This press release contains summaries of newsworthy papers:
Nature: Baked, boiled, mashed…and now sequenced
Immunology: Predicting vaccine efficacy
Neuroscience: D2 autoreceptors are rewarding
Genetics: Variants associated with prostate cancer
Geoscience: Ancient buried landscape beneath the North Atlantic Ocean
And finally…Cell Biology: MicroRNAs balance good fat and muscle differentiation
Mention of papers to be published at the same time
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] Nature: Baked, boiled, mashed…and now sequenced
DOI: 10.1038/nature10158
The genome of a potato has been sequenced and is published in Nature this week. This is the first sequence from a subgroup of flowering plants known as asterids. Sequencing of the potato genome provides a platform for genetic improvement of this vital food crop.
Robin Buell and colleagues generated the genome sequence by comparing genomes of two potato clones — a homozygous doubled-monoploid clone and a heterozygous diploid clone. They identify key features relating to the evolution and biology of the potato. The sequence reveals traits that could be exploited by plant breeders, such as genes conferring disease resistance and genes that affect tuber yield.
Genome analysis provides insights into the basis of inbreeding depression — a reduced fitness caused by the plant’s limited genetic base. Moreover, these findings could reveal the biology behind the evolution of tuber development.
Author contact:
C. Robin Buell (Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA)
Tel: +1 517 353 5597; E-mail: [email protected]
[2] Immunology: Predicting vaccine efficacy
DOI: 10.1038/ni.2067
A new approach for accurately predicting the efficacy of vaccination is published online in Nature Immunology this week. Vaccines can be incredibly effective in protecting against viral infection but, currently, predicting the immune response in a particular individual can be a hit-and-miss affair.
Using two established influenza vaccines, Bali Pulendran and colleagues use a comprehensive genetics approach to identify molecular ‘signatures’ rapidly appearing in healthy adults following vaccination. These early genetic readouts could be used to accurately predict the efficacy of subsequent immune responses to influenza over several years. They report that the appearance of one gene in particular, CAMK4, shows a strong correlation with poor vaccine responses.
Since these genetic signatures could highlight important immune control systems, they may be very useful in predicting the outcome of vaccination to viruses in general.
Author contact:
Bali Pulendran (Emory Vaccine Center, Atlanta, GA, USA)
Tel: +1 404 727 8945; E-mail: [email protected]
[3] Neuroscience: D2 autoreceptors are rewarding
DOI: 10.1038/nn.2862
Dopamine D2 autoreceptors in the mouse midbrain play a critical role in the feedback regulation of dopamine transmission, and influence both food-seeking behavior and an animal's sensitivity to the rewarding properties of cocaine. These findings, published online this week in Nature Neuroscience, provide an opportunity to better understand the role of D2 autoreceptors in feedback regulation and their role in reward sensitivity.
Dopamine (DA) neurotransmitters help control many complex brain functions ranging from planning of motor activities to predicting goal- and reward-oriented behavior, such as food intake. DA pathways in the brain are also implicated in compulsive behavior such as drug abuse. Though most D2 receptors are present postsynaptically at non-dopaminergic neurons, there are also D2 autoreceptors present on DA-releasing neurons, and these autoreceptors produce feedback inhibition of DA transmission. Previous work has suggested that reduced autoreceptor availability could be linked to impulsivity, such as seen in drug abuse, and vulnerability to relapse. However, previous pharmacological and genetic approaches have been unable to conclusively address the selective importance of the feedback regulation of D2 receptors.
Marcelo Rubinstein and colleagues found that mutant mice that lack D2 autoreceptors on DA neurons in the midbrain lack the normal inhibition of dopamine release, which would be regulated through the feedback system. These mice exhibit increased preference for cocaine and food rewards. The authors also found that these mice were supersensitive to the psychomotor effects of cocaine.
Author contact:
Marcelo Rubinstein (Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, Buenos Aires, Argentina)
Tel: +54 11 4783 2871; E-mail: [email protected]
[4] Genetics: Variants associated with prostate cancer
DOI: 10.1038/ng.882
Genetic variants associated with prostate cancer are reported this week in Nature Genetics. These findings, together with previously reported susceptibility loci, may explain an up to 25% of the familial risk for prostate cancer.
Prostate cancer is the most common cancer diagnosed in men over 50 years of age in developed countries.
