NATURE AND THE NATURE RESEARCH JOURNALS PRESS RELEASE
This press release is copyrighted to the Nature journals mentioned below.
This press release contains:
• Summaries of newsworthy papers:
Medicine: Understanding response to clopidogrel
Newsmaker of the Year: In the eye of the storm
Method of the Year: Optogenetics
Biotechnology: Measuring personal haplotypes
Medicine: A role for adenosine in sickle-cell anaemia
Geoscience: How debris flows grow
And finally…Genetics: Variant associated with narcolepsy
• 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: Understanding response to clopidogrel
DOI: 10.1038/nm.2281
A genetic basis for the variable clinical response to the anti-blood clot drug clopidogrel is presented this week in Nature Medicine. This finding may be exploited to assess in advance the clinical efficacy of this popular drug in each patient.
Clopidogrel is one of the most widely prescribed blood clotting medicines worldwide, but its efficacy is hampered by patient differences in the metabolic processing necessary for the drug to become active. This variability has been attributed to genetic factors, but the specific genes underlying clopidogrel activation are disputed.
Dirk Taubert and his colleagues report that paraoxonase-1 (PON1) is the crucial enzyme for clopidogrel activation. The authors tested the clinical relevance of genetic variants of PON1 in a group of patients with coronary artery disease who underwent stent implantation and received clopidogrel to prevent thrombosis. Patients with the PON1 QQ192 genotype showed a higher risk of stent thrombosis than patients with the RR192 genotype. The QQ192 patients also had lower PON1 plasma activity, lower plasma concentrations of active drug and less platelet inhibition than the RR192 group.
Author contact:
Dirk Taubert (Hospital of the University of Cologne, Germany)
Tel: +49 221 4784196; E-mail: [email protected]
Newsmaker of the Year: In the eye of the storm
Nature this week names Jane Lubchenco, head of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), as its Newsmaker of the Year for the central role she played in responding to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Lubchenco, a celebrated biologist and conservationist and a champion of public engagement by scientists, led the effort to track the oil, communicate scientific findings, tally the damage, and protect consumers and the fishing industry during the biggest environmental crisis in the nation’s history. Nature’s Richard Monastersky had unusual access to Lubchenco, travelling with her to the oil-stricken Gulf. Through extensive interviews with her and with other sources, he assesses Lubchenco’s performance during the spill, which was criticized in some quarters. He also explores the progress she has made towards her other goals at NOAA: strengthening science within the agency, ending overfishing in US waters and coming up with a science-based approach to managing marine resources.
Richard Monastersky (Nature, Washington DC)
Tel: +1 202 737 4855; E-mail: [email protected]
Method of the Year: Optogenetics
Optogenetics is selected as the Method of the Year 2010, and a special feature relating to the topic will appear online this week in Nature Methods.
Optogenetics uses light and genetically encoded light-sensitive proteins to control the behaviour of living cells and organisms. Although scientists have pursued the idea of using light to control the activity of cells for several decades, the available methods had drawbacks that limited their utility. The discovery and engineering of new genetically encoded light-sensitive proteins has resulted in many of these limitations being overcome, enabling fast, localized, minimally invasive and cell type-specific control over a diverse variety of cellular functions.
Using light-sensitive proteins and a corresponding light stimulus, scientists can control cellular behaviours from turning on or off the activity of neurons to controlling the movement of a cell. The
technology has already influenced many neuroscience studies by allowing control over the activity of precise neurons in the living organism and is increasingly being used to study how certain neurons in the brain control particular behaviours. It has also contributed to a better understanding of the biology that underlies several diseases of the nervous system.
In three Commentaries in this special feature, Karl Deisseroth, Karel Svoboda and Simon Peron, and Wendell A. Lim and colleagues discuss recent developments in optogenetics and its future potential to study various biological processes. In a fourth Commentary Peter Hegemann and Andreas Möglich focus on the future technological developments that will improve optogenetic tools.
Author contacts:
Karl Deisseroth (Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA)
Tel: +1 650 736 4325; E-mail: [email protected]
Karel Svoboda (Janelia Farm Research Campus, Ashburn, VA, USA)
Tel: +1 571 209 4113; E-mail: [email protected]
Wendell A. Lim (University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA)
Tel: +1 415 502 8080; E-mail: [email protected]
Peter Hegemann (HU-Berlin Biology, Berlin, Germany)
Tel: +49 30 2093 8681; E-mail: [email protected]
[2] & [3] Biotechnology: Measuring personal haplotypes
DOI: 10.1038/nbt.1739
DOI: 10.1038/nbt.1740
Two new approaches for experimentally determining a person’s haplotype—the combination of gene variants on each of the two copies of the chromosomes—are published in this week’s Nature Biotechnology. These strategies will be useful to uncover the genetic basis of disease with potential use in medical diagnosis.
