dots, in which each dot
contains a different lectin, or sugar-binding protein. Each lectin only
binds specific sugars so when bacteria come in to contact with the
microarray, they stick to a specific pattern of dots, providing a readout of
the sugars that surround the bacteria. Because the method is quite rapid,
changes in the outside of a pathogenic form of E. coli were easily detected
by this approach.
This microarray method provides a potentially important tool for
diagnosing infection, and may also yield new insights into the ways in which
sugars control pathogenic and symbiotic interactions between bacteria and
people.
Author contact:
Lara Mahal (University of Texas Austin, TX, USA)
Tel: +1 512 471 2318, E-mail: [email protected]
Other papers from Nature Chemical Biology to be published online at the same
time and with the same embargo:
[2] Completing the uric acid degradation pathway through phylogenetic
comparison of whole genomes
DOI: 10.1038/nchembio768
**********************NATURE NEUROSCIENCE***********************
http://www.nature.com/natureneuroscience
[3] A taste of the unexpected
DOI: 10.1038/nn1645
We don't always perceive things the way they are. People's expectations of a
taste modify activity in the primary taste areas of the brain, reports a
study in the March issue of Nature Neuroscience.
Jack Nitschke and colleagues studied how expectancy influences the way we
perceive a taste by monitoring the brain activity of subjects presented with
different tastes. During brain scanning, subjects tasted an unpleasant
bitter or a pleasant sweet taste, and then indicated how aversive they found
the taste. Before each tasting, they saw a cue that signaled whether the
taste would be pleasant or unpleasant. Occasionally, these cues were
misleading, and a very unpleasant taste was preceded by a cue indicating
only a mildly unpleasant taste. Subjects rated the unpleasant taste as less
aversive when it was preceded by this misleading cue, and this perception
was accompanied by less activation in the primary taste cortex. When the
same taste was preceded by the correct cue, indicating it would be very
unpleasant, subjects found it more aversive, and there was greater
activation in the primary taste cortex.
These results indicate that contrary to previous research, the primary taste
cortex does not respond solely to inputs from taste buds, and that
expectancy modulates our perception of events.
Author contact:
Jack Nitschke (University of Wisconsin, WI, USA)
Tel: +1 608 262 8600,
E-mail: [email protected]
Other papers from Nature Neuroscience to be published online at the same
time and with the same embargo:
[4] Constitutive sharing of recycling synaptic vesicles between presynaptic
boutons
DOI: 10.1038/nn1640
[5] The representation of perceived angular size in human primary visual
cortex
DOI: 10.1038/nn1641
[6] A transient network of intrinsically bursting starburst cells underlies
the generation of retinal waves
DOI: 10.1038/nn1644
[7] VEGF-C is a trophic factor for neural progenitors in the vertebrate
embryonic brain
DOI: 10.1038/nn1646
**********************NATURE IMMUNOLOGY*************************
http://www.nature.com/natureimmunology
[8] Releasing immune cells from the bone marrow
DOI: 10.1038/ni1309
A new function of chemical signals called 'chemokines' is revealed in a
study in the March issue of Nature Immunology. Chemokines were previously
believed to function solely as guides for immune cells moving from the
circulation to tissues, but this new research shows that chemokines can also
cause the release of immune cells from niches such as the bone marrow.
Studies on chemokine function have focused on their role in attracting
immune cells, such as inflammatory monocytes, to specific sites in the body.
Homing of monocytes to the spleen during infection, for example, was
previously thought to occur by chemokine attraction of monocytes that
express the protein CCR2, a chemokine-responsive molecule on the surface of
the cells. Work by Serbina and Pamer instead shows that monocytes require
CCR2 for release from bone marrow niches where they are produced. After
release into the circulation, the cells travel to the spleen without further
requirement for CCR2.
These new data identify a previously unknown function for chemokines as
'gatekeepers' in addition to their known function in controlling the
movement of immune cells.
