This press release contains:
---------Summaries of newsworthy papers:
Genomics: Unzipping the naked mole rat genome
Stem cells: Correcting genes to treat liver disease
Materials chemistry: Self-replicating materials
Quantum physics: Efficient quantum computing
Cell biology: Age-dependent pancreatic beta-cell proliferation
Quantum physics: Diamond strengthens quantum information processors
Environment: Earth’s shift from anoxic to oxic atmosphere
Genomics: Mammalian genome study provides insights for the human genome
And finally... Mice have a nose for odour discrimination
---------Mention of papers to be published at the same time with the same embargo
---------Geographical listing of authors
Editorial contacts: While the best contacts for stories will always be the authors themselves, in some cases the Nature editor who handled the paper will be available for comment if an author is unobtainable. Editors are contactable via Ruth Francis on +44 20 7843 4562. Feel free to get in touch with Nature's press contacts in London, Washington and Tokyo (as listed at the end of this release) with any general editorial inquiry.
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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.
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[1] Genomics: Unzipping the naked mole rat genome (AOP)
DOI: 10.1038/nature10533
The genome of the long-lived and cancer-resistant naked mole rat has been sequenced. The findings, published in Nature this week, provide a resource for exploring the biology of these remarkable rodents.
Naked mole rats are unusual subterranean mammals: they are able to cope with low-oxygen environments, have a maximum lifespan of around 30 years, and seem to have a high resistance to cancer. To further our understanding of the biology underlying the various characteristics of these animals, Vadim Gladyshev and colleagues sequenced and analysed the naked mole rat genome. Their analysis uncovers unique genomic features and molecular adaptations associated with traits such as cancer resistance, hairlessness, altered visual function and circadian rhythms, and insensitivity to low oxygen. These data offer new opportunities for studying ageing and cancer and for advancing many other areas of biological and biomedical research, the authors conclude.
CONTACT
Vadim Gladyshev (Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA)
Tel: +1 617 525 5122; E-mail: [email protected]
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[2] Stem cells: Correcting genes to treat liver disease (AOP) *PRESS BRIEFING*
DOI: 10.1038/nature10424
An efficient approach using human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) that can correct mutations in a gene associated with inherited metabolic liver disease is reported in Nature this week. The research demonstrates the feasibility of combining human iPSCs with genetic correction to generate clinically relevant cells for cell-based therapies.
Human iPSCs offer an attractive means of producing transplantable cells for the treatment of various disorders. Use of these cells in genetically inherited disease requires correction of disease-causing mutations in a manner that is fully compatible with clinical applications. Allan Bradley and colleagues use a combination of known technologies, namely zinc finger nucleases (ZFNs) and piggyBac, to edit the genome in human iPSCs derived from patients with α1-antitrypsin deficiency (A1ATD). With this technique they achieve correction of a point mutation in both alleles of the gene responsible for A1ATD.
The corrected iPSCs were able to colonize the liver in a mouse model ofA1ATD, restoring normal structure and function. Moreover, unlike some of the current genome-editing methods, the ZFN and piggyBac technique corrects the mutation without leaving residual sequences that could lead to tumour formation.
CONTACT
Allan Bradley (Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Hinxton, UK)
Tel: +44 1223 496998; E-mail: [email protected]
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[3] Materials chemistry: Self-replicating materials (pp 225-228)
A step towards self-replication in materials fabrication, based on the ability of DNA to recognize and bind complementary molecules, is reported in Nature this week. The findings could mean that robust replication systems capable of copying and amplifying functional materials or structures may be possible in the future.
DNA molecules can self-replicate within living cells without any external manipulation, a process that would be useful for fabricating materials with various patterns or useful functions. Using the complementary pairing of bases in DNA, Paul Chaikin and colleagues demonstrate an artificial self-replication system. They first design DNA tile motifs that recognise and bind to complementary tiles in a pre-programmed fashion. From these tiles they construct a seven-tile seed sequence and replicate it in daughter and granddaughter sequences.
Although their method currently needs multiple processing cycles and doesn't achieve exponential amplification, the authors believe that it should be possible to improve the procedure to increase the yield of molecules. However, they are positive about the possibility of using it to produce structures that could assume different shapes and functional features.
