This press release contains:
---Summaries of newsworthy papers:
Climate science: Assessing ancient Arctic sea ice changes
Cancer: Melanoma treatment alters the mutants
Genetics: Mutations associated with autism
Comment: The future of hunger prevention
Outlook: Picky eaters
Outlook: A human touch
Stem cells: Using iPSCs to study neurodegenerative disease
Physics: Ice formation in water becomes crystal clear
Geophysics: The matter of the core
And finally... Unravelling the genomic web of the spider mite
---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.
---PDFs for the Articles, Letters, Progress articles, Review articles, Insights and Brief Communications in this issue will be available on the Nature journals press site from 1400 London time / 0900 US Eastern Time on the Friday before publication.
---PDFs of News & Views, News Features, Correspondence and Commentaries will be available from 1400 London time / 0900 US Eastern Time on the Monday before publication
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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] Climate science: Assessing ancient Arctic sea ice changes (pp 509–512)
A reconstruction of changes in Arctic sea ice over the past 1,450 years reveals that recent declines are unparalleled in relation to previous patterns of natural variation. The results presented in this week’s Nature support the concept that Arctic climate variability and sea ice are closely associated.
Whether the observed decline in Arctic sea ice of the past few decades is atypical of natural variability is difficult to determine, owing to limited long-term records. Christophe Kinnard and colleagues reconstruct past sea ice cover in the Arctic using ice core records, tree ring data, lake sediments and historical evidence. Although their records show that previous sea ice declines occurred at a pace similar to the present trend, none matched the extent of the current decline. Thus, although higher uncertainties exist before the sixteenth century, the recent loss of sea ice appears to be unprecedented and is consistent with forcings from human-influenced climate change, the authors conclude.
CONTACT
Christophe Kinnard (Centro de Estudios Avanzados en Zonas Áridas, La Serena, Chile)
Tel: +56 51 334873; E-mail: [email protected]
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[2] Cancer: Melanoma treatment alters the mutants (AOP)
DOI: 10.1038/nature10662
A novel mechanism for resistance to drugs used to treat melanomas is described in Nature this week. Identification of this mechanism may pave the way for developing therapies that are tailor made to address this resistance.
Most melanoma patients carry mutations that activate the protein BRAF, which promotes cancer. Drugs that can dampen this activation — BRAF inhibitors — have shown good efficacy in patients with BRAF mutations; however, most patients have been found to develop resistance. David Solit and colleagues show that resistance to the BRAF inhibitor vemurafenib can be acquired through alteration of the BRAF mutants themselves.
A subset of cells resistant to vemurafenib expresses a variant of the cancer-promoting BRAF mutant that allows the protein to remain active. This variant was found to be expressed in six out of nineteen patients who had developed resistance to vemurafenib. The authors suggest that using inhibitors of signalling pathways downstream of BRAF in combination with BRAF inhibitors could delay or prevent resistance by the mechanism identified in this study.
CONTACT
David Solit (Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY, USA)
Tel: +1 646 888 2641; E-mail: [email protected]
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[3] Genetics: Mutations associated with autism (AOP)
DOI: 10.1038/nature10658
The behavioral symptoms of two genetic disorders, each leading to comparable intellectual disability and autism, are caused by opposite deviations from an optimal regime of neuronal transmission, studies in mice suggest. Findings published in Nature this week imply that therapies designed to correct one cause of autism may not be effective for other causes, and in some cases might be harmful.
Tuberous sclerosis complex and fragile X syndrome are genetic diseases that cause dysfunction in neurons in association with cognitive deficits. Because both syndromes are caused by mutations in genes that regulate protein synthesis in neurons, they have been assumed to benefit from the same treatments. However, Mark Bear and co-workers show that in mice cognitive symptoms in one disorder are corrected by inhibition of a protein called mGluR5, whereas they are corrected by mGluR5 upregulation in the other disorder. They suggest that the two mutations can cause similar behavioural impairments by causing opposite deviations from an optimal range of mGluR5-mediated neurotransmission.
These results highlight the importance of understanding where a patient lies on the neuro-physiological spectrum to select the appropriate therapy for autism and other psychiatric disorders, the authors conclude.
CONTACT
Mark Bear (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA)
Tel: +1 617 324 7002; E-mail: [email protected]
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Comment: The future of hunger prevention (pp 469–473)
To mark the 50th anniversary of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), three Comment articles in this week’s Nature explore the next steps we must take to feed the world ― and why, after five decades of work by the WFP, the number of hungry and undernourished people is close to one billion.
WFP executive director Josette Sheeran explains why fighting hunger involves much more than just giving people food, and the reasons behind the agency’s shift from providing food aid to supporting local programmes that build sustainable food security and enable people to weather food crises. Meanwhile, Calestous Juma argues that poor countries must open their doors to genetically modified plants so they can grow more and healthier foods, and Peter Rosset exposes the economic policies behind hunger.
