NATURE AND THE NATURE RESEARCH JOURNALS PRESS RELEASE
For papers that will be published online on 25 June 2006
This press release is copyrighted to the Nature journals mentioned below.
This press release contains:
· Summaries of newsworthy papers:
- Stem cells: Stimulating stem cells fights stroke damage - Nature
- New class of cancer therapeutic – Nature Biotechnology
- Clostridium difficile genome – Nature Genetics
· 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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NOTE: Once a paper is published, the digital object identifier (DOI) number can be used to retrieve the abstract and full text from the journal web site (abstracts are available to everyone, full text is available only to subscribers). To do this, add the DOI to the following URL: http://dx.doi.org/ (For example, http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ng730). For more information about DOIs and Advance Online Publication, see http://www.nature.com/ng/aop/.
PLEASE CITE THE SPECIFIC NATURE JOURNAL AND WEBSITE AS THE SOURCE OF THE FOLLOWING ITEMS. IF PUBLISHING ONLINE, PLEASE CARRY A HYPERLINK TO THE APPROPRIATE JOURNAL’S WEBSITE.
*******************NATURE********************
(http://www.nature.com/nature)
[1] Stem cells: Stimulating stem cells fights stroke damage
DOI:10.1038/nature04940
In this week's Nature, Ronald McKay and his colleagues show that stimulating a specific signalling pathway in the neural stem cells of rat brain can help the animals recover movement after a simulated stroke. The finding paves the way towards therapies in which doctors can provoke the body's endogenous stem cells to repair damage rather than trying to grow and transplant new cells.
The team shows that activation of a receptor called Notch promotes the survival of neural stem cells in the laboratory and in rat brain by triggering a cascade of cellular events, including a pathway already implicated in cancer. They show that the same pathway is important for survival of human embryonic stem cells. When the researchers starved rats' brains of oxygen and then infused proteins that activate the Notch receptor, this boosted the number of new cells generated and helped avoid the typical loss of movement.
"These data indicate that stem cell expansion in vitro and in vivo, two central goals of regenerative medicine, may be achieved by Notch ligands through a pathway that is fundamental to development and cancer," the authors write.
Author contact:
Ronald D. G. McKay (National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, Bethesda, MD, USA)
Tel: +1 301 496 5284; E-mail: [email protected]
Other papers from Nature to be published online at the same time and with the same embargo:
[2] Assembly dynamics of microtubules at molecular resolution
DOI:10.1038/nature04928
**************NATURE BIOTECHNOLOGY*************
(http://www.nature.com/naturebiotechnolgy)
[3] New class of cancer therapeutic
DOI: 10.1038/nbt1223
Scientists have created a new class of cancer drug that combines the targeting strength of one type of ribonucleic acid (RNA) therapy with the therapeutic potency of another. Bruce Sullenger and colleagues have created a hybrid drug molecule that not only precisely targets diseased prostate cancer cells but also reduces levels of proteins that normally protect cancer cells from self destructing. The cancer agent is shown to effectively kill prostate tumors in mice, in a paper to be published in the August issue of Nature Biotechnology.
Aptamers are short nucleic acids with highly specific shapes that enable them to bind tightly to specific protein targets. There is already one aptamer drug on the market for the treatment of the eye disease age-related macular degeneration. Small-interfering RNAs, which specifically block the formation of proteins, are also making headlines as they progress through to the clinic.
The team’s new type of RNA therapy combines the exquisite targeting capacity of an aptamer, which binds to a protein expressed specifically on the surface of prostate cancer cells, with the ability of two siRNA molecules to destroy RNA messages within the cancer cells that promote their survival.
Until now, approaches for delivering siRNA therapies to patients have been hampered by poor efficiency, a lack of specificity and unwanted immune responses in patients. It is hoped that the incorporation of aptamers into other siRNA therapies may overcome some of these problems and provide an effective means of targeting and killing diseased cells, although this will clearly require further experiments and studies to establish long-term side-effects and benefits.