CONTACT
Paul Chaikin (New York University, NY, USA)
Tel: +1 212 998 7694; E-mail: [email protected]
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[4] Quantum physics: Efficient quantum computing (AOP)
DOI: 10.1038/nature10463
A new concept for efficient quantum information processing is outlined in Nature this week.
Single photons are excellent quantum information carriers, but current schemes for preparing, processing and measuring them are inefficient. Nathan Langford and colleagues present a process called coherent photon conversion that could potentially overcome current limitations. This scheme could provide a new way to generate and process complex multi-quanta states for photonic quantum information applications, the authors infer. They add that coherent photon conversion can produce a variety of optical quantum processing tools that are relevant for many quantum enabled technologies.
CONTACT
Nathan Langford (University of Vienna, Austria)
E-mail: [email protected]
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[5] Cell biology: Age-dependent pancreatic beta-cell proliferation (AOP)
DOI: 10.1038/nature10502
The signalling pathway that controls pancreatic beta-cell replication in mice and humans is described in this week’s Nature. Identification of such pathways might offer strategies for mitigating age-related tissue depletion.
Pancreatic beta-cell expansion declines with age; such tissue insufficiency is associated with diabetes mellitus. Seung Kim and co-workers demonstrate that reduced platelet-derived growth factor receptor signalling underlies this problem in mouse and human islets (the hormone-producing region of the pancreas). They show that activation of this signalling in mouse islets can alleviate the age-related decline in beta-cell proliferation. Elucidation and control of the mechanisms governing pancreatic beta-cell proliferation could transform treatments for diseases such as diabetes, the authors note.
CONTACT
Seung Kim (Stanford University, CA, USA)
Tel: +1 650 723 6230; E-mail: [email protected]
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[6] Quantum physics: Diamond strengthens quantum information processors (pp 221-224; N&V)
The prospects of hybrid quantum devices — a promising technology for quantum information processing — may be improved in light of new research presented in Nature this week.
Superconducting qubits (quantum bits) are potentially attractive systems for quantum information processing, although the experimentally reported coherence times are likely to be insufficient for future large-scale quantum computation. A possible solution is the creation of hybrid quantum devices, in which a superconducting qubit is coupled to a dedicated quantum memory based on natural atomic or molecular systems.
Testing the potential of such technology, Kouichi Semba and colleagues demonstrate coherent strong coupling between a superconducting flux qubit and an ensemble of nitrogen–vacancy centres in a single diamond crystal. In addition, they observe the coherent exchange of a single quantum of energy, a first step towards a solid-state quantum memory.
CONTACT
Kouichi Semba (NTT Corporation, Atsugi, Japan)
Tel: +81 46 240 3544; E-mail: [email protected]
Irinel Chiorescu (Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA) N&V author
Tel: +1 850 644 1726; E-mail: [email protected]
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[7] Environment: Earth’s shift from anoxic to oxic atmosphere (pp 229-232; N&V)
The Great Oxidation Event, which occurred around two and a half billion years ago, may have been triggered by a preceding period of crust formation. Research in this week’s Nature suggests that as continents (and volcanoes) emerged from the sea, the sulphurous gases from volcanoes changed composition owing to the lower pressure at which they were being released, leading to the eventual oxidation of Earth’s atmosphere.
During Archaean crust formation, volcanoes became increasingly subaerial rather than submarine. Fabrice Gaillard and colleagues propose that this change resulted in magmatic volatiles being released at lower pressures, which altered the oxidation state of the sulphur in these gases. The resulting decrease in hydrogen sulphide and increase in sulphur dioxide released could have increased dissolution of sulphate in the oceans. In turn, this process may have fed sulphate-reducing bacteria in the sea, producing an overall gain in atmospheric oxygen.
CONTACT
Fabrice Gaillard (CNRS and Université d’Orléans, France)
Tel: +33 2 38 25 53 88; E-mail: [email protected]
Timothy Lyons (University of California, Riverside, CA, USA) N&V author
Tel: +1 951 827 3106; E-mail: [email protected]
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[8] Genomics: Mammalian genome study provides insights for the human genome (AOP)
DOI: 10.1038/nature10530
The sequencing and comparative analysis of 29 mammalian genomes is reported in Nature this week. The findings provide a powerful basis for elucidating functional elements in the human genome and may have implications for understanding human biology, health and disease.
