This press release contains:
· Summaries of newsworthy papers:
Malaria: Accelerating the search for drugs
Disease: Climate warming and malaria
Ocean warming: Definitely warmer
Molecular biology: Cancer culprit found
Opinion: Disarming the world's nukes
Space: A different class, times two?
Physics: New clues to high-Tc superconductivity from fullerides
Microbiology: Toxoplasma exocytosis enzyme
Materials science: A new route to compound semiconductor devices
And finally… Natural weapons
· Mention of papers to be published at the same time with the same embargo
· Geographical listing of authors
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[1] & [2] Malaria: Accelerating the search for drugs (pp 305-315; N&V)
Two new Nature studies have revealed thousands of new antimalarial drugs in an attempt to accelerate the pace of drug development for malaria.
Jose Garcia-Bustos and colleagues screened around 2 million chemical compounds for activity again the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum, yielding over 13,500 potential hits. Some 8,000 of these are active against the multidrug resistant strain Dd2 and around 80% are new to the malarial research community. R. Kiplin Guy and colleagues identified almost 600 potential hits after screening a library of over 300,000 compounds. Many of their leads appear structurally and mechanistically distinct from current drugs, and one was shown effective in a mouse model of malaria.
The results are important because antimalarial drug resistance is on the rise, and clinical practice has seen new no new chemical class of antimalarials for over ten years. New drugs, operating by different mechanisms, are desperately needed to help eliminate this infectious, life-threatening disease.
Author contact:
Jose Garcia-Bustos (GlaxoSmithKline, Tres Cantos, Spain) – Author paper [1]
Tel: +34 9180 70606
E-mail: [email protected]
R. Kiplin Guy (St Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, TN, USA) – Author paper [2]
Tel: +1 901 595 5714
E-mail: [email protected]
David Fidock (Columbia University, New York, NY, USA) N&V author
Tel: +1 212 305 0816
E-mail: [email protected]
[3] Disease: Climate warming and malaria (pp 342-345)
Although global temperature rise is likely to increase incidence of malaria, research in Nature this week suggests that the effect will be an order of magnitude smaller than the effects of control measures, and the impact could well be minor.
Temperature rise due to climate change has been predicted to increase the future incidence of infectious diseases, and previous studies showing that malaria spreads more quickly as the mercury rises. Peter Gething and colleagues compare an evidence-based map of the distribution of the Plasmodium falciparum malaria parasite with data from 1900, before the introduction of major malaria control measures. During a century when increases in global temperature have been unequivocal, the range and intensity of malaria has diminished dramatically. The authors believe that the success or failure of the anti-malaria programme is likely to be determined by factors other than climate.
Author contact:
Peter Gething (University of Oxford, UK)
Tel: +44 1865 271 262
E-mail: [email protected]
[4] Ocean warming: Definitely warmer (pp 334-337; N&V)
An international effort to understand ocean heat content estimates concludes that warming has taken place between 1993 and 2008. The work, published in Nature, addresses previous uncertainty in global upper ocean heat content and elucidates the reasons for differences in past studies.
The upper ocean acts as a giant heat sink and has absorbed the majority of excess energy generated by anthropogenic greenhouse gases. This potentially makes ocean heat content a key indicator of climate change. To be useful in climate models and elsewhere, the measurement uncertainties of this sort of key indicator need to be well understood and clearly quantified. Until now, the magnitude of changes in upper ocean heat content has been unclear, and differing estimates have created questions as to the closure of the global energy budget.
John Lyman and colleagues present an intercomparison of ocean heat content estimates. The team investigate the differences and put forth an estimate of the warming rate of the upper ocean that takes into account new uncertainties that have come to light since the IPCC Fourth Assessment. Their comparison provides evidence for a warming trend of 0.64 watts per square metre from 1993 to 2008.
Author contact:
John Lyman (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Seattle, WA, USA)
Tel: +1 206 526 4420
E-mail: [email protected]
Kevin Trenberth (National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO, USA) N&V author
Tel: +1 303 497 1318
E-mail: [email protected]
[5] Molecular biology: Cancer culprit found (pp 368-372)
Transplant patients are often treated with calcineurin inhibitors to reduce the likelihood that their immune system will kick in and reject a newly transplanted organ. Yet these drugs increase a person’s risk of developing squamous skin cancer by 65–100 times.
In a paper in this week’s Nature, G. Paolo Dotto and his group uncover a potential mechanism responsible for this increased risk. They show that ATF3, a member of the AP-1 transcription factor family, is upregulated when the calcineurin-NFAT signalling pathway is inhibited — whether in the skin cells of genetically manipulated mice, in human skin cells grafted on to mice with suppressed immunity, or in the tumours of patients.
The stepped up ATF3 expression seems to increase the size of cancer stem cell populations and promote the development of tumours.
Author contact:
G. Paolo Dotto (University of Lausanne, Epalinges, Switzerland)
Tel: +41 21 692 5720
E-mail: [email protected]
Opinion: Disarming the world's nukes
As delegates meet to review the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in New York this month, Sir Martin Rees, president of the UK Royal Society, Ben Koppelman, and a further Royal Society policy adviser, call for scientists to do their part in reducing the world’s stock of nuclear weapons.