Author contact:
Bruce Sullenger (Duke Center for Translational Research, Durham, NC, USA)
Tel: +1 919 684 6375; E-mail: [email protected]
Other papers from Nature Biotechnology to be published online at the same time and with the same embargo:
[4] Functional photoacoustic microscopy for high resolution and noninvasive in vivo imaging
DOI: 10.1038/nbt1220
[5] Transposon-free insertions for insect genetic engineering
DOI: 10.1038/nbt1221
[6] ORFeome cloning and global analysis of protein localization in the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe
DOI: 10.1038/nbt1222
**********************NATURE GENETICS******************
(http://www.nature.com/naturegenetics)
[7] Clostridium difficile genome
DOI: 10.1038/ng1830
The genome sequence of Clostridium difficile, a major hospital acquired human pathogen, is published in the July issue of Nature Genetics. The spore-forming anaerobic bacterium is a leading cause of infectious diarrhea amongst hospital patients worldwide. The disease associated with C. difficile infection ranges from antibiotic-associated diarrhea to the more severe forms including life threatening pseudomembranous colitis – also referred to as antibiotic-associated colitis.
Julian Parkhill and colleagues sequenced C. difficile strain 630, a virulent and multidrug resistant strain, isolated from a hospital patient with severe pseudomembraneous colitis in Zurich, Switzerland. This strain had spread to several other patients in the same ward of the hospital, suggesting its transmissibility. Of interest, the genome shows a large number of mobile elements, and considerable variation in terms of predicted genes present in comparison to related C. difficile strains. The authors suggest this may be a mechanism for evolution and acquisition of factors that allow adaptation to the environment of the human gut, and may be associated with pathogen virulence or drug resistance.
Author Contact:
Julian Parkhill (The Sanger Institute, Cambridge, UK)
Tel: +44 1223 494 975; E-mail: [email protected]
Other papers from Nature Genetics to be published online at the same time and with the same embargo:
[8] Bidirectional expression of CUG and CAG expansion transcripts and intranuclear polyglutamine inclusions in spinocerebellar ataxia type 8
DOI: 10.1038/ng1827
[9] CpG island methylator phenotype underlies sporadic microsatellite instability and is tightly associated with BRAF mutation in colorectal cancer
DOI: 10.1038/ng1834
[10] Mutations in the gene encoding pejvakin, a newly identified protein of the afferent auditory pathway, cause DFNB59 auditory neuropathy
DOI: 10.1038/ng1829
********************************************
Items from other Nature journals to be published online at the same time and with the same embargo:
NATURE CHEMICAL BIOLOGY (http://www.nature.com/nchembio)
[11] Total biosynthesis of antitumor nonribosomal peptides in Escherichia coli
DOI: 10.1038/nchembio803
[12] Coupling ligand structure to specific conformational switches in the beta2 adrenoceptor
DOI: 10.1038/nchembio801
NATURE PHYSICS (http://www.nature.com/naturephysics)
[13] Evolution of the pseudogap from Fermi arcs to the nodal liquid
DOI: 10.1038/nphys334
[14] Controlling the motion of cold molecules with deep periodic optical potentials
DOI: 10.1038/nphys339
NATURE MATERIALS (http://www.nature.com/naturematerials)
[15] Large-scale optical-field measurements with geometric fibre constructs
DOI: 10.1038/nmat1674
[16] Proteolytic activity monitored by fluorescence resonance energy transfer through quantum-dot–peptide conjugates
DOI: 10.1038/nmat1676
Nature MEDICINE (http://www.nature.com/naturemedicine)
[17] VEGF modulates erythropoiesis through repression of adult hepatic erythropoietin synthesis
DOI: 10.1038/nm1428
[18] Sensitive mutation detection in heterogeneous cancer specimens by massively parallel picoliter reactor sequencing
DOI: 10.1038/nm1437
