This press release contains:
· Summaries of newsworthy papers:
Geoscience: Sub-glacial cavity melting
Chemical Biology: A new cancer staple
Geoscience: Rapid canyon formation during catastrophic flood
· 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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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] Geoscience: Sub-glacial cavity melting
DOI: 10.1038/ngeo890
Pine Island Glacier in West Antarctica was grounded on a submarine ridge only a few decades ago, but warm ocean water now flows through the widening gap between the ridge and the ice, according to a study online this week in Nature Geoscience. The present changes at Pine Island Glacier could be part of a potentially unstable, long-term retreat, which could have implications for the possibility of wide-spread collapse of ice sheets in West Antarctica.
Adrian Jenkins and colleagues measured ocean and seafloor properties with an autonomous underwater vehicle that entered the cavity beneath the ice shelf off Pine Island Glacier. They found evidence for warm sea water flowing underneath the ice shelf, melting the ice. The result was a retreat inland of the grounding line—the transition between land-based ice that does not affect sea level, and floating ice that does.
In an accompanying News and Views, Christian Schoof says: “The observations reported by Jenkins and colleagues provide exciting new insights into the processes that governed one of the fastest melt rates under an Antarctic ice shelf.”
Author contact:
Adrian Jenkins (British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge, UK)
Tel: +44 1223 221493
E-mail: [email protected]
Christian Schoof (University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada) News & Views author
Tel: +1 604 822 6482
E-mail: [email protected]
[2] Chemical Biology: A new cancer staple
DOI: 10.1038/nchembio.391
A new ‘stapled’ peptide selectively inhibits MCL-1—a pro-survival protein—thus sensitizing cancer cells to stimuli that induce apoptosis, programmed cell death. The results published online this week in Nature Chemical Biology provide an important new tool to inhibit MCL-1 in cells and may be the basis for the development of novel therapeutics for MCL-1 mediated cancers or chemotherapy-resistance.
Cancer cells frequently express high levels of anti-apoptotic proteins to promote their immortality. In particular, MCL-1 has emerged as an important therapeutic target because it has been linked to a number of cancers, as well as resistance to chemotherapies. Loren Walensky and colleagues report the
identification, structural analysis and functional validation of the first cell-permeable and selective MCL-1 inhibitor. The authors further demonstrated that this stapled peptide sensitized a leukemia cell line to TRAIL, an activator of the apoptotic pathway in cells.
Author contact:
Loren D. Walensky (Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA,
USA)
Tel: +1 617 632 6307
E-mail: [email protected]
[3] Geoscience: Rapid canyon formation during catastrophic flood
DOI: 10.1038/ngeo894
The manual release of a dam in Texas in 2002 caused a large-scale flood event that carved a seven-metre-deep canyon, Lake Canyon Gorge, in just three days, according to a paper published online this week in Nature Geoscience. This contrasts with previous understanding that deep canyons, such as the Grand Canyon, USA, formed slowly, carved by rivers over millions of years.
Michael Lamb and colleague used this rare opportunity to analyse rapid formation of a deep river canyon. Using aerial photographs, topographic analyses and measurements of the rate and volume of flood discharge, the scientists documented the erosion processes involved.
These results provide useful insight into the processes that occurred during ancient megaflood events that may have formed deep canyons on both Earth and Mars.
Author contact:
Michael Lamb (California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA,
USA)
Tel: +1 626 395 3612
E-mail: [email protected]
*************************************************
Items from other Nature journals to be published online at the same time and with the same embargo:
NATURE
[4] Planar cell polarity breaks bilateral symmetry by controlling ciliary positioning
DOI: 10.1038/nature09129
[5] Link communities reveal multiscale complexity in Networks
DOI: 10.1038/nature09182
[6] Spatial organization of the flow of genetic information in bacteria
DOI: 10.1038/nature09152
NATURE BIOTECHNOLOGY
[7] Pairwise agonist scanning predicts cellular signaling responses to combinatorial stimuli
DOI: 10.1038/nbt.1642
[8] A mouse knockout library for secreted and transmembrane proteins
DOI: 10.1038/nbt.1644
NATURE CELL BIOLOGY
[9] Rab and actomyosin dependent fission of transport vesicles at the Golgi complex
DOI: 10.1038/ncb2067
[10] Human POGZ modulates dissociation of HP1alpha from mitotic chromosome arms through Aurora B activation
