This month in BioMed Roundup:

• Fast et al. showed that a bacterial endosymbiont up-regulates mitosis of Drosophila germline stem cells and blocks programmed cell death.
• Nomura et al. described a new tissue-specific pathway for the synthesis of proinflammatory prostaglandins.
• Sallet et al. reported that executing social cognition successfully requires more brain power.
• Harker et al. reported that a persisting wave of the cytokine interleukin-6 allows for the control of chronic viral infections.

Jump to:

• Cell/Developmental Biology
• Neuroscience/Psychology
• Medicine/Physiology
• Microbiology/Virology
• Biochemistry
• Molecular Biology
• Genetics
• Immunology

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CELL/DEVELOPMENTAL BIOLOGY

mTORC1 Senses Lysosomal Amino Acids Through an Inside-Out Mechanism That Requires the Vacuolar H⁺-ATPase (4 November 2011)
R. Zoncu et al.
Cellular sensing of amino acids occurs at the lysosome and is mediated by the vacuolar proton pump.
See related Perspective

Global DNA Demethylation During Mouse Erythropoiesis in Vivo (11 November 2011)
J. R. Shearstone et al.
Erythroblasts undergoing differentiation into red cells lose one-third of DNA methylation marks at nearly all genomic loci.

Influence of Inositol Pyrophosphates on Cellular Energy Dynamics (11 November 2011)
Z. Szijgyarto et al.
Inositol pyrophosphates are implicated in coordination of cell proliferation and metabolism.
See related Perspective

Sirt5 Is a NAD-Dependent Protein Lysine Demalonylase and Desuccinylase (11 November 2011)
J. Du et al.
Biological functions of sirtuins may involve lysine desuccinylase and demalonylase activities.

Endocannabinoid Hydrolysis Generates Brain Prostaglandins That Promote Neuroinflammation (11 November 2011)
D. K. Nomura et al.
A new tissue-specific pathway for the synthesis of proinflammatory prostaglandins is described.
See related Perspective

Wolbachia Enhance Drosophila Stem Cell Proliferation and Target the Germline Stem Cell Niche (18 November 2011)
E. M. Fast et al.
A bacterial endosymbiont up-regulates mitosis of Drosophila germline stem cells and blocks programmed cell death.

Polarization of PAR Proteins by Advective Triggering of a Pattern-Forming System (25 November 2011)
N. W. Goehring et al.
Patterning of Caenorhabditis elegans zygotes involves passive as well as active mechanisms.

Degradation of Paternal Mitochondria by Fertilization-Triggered Autophagy in C. elegans Embryos (25 November 2011)
M. Sato and K. Sato
Postfertilization Autophagy of Sperm Organelles Prevents Paternal Mitochondrial DNA Transmission (25 November 2011)
S. Al Rawi et al.
Maternal inheritance of mitochondrial DNA results from autophagy-dependent clearance of paternal mitochondria.
See related Perspective


NEUROSCIENCE/PSYCHOLOGY

Exercise and Genetic Rescue of SCA1 via the Transcriptional Repressor Capicua (4 November 2011)
J. D. Fryer et al.
Gentle exercise can ameliorate disease severity in a mouse model of a fatal neurodegenerative disease.
See related Perspective

Bidirectional Control of Social Hierarchy by Synaptic Efficacy in Medial Prefrontal Cortex (4 November 2011)
F. Wang et al.
Manipulation of the neural circuit determining social status allows subordinate mice to move up the hierarchy and dominant mice to go down.
See related Perspective

Social Network Size Affects Neural Circuits in Macaques (4 November 2011)
J. Sallet et al.
Executing social cognition successfully requires more brain power.

Attention But Not Awareness Modulates the BOLD Signal in the Human V1 During Binocular Suppression (11 November 2011)
M. Watanabe et al.
Activity in the primary visual cortex is modulated by attention to an object, but not by whether the object is visible.

Locomotor Primitives in Newborn Babies and Their Development (18 November 2011)
N. Dominici et al.
Mammalian locomotion patterns share common roots.
See related Perspective

Rational Choice, Context Dependence, and the Value of Information in European Starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) (18 November 2011)
E. Freidin and A. Kacelnik
Context-related information improves serial decision-making but impairs simultaneous choice.
See related Perspective

Stress-Related Noradrenergic Activity Prompts Large-Scale Neural Network Reconfiguration (25 November 2011)
E. J. Hermans et al.
Acute stress leads to reorganization of large-scale neural network connectivity in the brain that is driven by noradrenaline.


