NATURE AND THE NATURE RESEARCH JOURNALS PRESS RELEASE
For papers that will be published online on 9 July 2006
This press release is copyrighted to the Nature journals mentioned below.
This press release contains:
- Summaries of newsworthy papers:
Distinguishing friend from foe – Nature Immunology
Instructing specialized immune cells – Nature Immunology
Learning not to fear, with a little help from Mum – Nature Neuroscience
- 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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PICTURES: To obtain artwork from any of the journals, you must first obtain permission from the copyright holder (if named) or author of the research paper in question (if not).
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 IMMUNOLOGY********************
(http://www.nature.com/natureimmunology)
[1] Distinguishing friend from foe
DOI: 10.1038/ni1362
How the immune system may distinguish ‘helpful’ from ‘harmful’ bacteria is presented in the August issue of Nature Immunology. Not all bacteria are dangerous—on the contrary, the human gut is home to a wide variety of bacteria that help to maintain everyday intestinal health. When we unintentionally ingest harmful bacteria like salmonella, the immune system must detect the presence of a dangerous invader among a sea of friendly faces.
Shizuo Akira and colleagues show that immune cells expressing a receptor, TLR5, that recognizes a component of harmful bacteria, do not detect the helpful bacteria that normally reside in the gut. This is because these immune cells unexpectedly lack another receptor, TLR4, which can ‘see’ components present on both harmful and helpful bacteria. In this way, the immune system may be able to distinguish the good from the bad.
Author contact:
Shizuo Akira (Osaka University, Osaka, Japan)
Tel: +81 6 6879 8303; E-mail: [email protected]
[2] Instructing specialized immune cells
DOI: 10.1038/ni1363
A unique type of skin-associated immune cell is ‘instructed’ during development to prevent harmful skin inflammation, according to a paper in the August issue of Nature Immunology.
Robert Tigelaar, Adrian Hayday and colleagues have identified an unusual strain of mice lacking these specialized skin cells, known as gamma-delta+ lymphocytes. By comparing that ‘defective’ strain of mice with a normal one, Tigelaar and Hayday show that in the mice lacking these cells, an essential factor is missing from the thymus – an organ required for the development of many immune cells. That factor is needed to ‘instruct’ developing skin lymphocytes to develop into mature cells that can fight inflammation in the skin. These findings are important because until now it has not been clear if skin gamma-delta+ lymphocytes require ‘instruction’ to become mature, protective cells.
Author contact:
Robert Tigelaar (Yale University, New Haven, CT USA)
Tel: +1 203 785 4968; E-mail: [email protected]
****************NATURE NEUROSCIENCE ********************
(http://www.nature.com/natureneuroscience)
[3] Learning not to fear, with a little help from Mum
DOI: 10.1038/nn1733
Young rats will learn to approach an unfamiliar smell when their mother is present, even if it is coupled with an unpleasant electric shock. However, when left alone they learn to avoid any odour that is paired with a shock. A paper in the August issue of Nature Neuroscience now shows that having the mother nearby reduces stress hormones in the pups, which prevents aversion learning by reducing activation in a brain area that is involved in fear.
Very young rat pups do not leave their mother’s side, and at this stage, they learn to approach their mother’s odour. They begin to leave the nest at around 10 days of age, but the mother cares for them until they are three weeks old. During this transitional period, Regina Sullivan and colleagues show that in the mother’s presence, the pups have less of the stress hormone corticosterone, and this reduces activity in the amygdala, a brain area that is important for fear learning. When the researchers put corticosterone directly into the amygdala of pups, they learned to avoid odors paired with shock, even if the mother was present.
Thus the mother’s presence seems to act as a switch between attraction learning and aversion learning in her pups. The authors suggest that the mother’s ability to override her offspring’s normal fear responses may provide clues to abusive attachment and the emotional difficulties that can follow bad parenting.