In recent years, countries have emphasized exporting food over feeding local populations, and investors have increasingly bought and sold food commodities, causing prices to vary dramatically. Indeed, as Rosset shows, the prevalence of hunger has little to do with food production, which has steadily increased. Instead, when food prices go up, so does the number of hungry people. Without radically remodelling the policies that have created this volatile situation, Rosset says, any type of food assistance will have little benefit.
CONTACT
Josette Sheeran (Executive director, United Nations World Food Programme)
Please contact via:
Gregory Barrow (Global media coordinator, United Nations World Food Programme)
E-mail: [email protected]
Calestous Juma (Harvard Kennedy School, Cambridge, MA, USA)
Tel: +1 617 496 8127 or tel: +1 617 230 4489; E-mail: [email protected]
Peter Rosset (Center for the Study of Rural Change, Chiapas, Mexico)
E-mail: [email protected]
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Outlook: Picky eaters (pp S8–9)
Some allergists now believe that the best way to avoid food allergies and their potentially deadly consequences is not by shunning allergy-associated foods, such as peanuts, but by early exposure. As reported in Nature Outlook: Allergies, three large studies are underway, which aim to resolve the lingering uncertainty about when, and whether, to expose children to potential allergens, although researchers caution that any investigations should be subject to stringent safety guidelines.
One study, at King’s College London, is following 640 children to see if eating peanut-containing foods in infancy affects development of peanut allergy. Two other trials are also in progress, one at the University of Cambridge, UK, and another at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, investigating food desensitization therapy in peanut-allergic children. The idea is that the children eat increasing yet controlled amounts of peanut-laden foods over time. The US Food Allergy Initiative, a not-for-profit organization based in New York, is urging that a phase III clinical trial be conducted to lay the groundwork for approval of an oral immunotherapy regimen.
For background information, please contact the press office.
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Outlook: A human touch (p. S22)
Allergy research has been on the wrong track for decades, says noted allergy researcher Stephen Holgate in a Perspective article in Nature Outlook: Allergies.
Too much effort, he argues, is going into studying the role of immunoglobulin E (IgE), the antibody thought to be behind the immune system’s over-sensitivity, a path that has brought scant return in terms of effective asthma and allergy treatments. The inherent limitations in animal models are partly responsible for over-emphasizing the role of IgE, and Holgate advocates shifting studies to humans.
CONTACT
Stephen Holgate (University of Southampton, UK)
Tel: +44 23 8079 6960; E-mail: [email protected]
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[4] Stem cells: Using iPSCs to study neurodegenerative disease (AOP)
DOI: 10.1038/nature10671
Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) provide insights into the events that trigger late-onset neurodegenerative disease, reports a study in Nature this week. Experiments carried out in neurons generated with iPSCs derived from patients with Machado–Joseph Disease (MJD) can enable the study of abnormal protein processing associated with the disorder. This technique could potentially be used to study other neurodegenerative diseases.
MJD is a rare, dominantly inherited, late-onset neurodegenerative disease that causes loss of muscle control, resulting in lack of balance and coordination. A neuropathological hallmark of the disease is the formation of ataxin-3-containing aggregates, although the underlying molecular and cellular processes involved are poorly understood. Oliver Brüstle and colleagues use iPSC-derived patient-specific neurons to model these early pathogenic events. They demonstrate that iPSCs can be used to identify pathogenic mechanisms in neurodegenerative diseases.
CONTACT
Oliver Brüstle (University of Bonn, Germany)
Tel: +49 228 688 5500; E-mail: [email protected]
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[5] Physics: Ice formation in water becomes crystal clear (pp 506–508)
Scientists have cracked the problem of what determines the lowest temperature to which water can be cooled before freezing to ice. The work is published in Nature this week, and provides insight into the factors that control the rate and mechanism of ice formation in supercooled water.
Impurities in water act as nuclei that induce crystallization; pure systems can, however, drop to lower temperatures before homogenous ice nucleation (nucleation that is not triggered by the presence of a particle, interface or crystal) occurs. Studying what controls homogenous nucleation is difficult, owing to the speed of crystallization that occurs near and below the onset temperature for this process. Emily Moore and Valeria Molinero use a simple water model that allows extensive simulations of supercooled liquid water. They find that ice formation is not only controlled by temperature but also by the structural transformation of the liquid.
The simulations demonstrate that a rapid increase in the fraction of four-coordinated molecules (as seen in ice) in supercooled liquid water controls ice formation. From their results, the authors infer that the structural transformation also explains observed thermodynamic anomalies.