DOI: 10.1038/ncb2075
NATURE CHEMICAL BIOLOGY
[11] An ATP-independent strategy for amide bond formation in antibiotic biosynthesis
DOI: 10.1038/nchembio.393
NATURE CHEMISTRY
[12] Singlet fission in pentacene through multi-exciton quantum states
DOI: 10.1038/nchem.694
[13] Lewis acid-catalysed formation of two-dimensional phthalocyanine covalent organic frameworks
DOI: 10.1038/nchem.695
[14] A layered ionic crystal of polar Li@C60 superatoms
DOI: 10.1038/nchem.698
NATURE GENETICS
[15] Common SNPs explain a large proportion of the heritability for human height
DOI: 10.1038/ng.608
[16] Estimation of effect size distribution from genome-wide association studies and implications for future discoveries
DOI: 10.1038/ng.610
NATURE GEOSCIENCE
[17] Stress transfer in the Tokai subduction zone in Japan from the 2009 Suruga Bay earthquake
DOI: 10.1038/ngeo885
[18] Spatial variability in oceanic redox structure 1.8 billion years ago
DOI: 10.1038/ngeo889
NATURE MATERIALS
[19] Nanogel antigenic protein delivery system for adjuvant-free intranasal vaccines
DOI: 10.1038/nmat2784
[20] Robust isothermal electric control of exchange bias at room temperature
DOI: 10.1038/nmat2785
NATURE MEDICINE
[21] Inhibition of glucosylceramide accumulation results in effective blockade of polycystic kidney disease in mouse models
DOI: 10.1038/nm.2171
NATURE METHODS
[22] Rationally improving LOV domain–based photoswitches
DOI: 10.1038/nmeth.1473
[23] Noncontact microrheology at acoustic frequencies using frequency-modulated atomic force microscopy
DOI: 10.1038/nmeth.1474
NATURE NANOTECHNOLOGY
[24] Self-assembly of three-dimensional prestressed tensegrity structures from DNA
DOI: 10.1038/nnano.2010.107
[25] High-power lithium batteries from functionalized carbon-nanotube electrodes
DOI: 10.1038/nnano.2010.116
[26] Efficient electronic coupling and improved stability with dithiocarbamate-based molecular junctions
DOI: 10.1038/nnano.2010.119
[27] Roll-to-roll production of 30-inch graphene films for transparent electrodes
DOI: 10.1038/nnano.2010.132
NATURE NEUROSCIENCE
[28] Hearing requires otoferlin-dependent efficient replenishment of synaptic vesicles in hair cells
DOI: 10.1038/nn.2578
[29] Developmental shift in the mechanism of synaptic vesicle endocytosis require Ca2+ nanodomain
DOI: 10.1038/nn.2576
NATURE PHOTONICS
[30] Phase-locking of a 2.7-THz quantum cascade laser to a mode-locked erbium-doped fibre laser
DOI: 10.1038/nphoton.2010.125
NATURE PHYSICS
[31] Implementation of superconductor-ferromagnet-superconductor p-shifters in superconducting digital and quantum circuits
DOI: 10.1038/nphys1700
[32] Quantum Non-demolition Detection of Single Microwave Photons in a Circuit
DOI: 10.1038/nphys1710
[33] Universal Resistances of the Quantum RC circuit
DOI: 10.1038/nphys1690
[34] Propulsion generated by diffusion-driven flow
DOI: 10.1038/nphys1686
NATURE STRUCTURAL & MOLECULAR BIOLOGY
[35] Ion/substrate-dependent conformational dynamics of a bacterial homolog of neurotransmitter: sodium symporters
DOI: 10.1038/nsmb.1854
[36] Following the intersubunit conformation of the ribosome during translation in real time
DOI: 10.1038/nsmb.1828
[37] RNA-mediated displacement of an inhibitory snRNP complex activates transcription elongation
DOI: 10.1038/nsmb.1827
[38] Accessibility of the Drosophila genome discriminates PcG repression H4K16 acetylation and replication timing
DOI: 10.1038/nsmb.1825
*************************************************
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
Parkville: 15
Queensland: 15
AUSTRIA
Vienna: 38
CANADA:
Thunder Bay: 18
Waterloo: 3
DENMARK
Campusvej: 18
FRANCE
Paris: 9, 30, 33
GERMANY
Braunschweig: 31
Goettingen: 29
Karlsruhe: 31
Munich: 24
Stuttgart: 26
JAPAN
Aoba-ku: 14
Fukushima: 11
Hyogo: 14
Ibaraki: 17
Kyoto: 28
Nagoya: 14, 27
Okinawa: 10, 28
Osaka: 10, 19
Sapporo: 10
Sendai: 14
Shizuoka: 19
Tokyo: 10, 11, 17, 19
Yokosuka: 10
KOREA
Pohang: 27
Seongnam: 27
Suwon: 27
RUSSIA
Chernogolovka: 31
Moscow: 31
UNITED KINGDOM
Cambridge: 25, 30
Newcastle: 18
Southampton: 1
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
California
La Jolla: 29
Pasadena: 3
San Francisco: 8, 37
Stanford: 12, 34, 36, 38
Colorado
Boulder: 12
Connecticut
New Haven: 6, 32, 33
Illinois
Chicago: 22
Kansas
Kansas City: 20
Kentucky
Lexington: 11
Maryland
Baltimore: 36
Bethesda: 4, 23
Gaithersburg: 16
Rockville: 16
Massachusetts
Boston: 2, 5, 24
Cambridge: 2, 5, 24, 34
Charlestown: 6
Framingham: 21
Waltham: 21
Michigan
Ann Arbor: 21
Missouri
St Louis: 15
Nebraska
Lincoln: 20
New Jersey
Princeton: 32
New York
Ithaca: 13
New York: 1, 35
Upton: 20
North Carolina
Chapel Hill: 19, 29
Oregon
Portland: 28
Pennsylvania
Philadelphia: 7, 10
Tennessee
Nashville: 35
Texas
Dallas: 22
San Marcos: 3
Woodlands: 8
Washington
Seattle: 16
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 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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