Author contact:
Regina Sullivan (University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA)
Tel: +1 405 325 5653; E-mail: [email protected]
Other papers from Nature Neuroscience to be published online at the same time and with the same embargo:
[4] UNC5A promotes neuronal apoptosis during spinal cord development independent of netrin-1
DOI: 10.1038/nn1736
[5] PET imaging of dopamine D2 receptors during chronic cocaine self-administration in monkeys
DOI: 10.1038/nn1737
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Items from other Nature journals to be published online at the same time and with the same embargo:
NATURE (http://www.nature.com/nature)
[6] Spatial control of actin organization at adherens junctions by the synaptotagmin-like protein Btsz
DOI: 10.1038/nature04935
NATURE CHEMICAL BIOLOGY (http://www.nature.com/nchembio)
[7] Different polyketide folding modes converge to an identical molecular architecture
DOI: 10.1038/nchembio805
[8] Enhancement of capillary leakage and restoration of lymphocyte egress by a chiral S1P1 antagonist in vivo
DOI: 10.1038/nchembio804
Nature PHYSICS (http://www.nature.com/naturephysics)
[9] Real-time observation of nonlinear coherent phonon dynamics in single-walled carbon nanotubes
DOI: 10.1038/nphys345
[10] Analogues of nonlinear optics using terahertz Josephson plasma waves in layered superconductors
DOI: 10.1038/nphys358
NATURE MATERIALS (http://www.nature.com/naturematerials)
[11] Organization and mobility of water in amorphous and crystalline trehalose
DOI: 10.1038/nmat1681
[12] Fast and slow dynamics of the cytoskeleton
DOI: 10.1038/nmat1685
[13] High-Curie-temperature ferromagnetism in self-organized Ge1−xMnx nanocolumns
DOI: 10.1038/nmat1686
[14] Ab initio phasing of X-ray powder diffraction patterns by charge flipping
DOI: 10.1038/nmat1687
[15] Predicting crystal structure by merging data mining with quantum mechanics
DOI: 10.1038/nmat1691
[16] Orientation selection in dendritic evolution
DOI: 10.1038/nmat1693
NATURE MEDICINE (http://www.nature.com/naturemedicine)
[17] Neuronal PTP1B regulates body mass, adiposity and leptin action
DOI: 10.1038/nm1435
NATURE GENETICS (http://www.nature.com/naturegenetics)
[18] Emergence of a new disease as a result of interspecific virulence gene transfer
DOI: 10.1038/ng1839
[19] ATM mutations that cause ataxiatelangiectasia are breast cancer susceptibility alleles
DOI: 10.1038/ng1837
[20] A naturally occurring epigenetic mutation in the gene encoding an SBP-box transcription factor inhibits tomato fruit ripening
DOI: 10.1038/ng1841
[21] Genome-wide genetic association of complex traits in heterogeneous stock mice
DOI: 10.1038/ng1840
NATURE CELL BIOLOGY (http://www.nature.com/naturecellbiology)
[22] A gamma-secretase-like intramembrane cleavage of TNFa by the GxGD aspartyl protease SPPL2b
DOI: 10.1038/ncb1450
[23] SPPL2a and SPPL2b promote intramembrane proteolysis of TNFa in activated dendritic cells to trigger IL-12 production
DOI: 10.1038/ncb1440
Nature STRUCTURAL & MOLECULAR BIOLOGY (http://www.nature.com/natstructmolbiol)
[24] Molecular recognition of histone H3 by the WD40 protein WDR5
DOI: 10.1038/nsmb1116
[25] Histone H3 recognition and presentation by the WDR5 module of the MLL1 complex
DOI: 10.1038/nsmb1119
[26] Structural basis for ATP-dependent DnaA assembly and replication-origin remodeling
DOI: 10.1038/nsmb1115
[27] Nucleotide-dependent conformational changes in the DnaA-like core of the origin-recognition complex
DOI: 10.1038/nsmb1121
*******************************************************************
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
Perth: 18
CHINA
Chongqing: 12
FRANCE
Grenoble: 13
Marseille: 6
Orsay: 13
Saint-Martin d’Heres: 13
GERMANY
Berlin: 7
Munich: 22, 23
Tubingen: 7
Wurzburg: 7
ITALY
Milan: 9, 23
Padua: 9
JAPAN
Fukuoka: 1
Osaka: 1
Saitama: 10
Tokyo: 1
RUSSIA
Moscow: 10
SWITZERLAND
Basel: 22, 23
Lausanne: 11, 16
Zurich: 18, 22, 23
UKRAINE
Kharkov: 10
UNITED KINGDOM
Bristol: 11
Cambridge: 19
Hertfordshire: 20
London: 2
Loughborough: 10, 20
Manchester: 19
Newcastle: 7
Oxford: 21
Southampton: 19
Surrey: 19
Warwick: 20
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Arizona
Tempe: 14
California
Berkeley: 26, 27
Irvine: 8
La Jolla: 8
Los Angeles: 22
San Diego: 8
San Francisco: 4
Santa Cruz: 4
Stanford: 4
Connecticut
New Haven: 2
Florida
Gainesville: 5
Massachusetts
Boston: 12, 16
Cambridge: 12, 15, 25
Watertown: 12
Michigan
Ann Arbor: 10, 24
Missouri
St Louis: 5
New Mexico
Los Alamos: 9
New York
Bronx: 4
Ithaca: 20
New York: 25
North Carolina
Winston-Salem: 5
North Dakota
Fargo: 18
Oklahoma
Norman: 3
Virginia
Charlottesville: 4
Wisconsin
Madison: 15
Milwaukee: 21
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 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 Neuroscience (New York)
Sandra Aamodt (based in California)
Tel: +1 530 795 3256; 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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