Rosalind Eeles and colleagues report a multi-stage genome-wide association study for prostate cancer in 4,574 cancer cases and 4,164 controls, with replication in an additional 51,311 individuals from 30 international studies. They identify seven genomic regions newly associated with prostate cancer susceptibility. This brings the number of identified prostate cancer susceptibility loci to over 40.
Author contact:
Rosalind Eeles (Institute for Cancer Research, Surrey, UK)
Tel: +44 208 6613642; E-mail: [email protected]
[5] Geoscience: Ancient buried landscape beneath the North Atlantic Ocean
DOI: 10.1038/ngeo1191
Pulses of hot mantle material upwelling in a mantle plume beneath Iceland caused uplift of the North Atlantic sea bed, reports a study published online this week in Nature Geoscience. The sea floor was temporarily lifted above sea level around 56 million years ago, allowing rivers to erode and create channels, before subsiding back beneath the ocean.
Ross Hartley and colleagues used seismic data to image the ancient landscape, which is located west of the Orkney–Shetland Islands and is today buried beneath two kilometres of sedimentary rock. Modelling of the topographic profiles along individual rivers in the reconstructed landscape shows that the surface was lifted up in a series of discrete steps, probably owing to episodic increases in the temperature of the mantle material rising up in the plume below.
In an accompanying News and Views article, Philip Allen says: “Hartley et al. demonstrate an intriguing connection between the ascent and lateral spreading of pulses of hot material in the Iceland mantle plume and patterns of uplift of the North Atlantic Ocean floor.”
Author contacts:
Ross Hartley (University of Cambridge, UK)
Tel: +44 12 2333 7179; E-mail: [email protected]
Philip Allen (Imperial College London, UK) N&V author
Tel: +44 20 7594 7363; E-mail: [email protected]
[6] And finally…Cell Biology: MicroRNAs balance good fat and muscle differentiation
DOI: 10.1038/ncb2286
Small noncoding RNAs of the microRNA family promote the formation of brown fat tissue reports a paper in Nature Cell Biology this week. As brown fat burns lipids to produce heat and may also prevent obesity in mammals, these findings could be used to develop therapeutic strategies against obesity and related disorders.
Brown fat cells, known as adipocytes, are thought to arise from the differentiation of progenitors that can become part of either muscle or fat. Harvey Lodish and colleagues find that the expression of microRNAs miR-193b and miR-365 is upregulated during the development of brown fat. They show that blocking the function of these microRNAs impairs brown fat development while inducing the expression of muscle-associated markers. Conversely, inducing high expression of the microRNA blocked the muscle differentiation programme in cells and enhanced the formation of brown adipocytes.
The microRNAs will need to be further characterized in animal models to identify therapeutic targets against obesity.
Author contact:
Harvey Lodish (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA)
Tel: +1 617 258 5216; E-mail: [email protected]
Items from other Nature journals to be published online at the same time
Nature (http://www.nature.com/nature)
[7] The crystal structure of a voltage-gated sodium channel
DOI: 10.1038/nature10238
[8] Crystal structure of the human centromeric nucleosome containing CENP-A
DOI: 10.1038/nature10258
[9] Protein targeting and degradation are coupled for elimination of mislocalized proteins
DOI: 10.1038/nature10181
NATURE CELL BIOLOGY (http://www.nature.com/naturecellbiology)
[10] Cdk1-phosphorylated CUEDC2 promotes spindle checkpoint inactivation and chromosomal instability
DOI: 10.1038/ncb2287
[11] Mitotic internalization of planar cell polarity proteins preserves tissue polarity
DOI: 10.1038/ncb2284
[12] Cleavage of cohesin rings coordinates the separation of centrioles and chromatids