CONTACT
Valeria Molinero (University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA)
Tel: +1 801 585 9618; E-mail: [email protected]
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[6] Geophysics: The matter of the core (pp 513–516; N&V)
Important constraints on the composition of the outer core of the Earth are detailed in Nature this week. The findings provide evidence to support models that suggest that the deep mantle was reduced during early Earth formation (accretion).
Earth’s liquid outer core is iron-rich, alloyed with about 10% by weight of lighter elements, which affect the dynamics of the core. The precise identity of these elements is unclear, although oxygen has been proposed as a major component, and its presence has implications for the conditions of Earth’s accretion. Yingwei Fei and colleagues use shock wave experiments to determine the properties of various compositions of liquid iron alloys. Their data rule out oxygen as a major light element because the observed properties do not match those estimated from geophysical constraints on outer core density and sound wave velocity.
This study constrains the oxygen content in the core to less than 2.5% by weight, with around 0.5% best-fitting observed profiles in the liquid outer core. Such an oxygen-depleted core would be consistent with a more reduced environment during early Earth accretion, the authors suggest.
CONTACT
Yingwei Fei (Carnegie Institution of Washington, DC, USA)
Tel: +1 202 478 8936; E-mail: [email protected]
Thomas Duffy (Princeton University, NJ, USA)
Tel: +1 609 258 6769; E-mail: [email protected]
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[7] And finally... Unravelling the genomic web of the spider mite (pp 487–492)
The genome sequence of the spider mite Tetranychus urticae is reported in this week’s Nature. The work offers new insight into arthropod evolution and plant–herbivore interactions, and may provide opportunities for the development of novel plant protection strategies.
The spider mite feeds on over 1,100 plant species — including those known to produce toxic compounds ― and is a major agricultural pest which destroys annual and perennial crops, such as tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and maize. It is also known for its pesticide resistance. As part of a collaborative effort, Yves Van de Peer and colleagues sequenced and analysed the genome of T. urticae, finding unique changes in the hormonal environment and getting an insight into the evolutionary innovation of silk production — the product of which is stronger than found in most silk-weaving spiders.
By carrying out transcriptome analysis of mites feeding on different plants, the team go on to show how the pest responds to a changing environment. They also identify gene families implicated in digestion and detoxification that have a unique spider-mite composition and are often expanded when comparable to insects. The authors suggest that this spider-mite-specific expansion may contribute to the ability of mites to overcome host defences.
As well as adding to the bank of arthropod genomes — one of the most diverse groups of animals on our planet — this work provides a novel resource for agriculture that should allow the dissection of pest–plant interactions and the development of alternative tools for plant protection.
CONTACT
Yves van de Peer (Flanders Interuniversity Institute for Biotechnology, Belgium)
Tel: +32 476 560 091; E-mail: [email protected]
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[8] Structure of HIV-1 gp120 V1/V2 domain with broadly neutralizing antibody PG9
DOI: 10.1038/nature10696
[9] FBXO11 targets BCL6 for degradation and is inactivated in diffuse large B-cell lymphomas
DOI: 10.1038/nature10688
[10] Subduction dynamics and the origin of Andean orogeny and Bolivian orocline
DOI: 10.1038/nature10596
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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
Clayton: 10
BELGIUM
Ghent: 7
Leuven: 7
CANADA
Guelph: 7
London: 7
Montréal: 1
Ottawa: 1
CHILE
La Serena: 1
Valparaiso: 7
CHINA
Beijing: 6
Guiyang: 6
Mianyang: 6
Wuhan: 6
FRANCE
Fontainebleau: 7
Montferrier-sur-Lez: 7
Paris: 7
Sophia Antipolis: 7
Talence: 7
Toulouse: 7
GERMANY
Bonn: 4
Münster: 7
Tübingen: 7
ITALY
Rome: 10
Torino: 9
JAPAN
Kanagawa: 7
NORWAY
Tromsø: 1
PORTUGAL
Lisbon: 7
Oeiras: 7
SPAIN
Barcelona: 10
Logrono: 7
Madrid: 7
SWITZERLAND
Plan-les-Ouates: 7
TANZANIA
Moshi: 8
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Alabama
Huntsville: 7
Arizona
Tucson: 7
California
La Jolla: 8
Los Angeles: 2
San Diego: 10
Walnut Creek: 7
District of Columbia
Washington: 6
Georgia
Atlanta: 7
Massachusetts
Boston: 2, 9
Cambridge: 3, 8
Maryland
Baltimore: 7, 8
Bethesda: 2, 8
New York
Ithaca: 7
New York: 2, 8, 9
North Carolina
Durham: 8
Ohio
Columbus: 1
Tennessee
Nashville: 2
Texas
Arlington: 7
Utah
Salt Lake City: 5, 7
Washington
Seattle: 8
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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]
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