Kerstin Lindblad-Toh and colleagues performed a comparative genomic analysis of 29 placental mammals, including humans, chimpanzees, mice and dogs, to detect constraint (regions of sequence conservation) across the related genomes. They identify highly conserved sequences, and these constrained elements make up around 4% of the human genome. Potential functions are ascribed to around 60% of these elements on the basis of signatures of evolutionary constraint and experimental data.
The results provide insights into coding and non-coding functional genomic elements, candidate RNA structural families as well as new aspects of genome organization and evolution. Detecting and interpreting non-coding elements is particularly relevant to medicine, as loci identified in genome-wide association studies are often found in non-coding sequences.
CONTACT
Kerstin Lindblad-Toh (Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA)
Tel: +1 617 714 7745; E-mail: [email protected]
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[9] And finally... Mice have a nose for odour discrimination (AOP)
DOI: 10.1038/nature10521
Mice can discriminate between odour stimuli presented at different times in the sniff cycle, which may help them to locate and identify odour sources according to research in this week’s Nature. The work provides evidence to suggest that mammalian olfactory systems use temporal patterns to distinguish odours.
Smells are sensed by the olfactory system, which encodes smell signals on the basis of both the combination of neurons that respond and the sequence in which they respond. In mammals, sniffing particular odours evokes a precise sequence of activity across olfactory neurons, but it is not known if this information influences behaviour. Dmitry Rinberg and colleagues show that mice can perceive the timing of olfactory input relative to the start of a sniff. They find that mice can sense differences that are tenfold shorter than the duration of a sniff cycle and that such timing information is encoded in the olfactory bulb downstream.
The degree to which animals use timing as a cue to discriminate inputs in natural odour sensing remains unclear, the authors note. However, from the observed ease with which mice use timing to discriminate inputs, they infer that this cue has an important role in representing odours.
CONTACT
Dmitry Rinberg (Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Ashburn, VA, USA)
Tel: +1 571 209 4111; E-mail: [email protected]
ADVANCE ONLINE PUBLICATION
[10] Solutions for a cultivated planet
DOI: 10.1038/nature10452
[11] Cascades of multisite phosphorylation control Sic1 destruction at the onset of S phase
DOI: 10.1038/nature10560
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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. 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
St Lucia: 4
AUSTRIA
Vienna: 4, 8
CANADA
Montreal: 10
Waterloo: 4
CHINA
Shenzhen: 1
DENMARK
Aarhus: 8
Copenhagen: 1, 8
ESTONIA
Tartu: 11
FRANCE
Orléans: 7
Paris: 2
Saint Martin d’Hères: 7
GERMANY
Bonn: 5, 10
ITALY
Rome: 2
JAPAN
Atsugi: 6
Kawaguchi: 6
Saitama: 2
Tokyo: 4, 6
Toyonaka: 6
Tsukuba: 2
KOREA
Seoul: 1
SPAIN
Santander: 2
SWEDEN
Stockholm: 10
Uppsala: 8
THE NETHERLANDS
Amsterdam: 3
UNITED KINGDOM
Cambridge: 2
Hinxton: 2, 8
Oxford: 4
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Arizona
Tempe: 10
California
Richmond: 2
San Francisco: 8, 11
Santa Barbara: 10
Santa Cruz: 8, 11
Stanford: 5, 8
Illinois
Chicago: 1
Evanston: 9
Massachusetts
Boston: 1, 9
Cambridge: 1, 8
Middleton: 8
Maryland
Bethesda: 8
Chevy Chase: 8
Minnesota
Saint Paul: 10
Missouri
Saint Louis: 8
New York
Ithaca: 8
New York: 3
Pennsylvania
Bristol: 3
Pittsburgh: 5
Texas
Houston: 8
San Antonio: 1
Virginia
Ashburn: 9
Wisconsin
Madison: 10
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PRESS CONTACTS…
From North America and Canada
Neda Afsarmanesh, Nature New York
Tel: +1 212 726 9231; E-mail: [email protected]
From Japan, Korea, China, Singapore and Taiwan
Mika Nakano, Nature Tokyo
Tel: +81 3 3267 8751; E-mail: [email protected]
From the UK
Rebecca Walton, Nature, London
Tel: +44 20 7843 4502; E-mail: [email protected]