DOI: 10.1038/ncb2280
NATURE CHEMICAL BIOLOGY (http://www.nature.com/nchembio)
[13] A chemical probe selectively inhibits G9a and GLP methyltransferase activity in cells
DOI: 10.1038/nchembio.599
NATURE CHEMISTRY (http://www.nature.com/nchem)
[14] Programmable molecular recognition based on the geometry of DNA nanostructures
DOI: 10.1038/nchem.1070
[15] Efficient enzyme-free copying of all four nucleobases templated by immobilized RNA
DOI: 10.1038/nchem.1086
NATURE GENETICS (http://www.nature.com/naturegenetics)
[16] Interaction between ERAP1 and HLA-B27 in ankylosing spondylitis implicates peptide handling in the mechanism for HLA-B27 in disease susceptibility
DOI: 10.1038/ng.873
[17] Increased exonic de novo mutation rate in individuals with schizophrenia
DOI: 10.1038/ng.886
NATURE GEOSCIENCE (http://www.nature.com/ngeo)
[18] Convergence of atmospheric and North Atlantic carbon dioxide trends on multidecadal timescales
DOI: 10.1038/ngeo1193
[19] Ancient lithospheric source for Quaternary lavas in Hispaniola
DOI: 10.1038/ngeo1203
NATURE IMMUNOLOGY (http://www.nature.com/natureimmunology)
[20] Essential role for the prolyl isomerase Pin1 in Toll-like receptor signaling and type I interferon–mediated immunity
DOI:10.1038/ni.2069
NATURE MATERIALS (http://www.nature.com/naturematerials)
[21] A fast, high-endurance and scalable non-volatile memory device made from asymmetric
Ta2O5–x=TaO2–x bilayer structures
DOI: 10.1038/nmat3070
[22] Face-selective electrostatic control of hydrothermal zinc oxide nanowire synthesis
DOI: 10.1038/nmat3069
Nature MEDICINE (http://www.nature.com/naturemedicine)
[23] Imaging the subcellular structure of human coronary atherosclerosis using 1-µm resolution optical coherence tomography (μOCT)
DOI: 10.1038/nm.2409
[24] Carvedilol and its new analogs suppress arrhythmogenic store overload–induced Ca2+ release
DOI: 10.1038/nm.2406
NATURE METHODS (http://www.nature.com/nmeth)
[25] Large-scale phosphosite quantification in tissues by a spike-in SILAC method
DOI: 10.1038/nmeth.1647
[26] Tracking genome engineering outcome at individual DNA breakpoints
DOI: 10.1038/nmeth.1648
[27] Protein standard absolute quantification (PSAQ) method for the measurement of cellular ubiquitin pools
DOI: 10.1038/nmeth.1649
NATURE NANOTECHNOLOGY (http://www.nature.com/nnano)
[28] DNA-based programming of quantum dot valency, self-assembly and luminescence
DOI: 10.1038/nnano.2011.100
Nature NEUROSCIENCE (http://www.nature.com/natureneuroscience)
[29] Neurod6 expression defines novel retinal amacrine cell subtypes and regulates their fate
DOI: 10.1038/nn.2859
[30] Two-photon calcium imaging of evoked activity from L5 somatosensory neurons in vivo
DOI: 10.1038/nn.2879
[31] High-accuracy neurite reconstruction for high-throughput neuroanatomy
DOI: 10.1038/nn.2868
NATURE PHOTONICS (http://www.nature.com/nphoton)
[33] Zero phase delay in negative-refractive-index photonic crystal superlattices
DOI: 10.1038/nphoton.2011.129
Nature PHYSICS (http://www.nature.com/naturephysics)
[34] Aharonov–Bohm interferences from local deformations in graphene
DOI: 10.1038/nphys2034
[35] Topological entanglement entropy of a Bose–Hubbard spin liquid
DOI: 10.1038/nphys2036
[36] Intense paramagnon excitations in a large family of high-temperature superconductors
DOI: 10.1038/nphys2041
Nature STRUCTURAL & MOLECULAR BIOLOGY (http://www.nature.com/natstructmolbiol)
[37] Pinkbar is an epithelial-specific BAR domain protein that generates planar membrane structures
DOI: 10.1038/nsmb.2079
[38] Modular mechanism of inhibition of Wnt signaling by Wnt inhibitory factor 1
DOI: 10.1038/nsmb.2081
[39] Dimerization of Plasmodium vivax DBP is induced upon receptor binding and drives recognition of DARC
DOI: 10.1038/nsmb.2088
[40] SUMOylation regulates telomere length homeostasis by targeting Cdc13
DOI: 10.1038/nsmb.2100
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.