Humans have two copies of each gene, one from each parent; variants on these genes are called alleles. The combination of these alleles makes each of us unique.
Until now, haplotyping an entire human genome required expensive, often impractical, experiments or statistical methods that generated imperfect estimations. Stephen Quake and colleagues have created a device that separates the chromosomes from a single cell into individual chambers for further analysis. They use the approach to analyze patterns of inheritance of genetic mutations in a family and to perform a clinically relevant test of genes related to the immune system
that influence susceptibility to autoimmune and infectious diseases.
Taking an alternative approach, Jay Shendure and colleagues use a new protocol for preparing DNA for whole-genome sequencing that enables them to simultaneously determine haplotypes. They apply the method in sequencing the first genome of an individual with ancestry from the Indian subcontinent.
Author contacts:
Stephen Quake (Stanford University, CA, USA) Author paper [2]
Tel: +1 650 721 2195; E-mail: [email protected]
Jay Shendure (University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA) Author paper [3]
Tel: +1 206 685 8543; E-mail: [email protected]
Nicholas Schork (The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA, USA) N&V Author
Tel: +1 858 554 5705; E-mail: [email protected]
[4] Medicine: A role for adenosine in sickle-cell anemia
DOI: 10.1038/nm.2280
Excessive adenosine signalling has a pathological role in sickle-cell anaemia, pointing to new therapeutic possibilities against this disease, reports a new study published online this week in Nature Medicine.
In sickle-cell anaemia, red blood cells—erythrocytes—acquire an abnormal shape. Lack of oxygen can be the initial trigger to induce this “sickling”, which eventually leads to organ damage in patients.
Yang Xia and her team found that the concentration of adenosine in the blood was elevated in mice and humans with sickle-cell disease, promoting erythrocyte sickling and rupture. These effects depended on the activation of a specific adenosine receptor, which results in the production of 2,3-diphosphoglycerate, an erythrocyte-specific metabolite that decreases the oxygen binding affinity of hemoglobin. Drugs that target this adenosine receptor may have beneficial effects in people with sickle-cell anaemia.
Author contact:
Yang Xia (University of Texas-Medical School at Houston, TX, USA)
Tel: +1 713 500 5039; E-mail: [email protected]
[5] Geoscience: How debris flows grow
DOI: 10.1038/ngeo1040
Landslides moving over wet ground gain momentum because the weight of the flow increases the water pressure between sediment grains. This lubricates the base of the flow, causing it to gain mass and speed, reports a paper published online this week in Nature Geoscience.
Richard Iverson and colleagues used a unique, 95-metre-long flume to assess the mechanisms by which landslides grow or slow. They found that the key to growth in mass and speed was the presence of a wet sediment bed; debris flows moving over dry dirt gained less material and speed
than those moving over a wet base.
Many landslides are triggered by intense rainfall or snowmelt, and this mechanism can, in part, explain how they grow dramatically in scale.
Author contact:
Richard Iverson (United States Geological Survey, Vancouver, WA, USA)
Tel: +1 360 993 8920; E-mail: [email protected]
[6] And finally…Genetics: Variant associated with narcolepsy
DOI: 10.1038/ng.734
A genetic variant associated with narcolepsy is reported in online in this week’s issue of Nature Genetics.
Narcolepsy is a neurological sleep disorder whose main symptoms include excessive sleepiness during the day, disturbed sleep patterns at night and falling asleep at inappropriate times. Narcolepsy affects 1 in every 2000 people and is known to be caused by reduction or loss of a specific set of neurons in the brain.
Emmanuel Mignot and colleagues analyzed the genomes of 3,406 Europeans, 2,414 Asians, and 302 African Americans and report that genetic variants at the P2RY11 gene are associated with narcolepsy. The /P2RY11/ gene encodes a protein that is expressed in immune cells. The authors suggest that further work to explore the hypothesis that narcolepsy is an autoimmune disease is warranted.