Author contacts:
Dr. Natalya Serbina (Memorial Sloan-Kettering Institute, NY USA)
Tel no: +1 212 639 8050, Email: [email protected]
Dr. Eric G. Pamer (Memorial Sloan-Kettering Institute, NY USA)
Tel no: +1 212 639 7809, Email: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
Additional contact for comments on paper:
Dr. Barrett Rollins (Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA, USA)
Tel: +1 617 632 3896; E-mail: [email protected]
****************************************************************
Items from other Nature journals to be published online at the same time and
with the same embargo:
Nature PHYSICS (http://www.nature.com/naturephysics
<http://www.nature.com/naturematerials>)
[9] Angle-resolved phase-sensitive determination of the in-plane gap
symmetry in YBa2Cu3O7?delta
DOI: 10.1038/nphys215
NATURE MATERIALS (<http://www.nature.com/naturematerials>)
[10] A strong regioregularity effect in self-organizing conjugated polymer
films and high-efficiency polythiophene:fullerene solar cells
DOI: 10.1038/nmat1574
[11] Forced crumpling of self-avoiding elastic sheets
DOI: 10.1038/nmat1581
Nature MEDICINE (<http://www.nature.com/naturemedicine>)
[12] Angiopoietin-2 sensitizes endothelial cells to TNF-alpha and has a
crucial role in the induction of inflammation
DOI: 10.1038/nm1351
[13] Design and use of conditional MHC class I ligands
DOI: 10.1038/nm1360
[14] Natural regulatory T cells control the development of atherosclerosis
in mice
DOI: 10.1038/nm1343
[15] A T-cell HCV vaccine eliciting effective immunity against heterologous
virus challenge in chimpanzees
DOI: 10.1038/nm1353
NATURE GENETICS (<http://www.nature.com/naturegenetics>)
[16] Mutations in NALP7 cause recurrent hydatidiform moles and reproductive
wastage in humans
DOI: 10.1038/ng1740
[17] Identification of an imprinting control region affecting the expression
of all transcripts in the Gnas cluster
DOI: 10.1038/ng1731
[18] Morphogenesis in skin is governed by discrete sets of differentially
expressed microRNAs
DOI: 10.1038/ng1744
[19] Polygenic control of Caenorhabditis elegans fat storage
DOI: 10.1038/ng1739
NATURE CELL BIOLOGY (<http://www.nature.com/naturecellbiology>)
[20] The NuRD component Mbd3 is required for pluripotency of embryonic stem
cells
DOI: 10.1038/ncb1372
Nature STRUCTURAL & MOLECULAR BIOLOGY
(<http://www.nature.com/natstructmolbiol>)
[21] Mapping the interaction surface of linker histone H10 with the
nucleosome of native chromatin in vivo
DOI: 10.1038/nsmb1050
[22] Double-sided ubiquitin binding of Hrs-UIM in endosomal protein sorting
DOI: 10.1038/nsmb1051
[23] Crystal structure of the essential N-terminal domain of telomerase
reverse transcriptase
DOI: 10.1038/nsmb1054
[24] Structural basis for ubiquitin recognition and autoubiquitination by
Rabex-5
DOI: 10.1038/nsmb1064
***************************************************************
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
Leuven: 7
CANADA
Montreal: 16
FINLAND
Helsinki: 7
FRANCE
Cedex: 14
Paris: 7, 14
GERMANY
Berlin: 12
Freiburg: 12
Giessen: 12
Hamburg: 12
Heidelberg: 12
Julich: 11
Mainz: 16
INDIA
Chandigarh: 16
ITALY
Parma: 2
Rome: 15
JAPAN
Ibaraki: 22
LEBANON
Beruit: 16
NORWAY
Oslo: 22
PAKISTAN
Islamabad: 16
SOUTH KOREA
Pohang: 10
Pusan: 10
SWEDEN
Stockholm: 14
THE NETHERANDS
Amsterdam: 13
Enschede: 9
Rotterdam: 13
UNITED KINGDOM
Brighton: 17
Cambridge: 17
Edinburgh: 20
Harwell: 17
Oxford: 17
Southampton: 10
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Arkansas
Little Rock: 6
California
San Francisco: 19
Colorado
Boulder: 23
Connecticut
New Haven: 14
Maryland
Bethesda: 21, 24
Frederick: 24
Massachusetts
Boston: 19
Cambridge: 3
Michigan
Ann Arbor: 16
Minnesota
Minneapolis: 5
Mississippi
Jackson: 21
New Jersey
Princeton: 3
New York
New York: 3, 8, 18, 19
Tarrytown: 12
Yorktown Heights: 9
North Carolina
Durham: 18
Tennessee
Memphis: 21
Texas
Austin: 1
Galveston: 3
Washington
Seattle: 5
Wisconsin
Madison: 3
PRESS CONTACTS...
For media inquiries relating to embargo policy for all the Nature Research
Journals:
Victoria Picknell (Nature London)
Tel: +44 20 7843 4502; E-mail: [email protected]
Ruth Francis (Senior Press Officer, 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)
Kathy Aschheim
Tel: +1 212 726 9346; E-mail: [email protected]
Nature Cell Biology (London)
Bernd Pulverer
Tel: +44 20 7843 4892; E-mail: [email protected]
Nature Chemical Biology (Boston)
Beatrice Chrystall
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 Immunology (New York)
Laurie Dempsey
Tel: +1 212 726 9372; E-mail: [email protected]
Nature Materials (London)
Maria Bellantone
Tel: +44 20 7843 4556; E-mail: [email protected]
Nature Medicine (New York)
Juan Carlos Lopez
Tel: +1 212 726 9325; E-mail: [email protected]
Nature Neuroscience (New York)
Sandra Aamodt (based in California)
Tel: +1 530 795 3256; E-mail: [email protected]
Nature Physics (London)
Alison Wright
Tel: +44 20 7843 4555; E-mail: [email protected]
Nature Structural & Molecular Biology (New York)
Ed Feng
Tel: +1 212 726 9351; E-mail: [email protected]
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