Biological sciences articles within Nature

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  • News & Views |

    Memory formation is known to occur at the level of synaptic contacts between neurons. It therefore comes as a surprise that another type of brain cell, the astrocyte, is also involved in establishing memory.

    • Mirko Santello
    •  & Andrea Volterra

  • News & Views |

    Chemical models of enzymes' active sites aid our understanding of biological reactions. Such a model of a reaction intermediate promises to advance our knowledge of the biochemistry of iron-containing haem enzymes.

    • Kenneth D. Karlin

  • News & Views |

    The key enzyme in photosynthesis, Rubisco, is a relic of a bygone age. The ability to assemble Rubisco in the test tube offers the prospect of genetically manipulating the enzyme to make it fit for the modern world.

    • R. John Ellis

  • News & Views |

    Parent birds commonly face the problem of distinguishing their own brood from foreign chicks. Learnt chick-recognition evolves only when parents do not mistakenly learn to reject their own young.

    • Rebecca Kilner

  • Letter |

    Little is known about the recent evolution of the Y chromosome because only the human Y chromosome has been fully sequenced. The sequencing of the male-specific region of the Y chromosome (MSY) in the chimpanzee and comparison between the MSYs of the two species now reveals that they differ radically in sequence structure and gene content, indicating rapid evolution over the past 6 million years.

    • Jennifer F. Hughes
    • , Helen Skaletsky
    •  & David C. Page

  • Letter |

    Distinguishing self from non-self is a vital function for immune systems to repel invaders without inducing autoimmunity. One system, which protects bacteria and archaea from invasion by phage and plasmid DNA, involves clustered, regularly interspaced, short palindromic repeat (CRISPR) loci. Here, in Staphylococcus epidermidis, the mechanism of CRISPR self/non-self discrimination is defined.

    • Luciano A. Marraffini
    •  & Erik J. Sontheimer

  • Article |

    GNF-2 is a recently discovered, selective allosteric Bcr–Abl inhibitor. Solution NMR, X-ray crystallography, mutagenesis and hydrogen exchange mass spectrometry are now used to show that GNF-2 binds to the myristate-binding site of Abl, leading to changes in the structural dynamics of the ATP-binding site. The results show that the combination of allosteric and ATP-competitive inhibitors can overcome resistance to either agent alone.

    • Jianming Zhang
    • , Francisco J. Adrián
    •  & Nathanael S. Gray

  • Letter |

    Immune homeostasis relies on tight control over the size of a population of regulatory T cells (Treg) that can suppress over-exuberant immune responses. Cells commit to the Treg lineage by upregulating the transcription factor Foxp3. Conserved non-coding DNA sequence elements at the Foxp3 locus are now shown to control the composition, size and maintenance of the Treg cell population.

    • Ye Zheng
    • , Steven Josefowicz
    •  & Alexander Y. Rudensky

  • Letter |

    In human tumours, complex cell interactions in the tumour and its microenvironment are thought to have an important role in tumorigenesis and cancer progression. In a genetically well-defined model system in Drosophila, clones of cells bearing different mutations are now shown to cooperate to promote tumour growth and invasion. This interaction involves JNK signalling propagation and JNK-induced upregulation of JAK/STAT-activating cytokines.

    • Ming Wu
    • , José Carlos Pastor-Pareja
    •  & Tian Xu

  • Letter |

    Phenotypic robustness in the face of genetic and environmental perturbations — known as canalization — relies on buffering mechanisms. Hsp90 chaperone machinery has been proposed to be an evolutionarily conserved buffering mechanism of phenotypic variance. Here, an additional, perhaps alternative, mechanism whereby Hsp90 influences phenotypic variation is proposed; Hsp90 mutations can generate new variation by transposon-mediated mutagenesis.

    • Valeria Specchia
    • , Lucia Piacentini
    •  & Maria P. Bozzetti

  • News |

    Much more carbon is sequestered by echinoderms than previously thought.

    • Matt Kaplan

  • Letter |

    If the activity of genetically specified neurons is silenced in a temporally precise fashion, the roles of different cell classes in neural processes can be studied. Members of the class of light-driven outward proton pumps are now shown to mediate powerful, safe, multiple-colour silencing of neural activity. The gene archaerhodopsin-3 (Arch) enables near 100% silencing of neurons in the awake brain when virally expressed in the mouse cortex and illuminated with yellow light.

    • Brian Y. Chow
    • , Xue Han
    •  & Edward S. Boyden

  • Letter |

    Kinase regulatory pathways are used in eukaryotic DNA replication to facilitate coordination with other processes during cell division cycles and response to environmental cues. The Dbf4–Cdc7 kinase (DDK) is one of at least two cell-cycle-regulated protein kinase systems essential for initiation of DNA replication. DDK is now shown to relieve the inhibitory activity of the amino-terminal domain of the replicative helicase Mcm4, thus promoting S phase.