Author contact:
Emmanuel Mignot (Stanford University, CA, USA)
Tel: +1 650 725 6517; 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)
[7] Rapid evolutionary innovation during an Archaean genetic expansion
DOI: 10.1038/nature09649
[8] The assembly of a GTPase–kinase signalling complex by a bacterialcatalytic scaffold
DOI: 10.1038/nature09593
[9] Spatially asymmetric reorganization of inhibition establishes a motion-sensitive circuit
DOI: 10.1038/nature09711
NATURE CELL BIOLOGY (http://www.nature.com/naturecellbiology)
[10] Collective cell migration requires suppression of actomyosin at cell–cell contacts mediated by DDR1 and the cell polarity regulators Par3 and Par6
DOI: 10.1038/ncb2133
[11] The E3 ubiquitin ligase Wwp2 regulates craniofacial development through mono-ubiquitylation of Goosecoid
DOI: 10.1038/ncb2134
[12] HoxA3 is an apical regulator of haemogenic endothelium
DOI: 10.1038/ncb2137
[13] Loss of the RhoGAP SRGP1 promotes the clearance of dead and injured cells in Caenorhabditis elegans
DOI: 10.1038/ncb2138
[14] Direct visualization of the co-transcriptional assembly of a nuclear body by noncoding RNAs
DOI: 10.1038/ncb2140
[15] Fates-shifted is an F‑box protein that targets Bicoid for degradation and regulates developmental fate determination in Drosophila embryos
DOI: 10.1038/ncb2141
[16] TSPYL5 suppresses p53 levels and function by physical interaction with USP7
DOI: 10.1038/ncb2142
NATURE CHEMICAL BIOLOGY (http://www.nature.com/nchembio)
[17] Activation of the Raf-MEK-ERK pathway is required for neutrophil extracellular trap formation
DOI: 10.1038/nchembio.496
NATURE CHEMISTRY (http://www.nature.com/nchem)
[18] Supramolecular fishing for plasma membrane proteins using an ultrastable synthetic host–guest binding pair
DOI: 10.1038/nchem.928
[19] Ion mobility–mass spectrometry reveals a conformational conversion from random assembly to b-sheet in amyloid fibril formation
DOI: 10.1038/nchem.945
[20] Catalytic dehydroaromatization of n-alkanes by pincer-ligated iridium complexes
DOI: 10.1038/nchem.946
[21] Interrogating viral capsid assembly with ion mobility–mass spectrometry
DOI: 10.1038/nchem.947
NATURE GEOSCIENCE (http://www.nature.com/ngeo)
[22] Stimulation of ice nucleation by marine diatoms
DOI: 10.1038/ngeo1037
[23] Magnetotelluric image of the fluid cycle in the Costa Rican subduction zone
DOI: 10.1038/ngeo1041
[24] High gold concentrations in sulphide-bearing magma under oxidizing conditions
DOI: 10.1038/ngeo1042
NATURE IMMUNOLOGY (http://www.nature.com/natureimmunology)
[25] IL-1b driven neutrophilia preserves antibacterial defense in the absence of the kinase IKKb
DOI: 10.1038/ni.1976
NATURE MATERIALS (http://www.nature.com/naturematerials)
[26] Room-temperature sub-diffraction-limited plasmon laser by total internal reflection
DOI: 10.1038/nmat2919
Nature MEDICINE (http://www.nature.com/naturemedicine)
[27] Differentiation between glioma and radiation necrosis using molecular magnetic resonance imaging of endogenous proteins and peptides
DOI: 10.1038/nm.2268
[28] Histamine deficiency promotes inflammation-associated carcinogenesis through reduced myeloid maturation and accumulation of CD11b^+ Ly6G^+ immature myeloid cells
DOI: 10.1038/nm.2278
NATURE NANOTECHNOLOGY (http://www.nature.com/nnano)
[29] Single-walled carbon nanotubes as excitonic optical wires
DOI: 10.1038/nnano.2010.248
[30] Large intrinsic energy bandgaps in annealed nanotube-derived graphene nanoribbons
DOI: 10.1038/nnano.2010.249
[31] Nanoparticle-induced unfolding of fibrinogen promotes Mac-1 receptor activation and inflammation
DOI: 10.1038/nnano.2010.250
[32] Biomagnification of cadmium selenide quantum dots in a simple experimental microbial food chain
DOI: 10.1038/nnano.2010.251
[33] Quantum oscillations in magnetically doped colloidal nanocrystals
DOI: 10.1038/nnano.2010.252
Nature NEUROSCIENCE (http://www.nature.com/natureneuroscience)
[34] P2X receptor channels show three-fold symmetry in ionic charge selectivity and unitary conductance
DOI: 10.1038/nn.2705
