This press release contains:
---Summaries of newsworthy papers:
Structural biology: New insights into how opioid receptors work
Comment: A new massive brain project
Physics: Spontaneous collective motion in cells
Physics: Imaging technique strikes gold
Physics: Understanding particle properties at the nanoscale
And finally… Why poor imitators are sometimes good
---Mention of papers to be published at the same time with the same embargo
---Geographical listing of authors
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[1] & [2] Structural biology: New insights into how opioid receptors work (AOP)
DOI: 10.1038/nature10954
DOI: 10.1038/nature10939
The structures of two opioid receptors are reported in two separate papers published in Nature this week. Drugs derived from opium are the most effective analgesics for the treatment of acute and chronic pain, but they are also highly addictive. Solving the three-dimensional structures of opioid receptors may enable pharmaceutical companies to discover new drugs that have more favourable pharmacological properties.
There are four major subtypes of opioid receptors: mu, delta, kappa and nociceptin/orphanin FQ peptide receptors. Brian Kobilka and colleagues have solved the X-ray crystal structure of the mu-opioid receptor ― the molecular target of morphine, codeine and heroin ― bound to a morphine-like small molecule. They describe a structure made of two subunits, and suggest that this configuration may have a role in regulating how the receptor functions.
In a separate paper, Raymond Stevens and co-workers report the structure of the kappa-opioid receptor in complex with JDTic. The kappa-opioid receptor is the molecular target of the naturally occurring hallucinogen salvinorin A, and JDTic is in advanced stages of clinical development for the treatment of drug addiction. Their observations reveal important features of the structure that provides a molecular explanation for the subtype-selectivity for the kappa-opioid receptor.
Most substances that bind to opioid receptors interact promiscuously with more than one opioid receptor subtype, and these two studies should facilitate the discovery of new, highly subtype-selective drugs for the management of pain and addiction.
CONTACT
Brian Kobilka (Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA) Author paper [1]
Tel: +1 650 723 7069; E-mail: [email protected]
Raymond Stevens (The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA, USA) Author paper [2]
Tel: +1 858 784 9416; E-mail: [email protected]
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Comment: A new massive brain project (pp 397-398)
The Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle, Washington, is undertaking a major endeavour: mapping and understanding the mouse visual brain. Over the next ten years, the institute plans to build a series of ‘brain observatories’ to exhaustively identify, record and intervene in the neural tissue coating the brain known as the cerebral cortex. The project is described in a Comment piece in this week’s Nature.
Even though the project will focus on mice, and on how the rodents see and respond to visual stimuli, it will capture fundamental aspects of higher brain function: from perception to conscious awareness, decision-making and action. And once scientists have a deep understanding of these basic mechanisms in the mouse model, they may start to understand more complex forms of perception in higher animals, including humans. “In short, we believe that this project has the potential to revolutionize our understanding of the mammalian brain,” say authors Christof Koch and R. Clay Reid.
The project is funded by a pledge of US$300 million for the first four years from Allen Institute founder and philanthropist Paul G. Allen. Such an expensive project will have critics, the authors acknowledge ― the required resources could fund hundreds of other projects, so why focus them in this way? “Our response is that funding agencies are already spending billions of dollars on many smaller projects across all areas of biomedical research, and the Allen Institute wants to try a new approach,” they write.
CONTACT
Christof Koch (Allen Institute for Brain Science, Seattle, WA, USA)
Please contact via:
Steven Cooper (Edelman for the Allen Institute for Brain Science)
Tel: +1 646 358 2765; Email: [email protected]
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[3] Physics: Spontaneous collective motion in cells (pp 448-452; N&V)
Research that may help to explain collective self-organizing dynamics is published in this week’s Nature. Spontaneous collective motion is of interest in many scientific fields, ranging from studies of animal behaviour, such as flocks of birds or schools of fish, to the understanding of cell dynamics — bacterial colonies, for example. Experiments demonstrating that microtubules self-organize into vortices provide a model to describe mechanisms at the origin of this collective motion phenomenon.
A complete understanding of the underlying mechanisms of spontaneous collective motion has been difficult to achieve owing to a lack of clear experimental or observational evidence. Kazuhiro Oiwa and colleagues perform an elegant experiment in which they see microtubules driven by motor proteins self-organize into large-scale vortices. They explain the observed process by using a very simple mathematical model. This model is based only on the smooth motion of single microtubules and their local interaction, whereby they have a tendency to become aligned on collision.
These findings may represent a novel mechanism of pattern formation in active systems, the authors suggest. They conclude that such work provides a means for improving our understanding of active matter and biological organization processes.
CONTACT
Kazuhiro Oiwa (National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, Kobe, Japan)
Tel: +81 78 969 2110; E-mail: [email protected]
Tamás Vicsek (Eötvös University, Budapest, Hungary) N&V author
Tel: +36 1 372 2755; E-mail: [email protected]
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[4] Physics: Imaging technique strikes gold (pp 444-447)
The three-dimensional structure of tiny gold particles is determined in this week’s Nature. Atom-scale three-dimensional resolution, a long-standing goal of electron microscopy, comes closer with this latest general electron tomography method, which may also lead to improvements in the resolution and image quality of various tomography fields, including the study of biological samples.