ARGENTINA
Balcarce: 1
Buenos Aires: 3
AUSTRALIA
Adelaide: 16
Brisbane: 4, 16
Carlton: 4
Gold Coast: 4
Hobart: 4
Parkville: 4
Perth: 16
BULGARIA
Sofia: 4
CANADA:
Calgary: 24
Edmonton: 16
Montreal: 17
St John’s: 16
Toronto: 13, 16, 28
Vancouver: 36
Waterloo: 35
CHILE
Santiago: 1
CHINA
Beijing: 1, 10, 24
Guangdong: 24
Hong Kong: 17
Hunan: 1
Jinan: 1
Shanghai: 4, 16
Shenzhen: 1
Wuhan: 1, 24
DENMARK
Aalborg: 1
Copenhagen: 4
Herlev: 4
Skejby: 4
FINLAND
Helsinki: 4, 37
Tampere: 4
FRANCE
Grenoble: 34
Jouy en Josas: 13
Paris: 17, 18
Poitiers: 17
Rennes: 17
GERMANY
Bayreuth: 12
Hannover: 4
Heidelberg: 4, 30, 31
Martinsried: 25
Stuttgart: 15, 36
Tubingen: 30
Ulm: 4
INDIA
Himachal Pradesh: 1
IRELAND
Carlow: 1
Dublin: 16
ITALY
Milan: 36
Naples: 2, 36
Rome: 16
Rotondella: 1
JAPAN
Akita: 4
Osaka: 8
Tokyo: 8
Yokohama: 8
NETHERLANDS
Wageningen: 1
NEW ZEALAND
Christchurch: 1
Dunedin: 24
PERU
Ayacucho: 1
POLAND
Szczecin: 4
Warsaw: 1
PORTUGAL
Porto: 16
The Azores: 16
RUSSIA
Moscow: 1
SINGAPORE
Singapore: 6, 33
SOUTH KOREA
Gyeonggi-do: 21
Seoul: 21
SPAIN
Madrid: 34
Oviedo: 16
SWEDEN
Stockholm: 4
SWITZERLAND
Villigen: 36
Zurich: 35
TAIWAN
Jhongli: 13
UNITED KINGDOM
Bristol: 4, 16
Cambridge: 4, 5, 9, 16
Cardiff: 16
Coventry: 4
Dundee: 1, 16
Hertfordshire: 12
Leeds: 16
Leicester: 16
London: 1, 4, 16, 33
Norwich: 16
Oxford: 4, 16, 38
Sheffield: 4
Sutton: 4
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Alabama
Huntsville: 40
California
Fremont: 4
La Jolla: 24
Los Angeles: 4, 16
Menlo Park: 27
Pasadena: 14
San Francisco: 9
Santa Barbara: 35
Stanford: 4, 22, 27
District of Columbia
Washington: 19
Florida
Gainesville: 19
Tampa: 4
Georgia
Atlanta: 2, 4
Hawaii
Honolulu: 4
Illinois
Chicago: 24
Indiana
Bloomington: 34
Iowa
Iowa City: 24
Louisiana
Shreveport: 40
Maryland
Baltimore: 9, 24
Bethesda: 2, 3, 4, 9, 16
College Park: 19
Gaithersburg: 4
Greenbelt: 19
Rockville: 1
Massachusetts
Boston: 4, 6, 20, 23
Cambridge: 6, 22, 23, 29
Worcester: 20
Michigan
Ann Arbor: 3, 4
East Lansing: 1
Minnesota
Rochester: 4
Missouri
St Louis: 4, 39
Nebraska
Omaha: 19
New Jersey
Princeton: 13, 40
New York
Ithaca: 20
New York: 4, 11, 33, 40
Palisades: 18
Upton: 33
North Carolina
Chapel Hill: 13
Durham: 2, 35
Ohio
Cleveland: 20
Pennsylvania
Philadelphia: 22, 24, 37
Texas
Houston: 16, 19
Utah
Salt Lake City: 4
Virginia
Ashburn: 30
Blacksburg: 1
Washington
Seattle: 2, 4, 7, 26
Wisconsin
Madison: 1, 18
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)
Elissa Bolt
Tel: +1 617 475 9241, E-mail: [email protected]
Nature Chemistry (London)
Stuart Cantrill
Tel: +44 20 7014 4018; E-mail: [email protected]
Nature Climate Change (London)
Olive Heffernan
Tel: +44 20 7014 4009; 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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