[35] Ca^2+ -dependent enhancement of release by subthreshold somatic depolarization
DOI: 10.1038/nn.2718
[36] Characterisation of the proteome, diseases and evolution of the human postsynaptic density
DOI: 10.1038/nn.2719
[37] Auditory cortex mediates the perceptual effects of acoustic temporal expectation
DOI: 10.1038/nn.2688
[38] Thalamic interneurons and relay cells use complementary synaptic mechanisms for visual processing
DOI: 10.1038/nn.2707
NATURE PHOTONICS (http://www.nature.com/nphoton)
[39] Coherent coupling between distant excitons revealed by two-dimensional nonlinear hyperspectral imaging
DOI: 10.1038/nphoton.2010.284
[40] Scale-free optics and diffractionless waves in nanodisordered ferroelectrics
DOI: 10.1038/nphoton.2010.285
[41] Lasing oscillation in a three-dimensional photonic crystal nanocavity with a complete bandgap
DOI: 10.1038/nphoton.2010.286
Nature PHYSICS (http://www.nature.com/naturephysics)
[42] Biomolecular imaging and electronic damage using X-ray free-electron lasers
DOI: 10.1038/nphys1859
[43] Excitable particles in an optical torque wrench
DOI: 10.1038/nphys1862
[44] Ultrafast optical control of entanglement between two quantum-dot spins
DOI: 10.1038/nphys1863
[45] Quantum fluctuations in the chirped pendulum
DOI: 10.1038/nphys1867
[46] Strongly modified plasmon–matter interaction with mesoscopic quantum emitters
DOI: 10.1038/nphys1870
[47] Angle dependence of quantum oscillations in YBa_2 Cu_3 O_6:59 shows free-spin behaviour of quasiparticles
DOI: 10.1038/nphys1873
Nature STRUCTURAL & MOLECULAR BIOLOGY (http://www.nature.com/natstructmolbiol)
[48] Conformational changes in Dnm1 support a contractile mechanism for mitochondrial fission
DOI: 10.1038/nsmb.1949
[49] Mixed Hsp90–cochaperone complexes are important for the progression of the reaction cycle
DOI: 10.1038/nsmb.1965
[50] Mapping the sequence of conformational changes underlying selectivity filter gating in the Kv 11.1 potassium channel
DOI: 10.1038/nsmb.1966
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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.
AUSTRALIA
Brisbane: 31
Melbourne: 42
Sydney: 50
AUSTRIA
Innsbruck: 6
CANADA:
Edmonton: 21
London: 24
Montreal: 6
Sudbury: 24
Toronto: 47
Vancouver: 47
Waterloo: 24
CHINA
Beijing: 6
Guangdong: 27
Hunan: 4
COSTA RICA
San Jose: 23
CZECH REPUBLIC
Prague: 6
DENMARK
Copenhagen: 46
Glostrup: 6
Lyngby: 46
FRANCE
Grenoble: 39
Strasbourg: 6
Toulouse: 47
Valbonne: 43
GERMANY
Berlin: 17, 23
Cologne: 1
Dortmund: 17
Düsseldorf: 6
Frankfurt: 9
Goettingen: 25
Hannover: 24
Kiel: 23
Munich: 6, 49
Munster: 1, 24
Neuherberg: 6
Potsdam: 24
Wurzburg: 9
HUNGARY
Budapest: 28
ISRAEL
Jerusalem: 40, 45
ITALY
Bologna: 6
L’Aquila: 40
Rome: 40
JAPAN
Kanagawa: 30
Okazaki: 9
Tokyo: 6, 41
Tsukuba: 30
NETHERLANDS
Amsterdam: 16
Delft: 43
Maastricht: 1
Nieuwegein: 1
Utrecht: 16, 21
SOUTH KOREA
Pohang: 18
Suwon: 6
SPAIN
Logrono: 13
Salamanca: 13
SWITZERLAND
Basel: 9
Lausanne: 39
Zurich: 13
TAIWAN
Taipei: 6, 24
UNITED KINGDOM
Bristol: 39
Cambridge: 34
Cardiff: 34, 39
Edinburgh: 36
Hinxton: 36
London: 10
Manchester: 34
Sandwich: 34
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
California
Berkeley: 26, 38, 45
Bodega Bay: 32
Davis: 48
La Jolla: 25, 38
Los Angeles: 38
Menlo Park: 5
Palo Alto: 6
Pasadena: 32
Richmond: 20
San Francisco: 6, 48
Santa Barbara: 19, 32
Stanford: 2, 6, 25
Colorado
Boulder: 45
Denver: 4, 5
District of Columbia
Washington: 44
Maryland
Baltimore: 27
Bethesda: 48
Massachusetts
Boston: 11, 16
Cambridge: 7
Worcester: 13
Minnesota
Minneapolis: 12
New Jersey
Piscataway: 20
West Long Branch: 20
New York
Cold Spring Harbor: 14, 37
Ithaca: 29
New York: 28
Stony Brook: 22
North Carolina
Chapel Hill: 20
Durham: 4
Ohio
Cincinnati: 15
Oregon
Portland: 35
South Carolina
Columbia: 28
Texas
Dallas: 8, 12
Houston: 4, 30
Virginia
Charlottesville: 13
Washington
Seattle: 3, 6, 33
Vancouver: 5
Wisconsin
Madison: 13
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)
Carrie Meggs
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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