Anatomy articles within Nature

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  • Letter |

    This paper shows that the activity of human beta-defensin 1 is regulated by its redox status, with enhanced antibiotic killing activity under reducing conditions as they are found in the distal colon. This is believed to serve to protect the healthy intestinal epithelium against potentially harmful colonization by commensal bacteria and opportunistic fungi. In vitro evidence implicates thioredoxin as the likely reducing agent.

    • Bjoern O. Schroeder
    • , Zhihong Wu
    •  & Jan Wehkamp

  • News Feature |

    Japanese hospitals are using near-infrared imaging to help diagnose psychiatric disorders. But critics are not sure the technique is ready for the clinic.

    • David Cyranoski

  • Outlook |

    Diet-directed evolution shaped our brains, but whether it was meat or tubers, or their preparation, that spurred our divergence from other primates remains a matter of hot debate.

    • Michael Eisenstein

  • Letter |

    During periods of fasting the liver produces ketone bodies, which the peripheral tissues can use as a source of energy. Here it is shown that fasting inhibits multi-component mTOR complex 1 (mTORC1) in the liver. Inhibition of mTORC1 is required for activation of PPARα, a master regulator that switches on genes involved in ketogenesis. Livers from aged mice have increased mTORC1 signalling, reduced PPARα activity, and reduced ketone production. The observation that mTORC1 promotes an ageing phenotype in the liver fits well with the observation that inhibition of this pathway increases lifespan in several organisms.

    • Shomit Sengupta
    • , Timothy R. Peterson
    •  & David M. Sabatini

  • News |

    Biologists join physicists in a bid to map the workings of the human organ at all scales.

    • Alison Abbott

  • Letter |

    These authors describe a molecular pathway by which endothelial cells sustain liver regeneration after surgical resection. Activation of vascular endothelial growth factor-A receptor-2 in a defined subpopulation of liver endothelial cells leads to the upregulation of the endothelial-specific transcription factor Id1, which in turn induces Wnt2 and hepatocyte growth factor, which are secreted from the endothelial cells and trigger hepatocyte proliferation.

    • Bi-Sen Ding
    • , Daniel J. Nolan
    •  & Shahin Rafii

  • News & Views |

    Stem cells can renew themselves indefinitely — a feature that is often attributed to asymmetrical cell division. Fresh experimental and mathematical models of the intestine provide evidence that begs to differ.

    • Michael P. Verzi
    •  & Ramesh A. Shivdasani

  • Letter |

    The blood–brain barrier (BBB) is made up of vascular endothelial cells and was thought to have formed postnatally from astrocytes. Two independent studies demonstrate that this barrier forms during embryogenesis, with pericyte/endothelial cell interactions being critical to regulate the BBB during development. A better understanding of the relationship among pericytes, neuroendothelial cells and astrocytes in BBB function will contribute to our understanding of BBB breakdown during central nervous system injury and disease.

    • Richard Daneman
    • , Lu Zhou
    •  & Ben A. Barres

  • News & Views |

    How do we tell red from green? Work on the primate retina shows how neural circuitry combines signals from individual cone photoreceptor cells to provide the basic building blocks for colour vision. See Article p.673

    • Jonathan B. Demb
    •  & David H. Brainard

  • News & Views |

    Spikes on the surface of HIV to which antibodies can bind are sparse. One of nature's solutions is to sometimes produce antibodies that bind tightly to a spike with one arm and grab another structure with the other arm. See Letter p.591

    • Andreas Plückthun

  • Article |

    Salmonella enterica serotype Typhimurium causes acute gut inflammation, which promotes the growth of the pathogen through unknown mechanisms. It is now shown that the reactive oxygen species generated during inflammation react with host-derived sulphur compounds to produce tetrathionate, which the pathogen uses as a terminal electron acceptor to support its growth. The ability to use tetrathionate provides the pathogen with a competitive advantage over bacteria that lack this property.

    • Sebastian E. Winter
    • , Parameth Thiennimitr
    •  & Andreas J. Bäumler

  • Letter |

    Cells that make up the liver are known to be polyploid. These authors show that mouse hepatocytes can increase and decrease their ploidy in vivo; increases occur as a result of failed cytokinesis, and decreases occur as a result of multipolar mitosis. The resulting genetic heterogeneity might be advantageous following hepatic injury, allowing the selection of 'genetically robust' cells from a pre-existing pool of diverse genotypes.