[19] Human amyloid-beta synthesis and clearance rates as measured in cerebrospinal fluid in vivo
DOI: 10.1038/nm1438
NATURE IMMUNOLOGY (http://www.nature.com/natureimmunology)
[20] The kinase TAK1 integrates antigen and cytokine receptor signaling for T cell development, survival and function
DOI: 10.1038/ni1355
[21] Ancient evolutionary origin of diversified variable regions demonstrated by crystal structures of an immune-type receptor in amphioxus
DOI: 10.1038/ni1359
NATURE CELL BIOLOGY (http://www.nature.com/naturecellbiology)
[22] Quantitative analysis of in vitro ubiquitinated cyclin B1 reveals complex chain topology
DOI: 10.1038/ncb1436
[23] Autophagic and tumour suppressor activity of a novel Beclin1-binding UVRAG
DOI: 10.1038/ncb1426
[24] Asymmetric division and cosegregation of template DNA strands in adult muscle satellite cells
DOI: 10.1038/ncb1425
NATURE STRUCTURAL & MOLECULAR BIOLOGY
(http://www.nature.com/natstructmolbiol)
[25] Separate RNA-binding surfaces on the multifunctional La protein mediate distinguishable activities in tRNA maturation
DOI: 10.1038/nsmb1110
[26] Structure, binding interface and hydrophobic transitions of Ca2+-loaded calbindin-D28K
DOI: 10.1038/nsmb1112
[27] Crystal structure and mechanism of human lysine-specific demethylase-1
DOI: 10.1038/nsmb1113
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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
Herston: 9
BELGIUM
Antwerp: 10
CANADA
Montreal: 9
FRANCE
Clemont-Ferrand: 10
Evry: 10
Paris: 7, 10, 13, 24
GERMANY
Dresden: 2
ISRAEL
Tel Aviv: 10, 23
JAPAN
Ibaraki: 13
Kanagawa: 6
Kobe: 6
Nagoya: 18
Saitama: 6
Sapporo: 11
Sendai: 13
Tokyo: 6
KOREA
Kyungbuk: 23
Seoul: 9
SWITZERLAND
Villigen: 13
THE NETHERLANDS
Amsterdam: 2
TURKEY
Ankara: 15
UNITED KINGDOM
Cambridge: 7
Edinburgh: 14
London: 7, 9
Nottingham: 7
Oxford: 5
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
California
La Jolla: 16, 17
Los Angeles: 9, 11
Oakland: 17
Palo Alto: 12, 17
San Diego: 17
San Francisco: 17
Connecticut
Branford: 18
New Haven: 20
District of Columbia
Washington: 16
Florida
Gainesville: 21
St Petersburg: 21
Tampa: 21
Illinois
Chicago: 13
Iowa
Ames: 13
Maryland
Bethesda: 1, 25
Massachusetts
Boston: 17, 18, 22
Beverley: 22
Cambridge: 15, 18
Southborough: 23
Minnesota
Minneapolis: 8
Rochester: 9, 26
Missouri
St Louis: 19
New Hampshire
Lebanon: 18
New Jersey
Princeton: 14
New York
New York: 27
Queens: 17
Syracuse: 11
Tarrytown: 17
Upton: 21
North Carolina
Durham: 3, 26
Raleigh: 26
Ohio
Columbus: 13
Oregon
Portland: 12
Pennsylvania
Philadelphia: 2
Texas
College Station: 4
Dallas: 17
Houston: 20
PRESS CONTACTS…
For media inquiries relating to embargo policy for all the Nature Research Journals:
Katherine Anderson (Nature London)
Tel: +44 20 7843 4502; E-mail: [email protected]
Ruth Francis (Senior Press Officer, 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)
Peter Hare
Tel: +1 212 726 9324; E-mail: [email protected]
Nature Cell Biology (London)
Bernd Pulverer
Tel: +44 20 7843 4892; E-mail: [email protected]
Nature Chemical Biology (Boston)
Beatrice Chrystall
Tel: +1 617 475 9241, E-mail: [email protected]
Nature Genetics (New York)
Orli Bahcall
Tel: +1 212 726 9311; E-mail: [email protected]
Nature Immunology (New York)
Laurie Dempsey
Tel: +1 212 726 9372; E-mail: [email protected]
Nature Materials (London)
Maria Bellantone
Tel: +44 20 7843 4556; E-mail: [email protected]
Nature Medicine (New York)
Juan Carlos Lopez
Tel: +1 212 726 9325; E-mail: [email protected]
Nature Physics (London)
Alison Wright
Tel: +44 20 7843 4555; E-mail: [email protected]
Nature Structural & Molecular Biology (New York)
Michelle Montoya
Tel: +1 212 726 9326; E-mail: [email protected]
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Assistant Press Officer, Nature
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7843 4502
Fax: +44 (0) 20 7843 4951
[email protected]