Continuing improvements in electron tomography have enabled verification of the three-dimensional internal structure of nanomaterials. Resolutions of around one cubic nanometre are currently achievable, but atomic resolution has only been possible if certain assumptions are made about the sample structure. Jianwei Miao and co-workers develop an electron tomography method that bypasses the need for prior knowledge. This technique allows the authors to establish the structure of a gold nanoparticle at 2.4 ten-billionths of a metre (2.4 ångströms) resolution. Their method even allows them to observe some (but not all) of the individual atoms within the sample.
Miao and colleagues anticipate that this general approach may have broad applications in materials sciences, nanoscience and chemistry.
CONTACT
Jianwei Miao (University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA)
Tel: +1 310 206 2645; E-mail: [email protected]
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[5] Physics: Understanding particle properties at the nanoscale (pp 421-427; N&V)
The properties of tiny silver particles are probed in this week’s Nature. Exploring the properties of quantum-sized particles may provide opportunities to use these particles in bio-sensing, monitoring catalytic reactions, and in quantum optics.
A trait called localized surface plasmon resonance gives metal nanometre-sized particles distinct optical properties that can be applied to imaging and sensing technologies and may also be used to destroy cancer cells. Localized surface plasmon resonances have been measured in particles larger than ten nanometres in diameter, but the properties of smaller particles is less well understood. Jonathan Scholl and colleagues overcome several difficulties in determining the plasmon resonances of such small particles and report measurements in silver nanoparticles, some smaller than two nanometres in diameter. Their analysis enables the direct correlation of localized surface plasmon resonances with particle size and geometry, which may open up new ways to use these nanoparticles in a range of technologies.
CONTACT
Jonathan Scholl (Stanford University, CA, USA)
Tel: +1 516 445 2153; E-mail: [email protected]
F. Javier García de Abajo (CSIC, Madrid, Spain) N&V author
Tel: +34 653 700 342; E-mail: [email protected]
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[6] And finally… Why poor imitators are sometimes good (pp 461-464; N&V)
Many harmless species resemble a harmful species to ward off predators, but this mimicry is often imprecise. A study in Nature this week rules out several theories about why such variation occurs. The analysis suggests that imperfect mimics are simply not subject to particularly intense selection, a theory known as the relaxed-selection hypothesis.
Many hoverflies avoid predation by mimicking various stinging insects, such as wasps, but there is wide variation in how closely these flies resemble their models. How imperfect mimicry seems to survive, despite it being presumed an evolutionary disadvantage, has remained unclear. Thomas Sherratt and co-workers analysed the structure and form of hoverflies and genetic data to evaluate a series of hypotheses to explain variation in mimicry. They find a link between imperfect mimicry and size, which suggests that smaller hoverfly species are less profitable prey so predators impose less selection for perfect mimicry.
Of the five primary theories of imperfect mimicry Sherratt and colleagues tested, only one was deemed plausible: the relaxed-selection hypothesis. They ruled out hypotheses that imperfect mimicry is an artefact of human perception or that the imperfect mimics are covering all bases by resembling several wasp-like species at the same time.
CONTACT
Thomas Sherratt (Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada)
Tel: +1 613 520 2600 ext. 1748; E-mail: [email protected]
David Pfennig (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA) N&V author
Tel: +1 919 962-6958; E-mail: [email protected]
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ADVANCE ONLINE PUBLICATION
[7] Spontaneous coherence in a cold exciton gas
DOI: 10.1038/nature10903
[8] Structure of the mitotic checkpoint complex
DOI: 10.1038/nature10896
[9] Transcription factor PIF4 controls the thermosensory activation of flowering
DOI: 10.1038/nature10928
[10] Role of corin in trophoblast invasion and uterine spiral artery remodelling in pregnancy
DOI: 10.1038/nature10897
[11] A new understanding of the decoding principle on the ribosome
DOI: 10.1038/nature10913
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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.
AUSTRIA
Vienna: 9
CANADA
Ottawa: 6
CHINA
Beijing: 10
Shanghai: 10
Suzhou: 10
Tianjin: 10
FRANCE
Gif-sur-Yvette: 3
Illkirch: 11
Montpellier: 1
Strasbourg: 11
JAPAN
Aichi: 3
Hyogo: 3
Kobe: 3
Kyoto: 3
Nagoya: 3
Tokyo: 3
RUSSIA
Ulianovskaya: 7
SINGAPORE
Singapore: 10
SPAIN
Barcelona: 1
UNITED KINGDOM
Cambridge: 9
London: 8
Norwich: 9
Oxford: 9
Southampton: 7
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
California
Berkeley: 4
La Jolla: 2, 7
Los Angeles: 4
Santa Barbara: 7
Stanford: 1, 5
Michigan
Ann Arbor: 1
North Carolina
Chapel Hill: 2
Research Triangle Park: 2
Ohio
Cleveland: 10
Virginia
Richmond: 2
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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
Eiji Matsuda, 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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