There are no internationally agreed technologies or methods for verifying that a nuclear weapon has been dismantled and disposed of, the authors write in an Opinion piece in Nature this week. Scientists can help. The United Kingdom has proven a leader in this field, they say, thanks to collaborations between the UK Atomic Weapons Establishment, laboratories in Norway and the UK Verification Research, Training and Information Centre. Together they have worked on technologies that can verify the presence of a nuclear warhead without revealing sensitive information about that weapons design, for example.
The authors call for two things: first, the development of a network of such international disarmament laboratories. This would help to create standards for disarmament verification and to establish lines of communication between nations. Second, they call for a new international advisory group that would provide scientific advice to governments and set the agenda for disarmament labs. Such a group could be built from the bottom up, through participation of national science academies. They hope that diplomats at the NPT Review Conference will commit to both.
Author contact:
Ben Koppelman (The Royal Society, London, UK)
Tel: +44 20 7451 2532
E-mail: [email protected]
[6] & [7] Space: A different class, times two? (pp 326-333; N&V)
Two papers in Nature this week categorise in opposite ways two faint supernovae that resemble each other, but are unlike others previously seen. SN 2005E is a faint explosion with a rapidly fading light curve in a region that lacks any evidence of recent star formation. SN 2005cz, which occurred in an elliptical galaxy, resembles SN 2005E.
Using spectroscopic data, Hagai Perets and colleagues argue that SN 2005E is helium rich, like a type Ib supernova, but it occurred in a region lacking the type of massive stars that usually produce such core-collapse explosions. The helium abundance and high ejecta velocities exclude a type Ia supernova. They conclude that it came from a low-mass, old progenitor, probably a helium-accreting white dwarf in a binary system.
Koji Kawabata and co-workers see it differently. They argue that SN 2005cz is a type Ib supernova that comes from the core collapse of massive stars at the low end of the mass range that explodes. Such explosions are rare, because of their locations in regions without obvious signs of ongoing star formation.
Author contact:
Hagai Perets (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, MA, USA) – Author paper [6]
Tel: +1 617 877 7060
E-mail: [email protected]
Koji Kawabata (Hiroshima University, Japan) – Author paper [7]
Tel: +81 82 424 5765
E-mail: [email protected]
David Branch (University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA)
Tel: +1 405 325 3961
E-mail: [email protected]
[8] Physics: New clues to high-Tc superconductivity from fullerides (AOP)
DOI: 10.1038/nature09120
This paper will be published electronically on Nature's website on 19 May 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 20 May, but at a later date.
A comparison of superconductivity and magnetism in two polymorphs of the fulleride superconductor Cs3C60 has revealed some universal behaviour underlying their apparent differences. The results, published in this week’s Nature, may also shed light on the determinants of superconductivity in other high-temperature superconductors, including the copper oxides.
The crystal structure of a solid controls the interactions between its electronically active units, and hence its electronic properties. In the high-temperature superconducting copper oxides, the electronically active Cu2+ ions always form a square-planar lattice, so only one spatial arrangement is accessible to study. Now Matthew Rosseinsky and colleagues show that the caesium fulleride superconductor, Cs3C60, which was recently isolated in a body-centred cubic form, can also adopt a face-centred cubic structure.
The face-centred cubic and body-centred cubic polymorphs have similar superconducting transition temperatures (Tc = 35 K and 38 K, respectively, under moderate pressure), but their magnetic properties are quite different. In both cases, however, the superconducting state emerges from a magnetic insulating state, and the authors show that in both polymorphs, the value of Tc is controlled by the proximity of the system to the metal–insulator transition. This universal behaviour points to the importance of electron correlations — a feature shared by the high-Tccopper oxides — in the origin of superconductivity in these materials.
Author contact:
Matthew Rosseinsky (University of Liverpool, UK)
Tel: +44 151 794 3499
E-mail: [email protected]
[9] Microbiology: Toxoplasma exocytosis enzyme (pp 359-362)
A particular enzyme has been shown to regulate the release of specialized secretory organelles from the disease-causing, parasitic protozoan Toxoplasma. The find, reported in this week’s Nature, could aid therapeutic drug design.
During infection, Toxoplasma gondii secretes organelles called micronemes, which play essential roles in parasite motility, host-cell invasion and egress. Using both gene-knockout and chemical biology approaches, David Sibley and colleagues show that this vital process is dependent on an enzyme called calcium-dependent protein kinase 1 (TgCDPK1). The lack of this kinase family in mammalian hosts makes this protein an attractive target for chemotherapeutic drug design.
Author contact:
David Sibley (Washington University, St Louis, MO, USA)
Tel: +1 314 362 8873
E-mail: [email protected]
[10] Materials science: A new route to compound semiconductor devices (pp 329-333)
A new way of fabricating devices using gallium arsenide and related materials is reported this week in Nature. The technique, which allows high-quality thin films to be grown in bulk quantities and then transferred to device substrates, promises to expand the utility of these materials in applications such as infrared imaging and solar cells.