    • Andrew W. Duncan
    • , Matthew H. Taylor
    •  & Markus Grompe

  • Letter |

    Cell death by apoptosis is crucial for tissue development and function, and occurs throughout life. Apoptotic cells must be cleared by phagocytic cells, but the mechanisms that regulate cell clearance in vivo remain unclear. Here, a conserved engulfment protein, ELMO1, is shown to be required for the phagocytic clearance of apoptotic germ cells by Sertoli cells in mouse testes. The findings make a compelling case for the relationship between engulfment and tissue homeostasis in vivo.

    • Michael R. Elliott
    • , Shuqiu Zheng
    •  & Kodi S. Ravichandran

  • Letter |

    Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) fails to induce interferon in the cells that it infects, but the underlying mechanisms are not known. These authors show that the virus can in fact activate the interferon pathway in dendritic cells when the usual block to infection is bypassed. Dendritic cell activation depends on the HIV-1 capsid/cyclophilin A interaction, which is known to have a role in HIV-1 infectivity.

    • Nicolas Manel
    • , Brandon Hogstad
    •  & Dan R. Littman

  • Letter |

    B cells are activated by many different antigens to produce appropriate antibodies. B cells express up to 120,000 B-cell antigen receptor (BCR) complexes on their surface, but how do these complexes remain silent on resting B cells, and how are they activated? It is found here that the BCR on resting cells forms oligomers, and that these may be an autoinhibited form of the receptor. Disruption of the oligomer shifts B cells towards activation.

    • Jianying Yang
    •  & Michael Reth

  • Article |

    Neurons of the peripheral nervous system need survival factors to prevent their death during development. Most in the central nervous system do not. Why are peripheral neurons so needy? Here it is shown that the neurotrophin receptors TrkA and TrkC, expressed at high levels by many peripheral nervous system neurons, behave as dependence receptors: they instruct neurons to die if there is no ligand around. By contrast, TrkB, expressed mainly in the central nervous system, does not signal death in the absence of ligand.

    • Vassiliki Nikoletopoulou
    • , Heiko Lickert
    •  & Yves-Alain Barde

  • Letter |

    Anxious temperament in both humans and monkeys is an important early predictor of psychopathology and is known to be heritable. These authors characterize the neural circuitry associated with this trait and the extent to which its function is heritable. A scan of related monkeys after exposure to mild stress showed that activation in both the amygdala and hippocampus was predictive of anxious temperament, but that heritability of activity in hippocampus was greater than that in amygdala.

    • Jonathan A. Oler
    • , Andrew S. Fox
    •  & Ned H. Kalin

  • News |

    Researchers pin down a pathway coming between mammals and the ability to regenerate tissue salamander-style.

    • Alla Katsnelson

  • News & Views |

    Work on stem cells is one of the hottest research areas in biology. But are such studies of any therapeutic value? Fortunately, yes, as is evident from successes in treating blindness.

    • Elena Ezhkova
    •  & Elaine Fuchs

  • News & Views |

    The daily light–dark cycle affects many aspects of normal physiology through the activity of circadian clocks. It emerges that the pancreas has a clock of its own, which responds to energy fluctuations.

    • Katja A. Lamia
    •  & Ronald M. Evans

  • Article |

    The appropriate initiation and termination of behavioural action sequences is imperative, but the neural mechanisms underlying the learning and execution of fixed behavioural patterns are poorly understood. Here the authors reveal start/stop neuronal activity in basal ganglia circuits that emerge during task training in mice. Genetically altering these circuits disrupted the activity and impaired performance, providing evidence for a causal relationship between the specific neuronal activity and task learning.

    • Xin Jin
    •  & Rui M. Costa

  • Article |

    The microbial content of the human gut has been the focus of much research interest recently. Now another layer of complexity has been added: the viral content of the gut. Virus-like particles were isolated from faecal samples from four sets of identical twins and their mothers, at three time points over a one-year period. The viromes (metagenomes) of these particles were then sequenced. The results show that there is high interpersonal variation in viromes, but that intrapersonal diversity was very low over this time period.

    • Alejandro Reyes
    • , Matthew Haynes
    •  & Jeffrey I. Gordon

  • Outlook |

    HIV keeps the immune system in a hyperactive state, gradually leading to its ruin, reports Emma Marris.

    • Emma Marris

  • Outlook |

    Sarah DeWeerdt describes the intricate relationship between HIV and the host immune system, each influencing the other's next moves.

    • Sarah DeWeerdt

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