MEDICINE/PHYSIOLOGY

Drosophila Microbiome Modulates Host Developmental and Metabolic Homeostasis via Insulin Signaling (4 November 2011)
S. C. Shin et al.
Successful development of fruit flies depends on a gut bacterium that interacts with its host’s insulin-signaling pathway.

Correction of Sickle Cell Disease in Adult Mice by Interference with Fetal Hemoglobin Silencing (18 November 2011)
J. Xu et al.
Manipulation of a transcriptional repressor promotes expression of protective fetal globin genes.

Pretreatment Mitochondrial Priming Correlates with Clinical Response to Cytotoxic Chemotherapy (25 November 2011)
T. Ni Chonghaile et al.
The mitochondrial state of a tumor cell prior to chemotherapy may help determine how well it responds to drug treatment.
See related Perspective

Transplanted Hypothalamic Neurons Restore Leptin Signaling and Ameliorate Obesity in db/db Mice (25 November 2011)
A. Czupryn et al.
Neurons transplanted from healthy donor mice can repair brain circuitry and partially normalize metabolism in obese mice.


MICROBIOLOGY/VIROLOGY

Failure to Confirm XMRV/MLVs in the Blood of Patients with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: A Multi-Laboratory Study (11 November 2011)
G. Simmons et al.
The assays used to detect XMRV in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome are unreliable.

A Burkholderia pseudomallei Toxin Inhibits Helicase Activity of Translation Factor eIF4A (11 November 2011)
A. Cruz-Migoni et al.
A toxin associated with a disease often observed in Vietnam veterans is identified and characterized.

Active Starvation Responses Mediate Antibiotic Tolerance in Biofilms and Nutrient-Limited Bacteria (18 November 2011)
D. Nguyen et al.
During growth arrest, bacteria tolerate the presence of antibiotics, thanks to mechanisms that protect against oxidant stress.
H₂S: A Universal Defense Against Antibiotics in Bacteria (18 November 2011)
K. Shatalin et al.
Sulfide formation helps to protect various bacteria from antibiotic toxicity.
See related Perspective


BIOCHEMISTRY

N-Terminal Acetylation Acts as an Avidity Enhancer Within an Interconnected Multiprotein Complex (4 November 2011)
D. C. Scott et al.
Acetylation of an amino-terminal methionine is important for mediating specific protein-protein interactions.

X-ray Emission Spectroscopy Evidences a Central Carbon in the Nitrogenase Iron-Molybdenum Cofactor (18 November 2011)
K. M. Lancaster et al.
A central light atom in a cofactor at the nitrogenase active site is identified as a carbon.
See related Perspective

Structural Basis of Silencing: Sir3 BAH Domain in Complex with a Nucleosome at 3.0 Å Resolution (18 November 2011)
K.-J. Armache et al.
A regulatory protein forms extensive interactions with the nucleosome core particle to create the basis for gene silencing.


MOLECULAR BIOLOGY

RNAP II CTD Phosphorylated on Threonine-4 Is Required for Histone mRNA 3' End Processing (4 November 2011)
J.-P. Hsin et al.
Phosphorylation of a single conserved amino acid in higher eukaryotes plays a specific role in processing histone messenger RNA genes.

Drosophila CENH3 Is Sufficient for Centromere Formation (4 November 2011)
M. J. Mendiburo et al.
A specific histone is sufficient for the formation of a functional and heritable centromere in the fruit fly.

tRNAs Marked with CCACCA Are Targeted for Degradation (11 November 2011)
J. E. Wilusz et al.
Transfer RNAs with unstable acceptor stems can be tagged by CCA-adding enzymes and targeted for destruction by 3'-5' exonucleases.



GENETICS

Deep Human Genealogies Reveal a Selective Advantage to Be on an Expanding Wave Front (25 November 2011)
C. Moreau et al.
Women in the vanguard of range expansions, such as the European settlement of Quebec, married young and had more offspring.


IMMUNOLOGY

Late Interleukin-6 Escalates T Follicular Helper Cell Responses and Controls a Chronic Viral Infection (11 November 2011)
J. A. Harker et al.
A persisting wave of the cytokine interleukin-6 allows control of chronic viral infections.

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