Compound semiconductors such as gallium arsenide perform better than silicon in many applications, including photovoltaic devices and most forms of optoelectronics. But their use has been limited by the difficulty and cost of growing large, high-quality layers of these materials, and transferring them to flexible or transparent substrates.
John Rogers and colleagues have addressed this problem by devising a way to grow films of gallium arsenide and gallium aluminium arsenide as thick, multilayered stacks, which can then be separated into individual thin layers for incorporation into a device. The authors illustrate the general applicability of their approach, and its relevance to large-area applications, by fabricating three types of device, each on a different substrate: field-effect transistors, combined into logic gates, on plates of glass; near-infrared imaging devices on silicon wafers; and solar cells on sheets of plastic.
Author contact:
John Rogers (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA)
Tel: +1 217 244 4979
E-mail: [email protected]
[11] And finally… Natural weapons (pp 346-349)
In this week’s Nature, Tadayuiki Iwase and colleagues report a potentially intriguing way to curb nasal colonization by the human bacterium Staphylococcus aureus. They’ve identified an enzyme produced by another bacterium residing in the nasopharynx, Staphylococcus epidermidis, which inhibits S. aureus.
Although S. aureus is often found in the nasal cavity of healthy people, under certain circumstances the bacteria can cause illnesses such as inflammation, pneumonia and septicaemia. Once an infection takes hold it is very difficult to clear especially when caused by drug-resistant strains.
When Iwase and his team co-cultured S. epidermidis cells with S. aureus, they found that a subset of the cells inhibited the formation of bacterial biofilms and the colonisation of S. aureus in the nose. The group demonstrated that the S. epidermidis serine protease, or Esp, was responsible for this effect.
Author contact:
Tadayuiki Iwase (Jikei University, Tokyo, Japan)
Tel: +81 3 3433 1111
E-mail: [email protected]
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE…
[12] Reconciling surface plate motions with rapid three-dimensional mantle flow around a slab edge (pp 338-341)
[13] Myosin II contributes to cell-scale actin network treadmilling through network disassembly (pp 373-377)
[14] eIF5 has GDI activity necessary for translational control by eIF2 phosphorylation (pp 378-381)
ADVANCE ONLINE PUBLICATION
These papers will be published electronically on Nature's website on 19 May 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 them on this release to avoid multiple mailings they will not appear in print on 20 May, but at a later date.
[15] Sequence space and the ongoing expansion of the protein universe
DOI: 10.1038/nature09105
[16] Helical assembly in the MyD88–IRAK4–IRAK2 complex in TLR/IL-1R signalling
DOI: 10.1038/nature09121
[17] A novel and unified two-metal mechanism for DNA cleavage by type II and IA topoisomerases
DOI: 10.1038/nature08974
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.
AUSTRALIA
Brisbane: 2
Clayton: 12
CANADA
Montreal: 13
Toronto: 6, 9
CHILE
Casilla: 6
CHINA
Beijing: 7
GERMANY
Garching: 6, 7
ISRAEL
Haifa: 13
Rehovot: 6
ITALY
Padua: 6
Pisa: 6
Trieste: 7
JAPAN
Chiba: 7
Hiroshima: 7
Hyogo: 8
Ibaraki: 4
Nankoku: 11
Tokyo: 7, 11
Yamagata: 7
Yokohama: 4
KENYA
Nairobi: 3
NETHERLANDS
Nijmegen: 6
SLOVENIA
Ljubljana: 8
SOUTH KOREA
Seoul: 5, 10
SPAIN
Barcelona: 15
Tres Cantos: 1, 2
SWITZERLAND
Epalinges: 5
Geneva: 2
Zurich: 5
UNITED KINGDOM
Birkenhead: 6
Didcot: 8
Durham: 8
Exeter: 4
Liverpool: 8
Manchester: 14
Oxford: 3
Stevenage: 1
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Arizona
Tucson: 6
California
Berkeley: 6, 17
Davis: 12
Goleta: 6
La Jolla: 13
Marina del Rey: 13
Pasadena: 4, 6
Santa Barbara: 6
San Diego: 6
San Francisco: 2, 9
Stanford: 13
Florida
Gainesville: 3
Hawaii
Hilo: 7
Honolulu: 4
Illinois
Urbana: 10
Maryland
Baltimore: 2
Massachusetts
Boston: 13
Cambridge: 6
Charlestown: 5
Missouri
St Louis: 9
New Jersey
Piscataway: 2
New York
New York: 16
North Carolina
Durham: 1, 10
Oregon
Portland: 2
Pennsylvania
Collegeville: 1
King of Prussia: 1
Philadelphia: 2
Pittsburgh: 2
University Park: 6
Tennessee
Memphis: 2
Nashville: 17
Texas
Austin: 6
Dallas: 2
Washington
Bainbridge Island: 17
Seattle: 2, 4
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Tel: +81 3 3267 8751
E-mail: [email protected]
From the UK
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