    • Yi-Jun Sheu
    •  & Bruce Stillman

  • Article |

    Although Archaea encode proteasomes highly related to those of eukaryotes, archaeal ubiquitin-like proteins are less conserved and not known to function in protein conjugation, complicating our understanding of the origins of ubiquitination. Two small archaeal modifier proteins, SAMP1 and SAMP2, structurally similar to ubiquitin, are now reported to form protein conjugates in the archaeon Haloferax volcanii.

    • Matthew A. Humbard
    • , Hugo V. Miranda
    •  & Julie A. Maupin-Furlow

  • Letter |

    G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) mediate the majority of cellular responses to hormones and neurotransmitters and are the largest group of therapeutic targets for a range of diseases. The extracellular surface (ECS) of GPCRs is diverse and therefore an ideal target for the discovery of subtype-selective drugs. Here, NMR spectroscopy is used to investigate ligand-specific conformational changes around a central structural feature in the ECS of a GPCR.

    • Michael P. Bokoch
    • , Yaozhong Zou
    •  & Brian K. Kobilka

  • Article |

    The earliest body fossils of tetrapods (vertebrates with limbs rather than paired fins) date to the Late Devonian period. There have been claims of tetrapod trackways predating these body fossils but the age and identity of the track makers have remained controversial. The discovery of well-preserved and securely dated tetrapod tracks from Polish marine tidal flat sediments of early Middle Devonian age, around 18 million years older than the earliest tetrapod body fossils, is now presented.

    • Grzegorz Niedźwiedzki
    • , Piotr Szrek
    •  & Per E. Ahlberg

  • Letter |

    The role of B-cell-receptor (BCR) signalling in human B cell lymphomas has been a long-standing question, with genetic and functional evidence for its oncogenic role in human lymphomas lacking. Here, a form of 'chronic active' BCR signalling that is required for cell survival in the activated B-cell-like subtype of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma is described and analysed, with potential implications for future therapeutic strategies.

    • R. Eric Davis
    • , Vu N. Ngo
    •  & Louis M. Staudt

  • Letter |

    Until now, retroviruses have been the only group of viruses known to have left a fossil record, in the form of endogenous proviruses; those elements make up approximately 8% of the human genome. Elements homologous to the nucleoprotein gene of the non-retroviral bornavirus are now shown to exist in the genomes of several mammalian species; the results give insights into the role of bornavirus as a source of genetic novelty to its host.

    • Masayuki Horie
    • , Tomoyuki Honda
    •  & Keizo Tomonaga

  • News & Views |

    Retrieving a memory initiates a window of vulnerability for that memory. Simple behavioural methods can modify distressing memories during this window, eliminating fear reactions to traumatic reminders.

    • Gregory J. Quirk
    •  & Mohammed R. Milad

  • News & Views |

    A survey of mammalian genomes has unexpectedly unearthed DNA derived from bornaviruses, leading to speculation about the role of these viruses in causing mutations with evolutionary and medical consequences.

    • Cédric Feschotte

  • News Feature |

    An annual excursion to an exclusive Caribbean island has yielded an impressive body of ecological fieldwork. Just don't call it a holiday, says Mark Schrope.

    • Mark Schrope

  • News & Views |

    Retrieving a memory initiates a window of vulnerability for that memory. Simple behavioural methods can modify distressing memories during this window, eliminating fear reactions to traumatic reminders.

    • Gregory J. Quirk
    •  & Mohammed R. Milad

  • News & Views |

    The tracks left by organisms are among the most difficult of fossils to interpret. But just such evidence puts debate about the origins of four-limbed vertebrates (which include ourselves) on a changed footing.

    • Philippe Janvier
    •  & Gaël Clément

  • Letter |

    Clear cell renal carcinoma, the most common form of adult kidney cancer, is often characterized by the presence of inactivating mutations in the VHL gene. A large survey for somatic mutations now identifies inactivating mutations in two genes encoding enzymes involved in histone modification, highlighting the role of mutations in components of the chromatin modification machinery in human cancer.

    • Gillian L. Dalgliesh
    • , Kyle Furge
    •  & P. Andrew Futreal

  • Authors |

    Training helps people forget some fearful memories.

  • News |

    Nature looks at what key events may come from the research world in 2010.

    • Richard Van Noorden

  • Article |

    The differentiation of an embryonic stem cell (ESC) requires both suppression of the self-renewal process and activation of the specific differentiation pathway. The let-7 family of microRNAs (miRNAs) are now shown to suppress the self-renewal program in cells that are normally unable to silence this program, whereas introduction of ESC cell cycle regulating miRNAs blocks the action of let-7. Thus, the interplay between these two groups of miRNAs dictates cell fate.

    • Collin Melton
    • , Robert L. Judson
    •  & Robert Blelloch

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