Bio-Med Roundup


This month in Bio-Med Roundup:
    • Lee et al. showed that sestrin proteins protect fruit flies from age-related pathologies including muscle degeneration and fat accumulation.
    • Nikolaev et al. reported that a change in the distribution of a signaling molecule on the surface of heart muscle cells may contribute to heart failure.
    • Jensen et al. showed that bacterial ammonia and formaldehyde production requires prior processing of a dehydrogenase to form a cofactor.
    • Shen et al. found that learning deficits observed during puberty are related to receptor location in the hippocampus.
Jump to:

Sponsored by:


CELL BIOLOGY

Sestrin as a Feedback Inhibitor of TOR That Prevents Age-Related Pathologies (5 March 2010)
J. H. Lee et al.
Sestrin proteins protect fruit flies from the tissue degeneration and disruption of metabolic homeostasis that accompany aging.
See related Perspective

Retromer Is Required for Apoptotic Cell Clearance by Phagocytic Receptor Recycling (5 March 2010)
D. Chen et al.
An intracellular membrane-sorting machinery participates in cellular corpse clearance.

Lgr6 Marks Stem Cells in the Hair Follicle That Generate All Cell Lineages of the Skin (12 March 2010)
H. J. Snippert et al.
Skin wounds can be repaired by primitive stem cells into fully differentiated tissue, complete with hairs and sebaceous glands.

Circadian Gating of the Cell Cycle Revealed in Single Cyanobacterial Cells (19 March 2010)
Q. Yang et al.
Modeling and observation of cyanobacteria show entrainment of the cell cycle by their biological clock.


BIOCHEMISTRY

Restriction of Receptor Movement Alters Cellular Response: Physical Force Sensing by EphA2 (12 March 2010)
K. Salaita et al.
Mechanical forces acting on a cell-surface receptor affect the activation of a signaling pathway involved in breast cancer.
See related Perspective

Structural Sources of Robustness in Biochemical Reaction Networks (12 March 2010)
G. Shinar and M. Feinberg
Models of metabolic regulation show how the stability of specific components is maintained within a varying environment.

In Crystallo Posttranslational Modification Within a MauG/Pre–Methylamine Dehydrogenase Complex (12 March 2010)
L. M. R. Jensen et al.
Bacterial ammonia and formaldehyde production requires prior processing of a dehydrogenase to form a cofactor.
See related Perspective

Shaping Development of Autophagy Inhibitors with the Structure of the Lipid Kinase Vps34 (26 March 2010)
S. Miller et al.
Structural data might provide a foundation to develop specific inhibitors to this class of phosphoinositide 3-kinases.


NEUROSCIENCE

Hippocampal Short- and Long-Term Plasticity Are Not Modulated by Astrocyte Ca2+ Signaling (5 March 2010)
C. Agulhon et al.
Previous reports of glial cell activity may reflect the pharmacological approaches used, and not endogenous activity.
See related Perspective

A Critical Role for α4βδ GABAA Receptors in Shaping Learning Deficits at Puberty in Mice (19 March 2010)
H. Shen et al.
Learning incapacity observed during puberty is related to receptor location in the hippocampus.

CKAMP44: A Brain-Specific Protein Attenuating Short-Term Synaptic Plasticity in the Dentate Gyrus (19 March 2010)
J. von Engelhardt et al.
A synaptic protein that regulates postsynaptic AMPA receptor responses has been cloned and functionally characterized.
See related Perspective

Doc2b Is a High-Affinity Ca2+ Sensor for Spontaneous Neurotransmitter Release (26 March 2010)
A. J. Groffen et al.
Spontaneous synaptic vesicle fusion is triggered by soluble proteins that compete with synaptotagmins to induce membrane curvature.


MEDICINE

Identification of a Primary Target of Thalidomide Teratogenicity (12 March 2010)
T. Ito et al.
Thalidomide exerts its damaging effects by binding to cereblon and blocking its activity in limb development.

The Wnt/β-Catenin Pathway Is Required for the Development of Leukemia Stem Cells in AML (26 March 2010)
Y. Wang et al.
The self-renewing cells that drive the growth of leukemia arise, in part, through activation of a well-known cell signaling pathway.

β2-Adrenergic Receptor Redistribution in Heart Failure Changes cAMP Compartmentation (26 March 2010)
V. O. Nikolaev et al. A change in the distribution of a signaling molecule on the surface of heart muscle cells may contribute to heart failure. See related Perspective


MICROBIOLOGY

Spatially Ordered Dynamics of the Bacterial Carbon Fixation Machinery (5 March 2010)
D. F. Savage et al.
Tight control of the spatial arrangement of carboxysome organelles optimizes carbon fixation in cyanobacterial cells.

Patterns of Diversity in Marine Phytoplankton (19 March 2010)
A. D. Barton et al.
Highest diversity occurs in physically dynamic mid-latitude zones, and lowest diversity and highest biomass occur toward the poles.

Unicellular Cyanobacterial Distributions Broaden the Oceanic N2 Fixation Domain (19 March 2010)
P. H. Moisander et al.
Nitrogen fixation in the South Pacific Ocean is partitioned among several microbe species with distinct ecophysiologies.

A Peroxidase/Dual Oxidase System Modulates Midgut Epithelial Immunity in Anopheles gambiae (26 March 2010)
S. Kumar et al.
Bonding between cell-surface proteins forms a physical barrier in mosquito guts to prevent microbe invasion.


MOLECULAR BIOLOGY

RTEL-1 Enforces Meiotic Crossover Interference and Homeostasis (5 March 2010)
J. L. Youds et al.
Crossing over between homologous chromosomes in meiosis is controlled in part by an anti-recombination enzyme.

Loss of Rap1 Induces Telomere Recombination in the Absence of NHEJ or a DNA Damage Signal (26 March 2010)
A. Sfeir et al.
The mammalian telomere protein Rap1 prevents the ends of chromosomes from undergoing unscheduled homologous recombination.

Sponsored by: