October 2018

Image credit to Radim Schreiber (fireflyexperience.org)

Cover articles

    1. Genetics and Genomics

    The evolution of bioluminescence

    Timothy R Fallon, Sarah E Lower ... Jing-Ke Weng
    1. Ecology
    2. Epidemiology and Global Health

    Are personality and lifespan related?

    Drew M Altschul, William D Hopkins ... Alexander Weiss
    1. Developmental Biology
    2. Neuroscience

    Long non-coding RNAs and cell fate

    Ya-Ping Yen, Wen-Fu Hsieh ... Jun-An Chen
    1. Developmental Biology

    Controlling glucose metabolism

    Alexis M Ceasrine, Eugene E Lin ... Rejji Kuruvilla

Highlights controls:

Research articles

    1. Cell Biology

    Ryanodine receptor dispersion disrupts Ca2+ release in failing cardiac myocytes

    Terje R Kolstad, Jonas van den Brink ... William E Louch
    Experimental and mathematical modeling approaches identify a novel mechanism of heart failure, linking disrupted calcium homeostasis and impaired contractility of cardiacmyocytes to nanoscale reorganization of calcium release channels.
    1. Neuroscience

    Reversal of ApoE4-induced recycling block as a novel prevention approach for Alzheimer’s disease

    Xunde Xian, Theresa Pohlkamp ... Joachim Herz
    Lowering endosomal pH through inhibition of sodium-hydrogen exchanger 6 corrects the ApoE4-induced Reelin resistance and restores neuronal glutamate receptor trafficking.
    1. Neuroscience

    Real-time classification of experience-related ensemble spiking patterns for closed-loop applications

    Davide Ciliberti, Frédéric Michon, Fabian Kloosterman
    A brain–computer interface for real-time identification of transient neural activity patterns enables causal inference of the role of these patterns in cognition through closed-loop manipulation.
    1. Evolutionary Biology
    2. Neuroscience

    Physiological constraint on acrobatic courtship behavior underlies rapid sympatric speciation in bearded manakins

    Meredith C Miles, Franz Goller, Matthew J Fuxjager
    Skeletal muscle performance sets the course of rapid speciation by defining the evolutionary trajectory of reproductive behavior.
    1. Evolutionary Biology

    Support for a clade of Placozoa and Cnidaria in genes with minimal compositional bias

    Christopher E Laumer, Harald Gruber-Vodicka ... Gonzalo Giribet
    Protein coding genes strongly support a sister group relationship between Placozoa and Cnidaria to the exclusion of Bilateria, contradicting previous phylogenies, which have likely been misled by pervasive compositional heterogeneity.
    1. Cell Biology
    2. Neuroscience

    Active presynaptic ribosomes in the mammalian brain, and altered transmitter release after protein synthesis inhibition

    Matthew S Scarnati, Rahul Kataria ... Kenneth G Paradiso
    Local presynaptic protein synthesis occurring at established nerve terminals in the mammalian brain provides a mechanism for rapidly controlling or restoring presynaptic proteins that affect neurotransmitter release and presynaptic efficiency.
    1. Developmental Biology
    2. Evolutionary Biology

    Decoupling from yolk sac is required for extraembryonic tissue spreading in the scuttle fly Megaselia abdita

    Francesca Caroti, Everardo González Avalos ... Steffen Lemke
    Extraembryonic tissue spreading in the scuttle fly Megaselia abdita requires mechanical decoupling from the underlying yolk sac.
    1. Neuroscience

    The subiculum is a patchwork of discrete subregions

    Mark S Cembrowski, Lihua Wang ... Nelson Spruston
    Pyramidal cells of the subiculum, a major output cell type of the hippocampus, can be deconstructed into distinct subtypes that exhibit a patchwork-like organization in space.
    1. Genetics and Genomics
    2. Microbiology and Infectious Disease

    Organisms with alternative genetic codes resolve unassigned codons via mistranslation and ribosomal rescue

    Natalie Jing Ma, Colin F Hemez ... Farren J Isaacs
    Cells resolve unassigned codons with near-cognate suppression, frameshifting, and ribosomal rescue mechanisms, demonstrating that unassigned codons are permissible in both natural and engineered genetic codes as barriers to horizontal gene transfer.
    1. Evolutionary Biology

    Compensatory evolution drives multidrug-resistant tuberculosis in Central Asia

    Matthias Merker, Maxime Barbier ... Stefan Niemann
    The genetic make-up of dominating MDR-TB clades in Central Asia is shaped by programmatic and socio-economic changes that led to fixation of resistance and bacterial fitness related mutations in the Soviet era.
    1. Medicine

    Increase in clinically recorded type 2 diabetes after colectomy

    Anders B Jensen, Thorkild IA Sørensen ... Kristine H Allin
    This nationwide register-based study of diabetes risk after colectomy suggests that the left colon contributes to maintenance of glucose homeostasis.
    1. Microbiology and Infectious Disease

    An NAD+-dependent novel transcription factor controls stage conversion in Entamoeba

    Dipak Manna, Christian Stephan Lentz ... Upinder Singh
    Cellular NAD+ levels change during stage conversion and regulate function of a novel transcription factor that controls developmental switching in the human pathogen Entamoeba histolytica.
    1. Neuroscience

    Dopamine neurons projecting to medial shell of the nucleus accumbens drive heroin reinforcement

    Julie Corre, Ruud van Zessen ... Christian Lüscher
    Disinhibition of dopamine neurons in the midbrain drives heroin reinforcement, the initial step towards opioid addiction.
    1. Epidemiology and Global Health

    National and regional seasonal dynamics of all-cause and cause-specific mortality in the USA from 1980 to 2016

    Robbie M Parks, James E Bennett ... Majid Ezzati
    All parts of the USA are similarly adapted to temperature seasonality, although mortality seasonality, and how it has changed since the 1980s, depend on age and sex.
    1. Computational and Systems Biology
    2. Neuroscience

    A kinematic synergy for terrestrial locomotion shared by mammals and birds

    Giovanna Catavitello, Yury Ivanenko, Francesco Lacquaniti
    General principles of the limb segment control for terrestrial locomotion have emerged in evolution and highlight the existence of the laws of biological motion that apply to various animal species.
    1. Developmental Biology
    2. Genetics and Genomics

    Zygotic gene activation in the chicken occurs in two waves, the first involving only maternally derived genes

    Young Sun Hwang, Minseok Seo ... Jae Yong Han
    In Aves, the first wave of transcription is derived exclusively from the maternal genome.
    1. Cell Biology
    2. Neuroscience

    Aberrant information transfer interferes with functional axon regeneration

    Chen Ding, Marc Hammarlund
    Defects in synapse regeneration limit functional circuit recovery after nerve injury by misdirecting information via ectopic dendritic synapses, and also by functional and molecular deficits in reformed axonal synapses.
    1. Neuroscience
    2. Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine

    Engineering induction of singular neural rosette emergence within hPSC-derived tissues

    Gavin T Knight, Brady F Lundin ... Randolph Scott Ashton
    A bioengineering approach identifies tissue morphology as an effective variable for controlling the inception of neural organoid morphogenesis via induction of a biomimetic, singular neural rosette tissue cytoarchitecture.
    1. Chromosomes and Gene Expression
    2. Genetics and Genomics

    Chromatin accessibility dynamics across C. elegans development and ageing

    Jürgen Jänes, Yan Dong ... Julie Ahringer
    Profiling chromatin accessibility and nuclear transcription across Caenorhabditis elegans development and ageing generated the first map of transcriptional regulatory elements and their activities across an animal's life.
    1. Neuroscience

    Selective increases in inter-individual variability in response to environmental enrichment in female mice

    Julia C Körholz, Sara Zocher ... Gerd Kempermann
    The classical experimental paradigm of "enriched environments" is repositioned as a tool to address the question of how behavioral activity and the environment contribute to specific differences between individuals.
    1. Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
    2. Evolutionary Biology

    Functional trade-offs and environmental variation shaped ancient trajectories in the evolution of dim-light vision

    Gianni M Castiglione, Belinda SW Chang
    The evolution of the light-sensitive visual pigment rhodopsin involved functional tradeoffs that may have sacrificed rod photosensitivity for active-state protein stability to mitigate phototoxicity in tetrapods, but not in fishes.
    1. Neuroscience

    Reduced auditory cortical adaptation in autism spectrum disorder

    Rachel Millin, Tamar Kolodny ... Scott Murray
    Neural adaptation in auditory cortex is reduced in autism spectrum disorder, resulting in increased neural responsiveness.
    1. Cancer Biology
    2. Chromosomes and Gene Expression

    Multiple tumor suppressors regulate a HIF-dependent negative feedback loop via ISGF3 in human clear cell renal cancer

    Lili Liao, Zongzhi Z Liu ... Haifeng Yang
    Major secondary tumor suppressors in kidney cancer are required to maintain the activity of a tumor suppressive transcription factor after the loss of the primary tumor suppressor VHL.
    1. Medicine
    2. Neuroscience

    Changes in global and thalamic brain connectivity in LSD-induced altered states of consciousness are attributable to the 5-HT2A receptor

    Katrin H Preller, Joshua B Burt ... Alan Anticevic
    LSD induces a pattern of changed global brain connectivity characterized by hypo-connectivity in associative areas and hyper-connectivity across sensory and somatomotor areas that is dependent on the serotonin 2A receptor.
    1. Computational and Systems Biology
    2. Neuroscience

    Inhibition enhances spatially-specific calcium encoding of synaptic input patterns in a biologically constrained model

    Daniel B Dorman, Joanna Jędrzejewska-Szmek, Kim T Blackwell
    Inhibition enhances the spatial specificity of high calcium influx for cooperatively stimulated synapses, suggesting that inhibitory inputs may regulate both synapse-specific and heterosynaptic plasticity to support learning and memory.
    1. Chromosomes and Gene Expression

    The RNA interactome of human telomerase RNA reveals a coding-independent role for a histone mRNA in telomere homeostasis

    Roland Ivanyi-Nagy, Syed Moiz Ahmed ... Peter Dröge
    A messenger RNA coding for the histone 1.2 protein negatively regulates telomere elongation by interacting with human telomerase RNA.
    1. Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine
    2. Developmental Biology

    Hair follicle epidermal stem cells define a niche for tactile sensation

    Chun-Chun Cheng, Ko Tsutsui ... Hironobu Fujiwara
    Heterogeneous epidermal stem cells define a niche for tactile sensation via providing a unique ECM and tissue architecture for nerves, revealing their new functions in coordinated sensory organ formation.
    1. Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
    2. Cell Biology

    INAVA-ARNO complexes bridge mucosal barrier function with inflammatory signaling

    Phi Luong, Matija Hedl ... Wayne I Lencer
    Inflammatory bowel disease risk-gene, INAVA and the ARF-GEF ARNO, regulates non-canonical cortical actin assembly and IL-1b signaling to maintain epithelial homeostasis.
    1. Developmental Biology
    2. Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine

    Altered bone growth dynamics prefigure craniosynostosis in a zebrafish model of Saethre-Chotzen syndrome

    Camilla S Teng, Man-chun Ting ... J Gage Crump
    Sequential live imaging of abnormal skull bone fusion in zebrafish reveals a deeply conserved role of two transcription factors, Twist1 and Tcf12, in regulating stem cell activity during growth of the skull.
    1. Neuroscience

    GABA, not BOLD, reveals dissociable learning-dependent plasticity mechanisms in the human brain

    Polytimi Frangou, Marta Correia, Zoe Kourtzi
    Combining GABA with fMRI measurements in the human brain uncovers distinct suppression mechanisms that optimize perceptual decisions through learning and experience-dependent plasticity in the visual cortex.
    1. Neuroscience

    Excitatory and inhibitory synapse reorganization immediately after critical sensory experience in a vocal learner

    Ziqiang Huang, Houda G Khaled ... Richard HR Hahnloser
    Sensory acquisition of a motor target is associated with rapid removal of excitatory synapses and with rapid insertion of inhibitory synapses in the main song control area of songbirds.
    1. Neuroscience

    Theta-modulation drives the emergence of connectivity patterns underlying replay in a network model of place cells

    Panagiota Theodoni, Bernat Rovira ... Alex Roxin
    The learning rate for novel spatial environments in model networks of place cells is determined by the product of the window for plasticity and the auto-correlation of place-cell activity.
    1. Developmental Biology

    The glycosphingolipid MacCer promotes synaptic bouton formation in Drosophila by interacting with Wnt

    Yan Huang, Sheng Huang ... Yong Q Zhang
    Multiple independent analyses reveal that a specific membrane lipid directly interacts with the signalling protein Wingless to promote synapse growth at the Drosophila neuromuscular junctions.
    1. Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics

    Structures of translationally inactive mammalian ribosomes

    Alan Brown, Matthew R Baird ... Sichen Shao
    Mining electron cryomicroscopy data reveals new ribosomal interactions that preclude translation to potentially regulate gene expression.
    1. Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics

    Geometry of antiparallel microtubule bundles regulates relative sliding and stalling by PRC1 and Kif4A

    Sithara Wijeratne, Radhika Subramanian
    Geometrical features of microtubule arrays regulate the collective activity of motor and non-motor proteins.
    1. Plant Biology

    LEAFY maintains apical stem cell activity during shoot development in the fern Ceratopteris richardii 

    Andrew RG Plackett, Stephanie J Conway ... Verónica S Di Stilio
    Transgenic analysis reveals a role for LEAFY in ferns that supports a trajectory from general to floral meristem-specific function as land plants evolved.
    1. Neuroscience

    Analogue closed-loop optogenetic modulation of hippocampal pyramidal cells dissociates gamma frequency and amplitude

    Elizabeth Nicholson, Dmitry A Kuzmin ... Dimitri Michael Kullmann
    Neurons can synchronize, supporting flexible communication among brain areas; closed-loop optogenetics allows the frequency and power of population oscillations to be dissociated, providing a tool to interrogate how networks couple.
    1. Cell Biology

    A novel mode of capping protein-regulation by twinfilin

    Adam B Johnston, Denise M Hilton ... Bruce L Goode
    Twinfilin functions as a pro-capping ligand of capping protein, dynamically competing with inhibitory ligands of capping proteinto control cellular actin assembly.
    1. Neuroscience

    Acute perturbation of Pet1-neuron activity in neonatal mice impairs cardiorespiratory homeostatic recovery

    Ryan T Dosumu-Johnson, Andrea E Cocoran ... Susan M Dymecki
    Pet1 neurons actively maintain cardiorespiratory tone and dynamic range in mouse neonates and critically support the recovery response to apneas, informing brain findings in the sudden infant death syndrome.
    1. Neuroscience

    Entrainment and maintenance of an internal metronome in supplementary motor area

    Jaime Cadena-Valencia, Otto García-Garibay ... Victor de Lafuente
    Temporal rhythms are encoded in the supplementary motor area by firing rate oscillations and rhythmic bursts of gamma-band LFP activity.
    1. Neuroscience

    Environmental deformations dynamically shift the grid cell spatial metric

    Alexandra T Keinath, Russell A Epstein, Vijay Balasubramanian
    When a familiar environment is reshaped, the grid cell spatial code is dynamically anchored to recently encountered boundaries and changes throughout exploration with the specific movement history of the navigator.
    1. Biochemistry and Chemical Biology

    Affinity capture of polyribosomes followed by RNAseq (ACAPseq), a discovery platform for protein-protein interactions

    Xi Peng, Francesco Emiliani ... Jeremy Nathans
    Affinity capture of polyribosomes followed by RNAseq(ACAPSeq) is a technique that harnesses massively parallel sequencing to identify protein-protein interactions from any source from which polyribosomes can be purified.
    1. Neuroscience

    Multiple neurons encode CrebB dependent appetitive long-term memory in the mushroom body circuit

    Yves F Widmer, Cornelia Fritsch ... Simon G Sprecher
    The transcription factor CrebB mediates long-term memory formation in different neurons within the mushroom body learning circuit, including mushroom body intrinsic and output neurons but not dopaminergic input neurons.
    1. Cell Biology
    2. Physics of Living Systems

    Morphogenetic degeneracies in the actomyosin cortex

    Sundar Ram Naganathan, Sebastian Fürthauer ... Stephan W Grill
    Distinct molecular functions contribute to the same material property at larger scales leading to degenerate functionality.
    1. Microbiology and Infectious Disease
    2. Plant Biology

    A Phytophthora effector recruits a host cytoplasmic transacetylase into nuclear speckles to enhance plant susceptibility

    Haiyang Li, Haonan Wang ... Yuanchao Wang
    PsAvh52 modulates epigenetic modification to enhance the susceptibility of soybean to Phytophthora sojae infection.
    1. Neuroscience

    Lamina-specific cortical dynamics in human visual and sensorimotor cortices

    James J Bonaiuto, Sofie S Meyer ... Sven Bestmann
    Cortical oscillations in human MEG are lamina-specific, with low-frequency activity predominating in deep, and high-frequency activity in more superficial layers of sensory and motor cortices.
    1. Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
    2. Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics

    Crystal structures of DNA polymerase I capture novel intermediates in the DNA synthesis pathway

    Nicholas Chim, Lynnette N Jackson ... John C Chaput
    Insight into the mechanism of DNA synthesis is provided by the crystal structures of DNA polymerase intermediates.
    1. Neuroscience

    Fast-backward replay of sequentially memorized items in humans

    Qiaoli Huang, Jianrong Jia ... Huan Luo
    Serially remembered items are successively reactivated during memory maintenance in the human brain, and replay profiles, temporally compressed and reverse in order, are associated with recency effect in behavioral performance.
    1. Computational and Systems Biology
    2. Genetics and Genomics

    A new experimental platform facilitates assessment of the transcriptional and chromatin landscapes of aging yeast

    David G Hendrickson, Ilya Soifer ... R Scott McIsaac
    A new technology for obtaining aged yeast cells helps reveal a striking connection between aging, slow growth, and stress.
    1. Microbiology and Infectious Disease
    2. Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics

    Epitope resurfacing on dengue virus-like particle vaccine preparation to induce broad neutralizing antibody

    Wen-Fan Shen, Jedhan Ucat Galula ... Day-Yu Chao
    Despite size heterogeneity, an epitope-resurfaced mature-form dengue VLP has the potential to induce quaternary structure-recognizing broad cross-reactive neutralizing antibodies.
    1. Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
    2. Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics

    Consensus designs and thermal stability determinants of a human glutamate transporter

    Erica Cirri, Sébastien Brier ... Nicolas Reyes
    A fast evolutionary approach to engineer membrane protein kinetic stability yields folded excitatory neurotransmitter transporters and provides insights into their denaturing pathway.
    1. Plant Biology

    The role of APETALA1 in petal number robustness

    Marie Monniaux, Bjorn Pieper ... Angela Hay
    Variable petal number in Cardamine hirsuta is explained by regulatory changes in the MADS-box gene APETALA1 that relaxed its epistasis over mapped QTL in the C. hirsuta genome.
    1. Developmental Biology

    Feedback regulation of cytoneme-mediated transport shapes a tissue-specific FGF morphogen gradient

    Lijuan Du, Alex Sohr ... Sougata Roy
    FGF morphogen gradient self-generates a recipient tissue-specific contour by feedback-regulating its cytoneme-mediated dispersion.
    1. Neuroscience

    Characterization of small fiber pathology in a mouse model of Fabry disease

    Lukas Hofmann, Dorothea Hose ... Nurcan Üçeyler
    Globotriaosylcermide directly impacts neuronal integrity and ion channel function as potential mechanism underlying small fiber pathology in Fabry disease.
    1. Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
    2. Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics

    Tuning site-specific dynamics to drive allosteric activation in a pneumococcal zinc uptake regulator

    Daiana A Capdevila, Fidel Huerta ... David P Giedroc
    Internal dynamics play a crucial functional role in MarR (multiple antibiotic resistance repressor) proteins and their role reconciles the distinct allosteric mechanisms proposed previously.
    1. Evolutionary Biology

    Changes to social feeding behaviors are not sufficient for fitness gains of the Caenorhabditis elegans N2 reference strain

    Yuehui Zhao, Lijiang Long ... Patrick T McGrath
    Use of experimental manipulation demonstrates that social/solitary feeding behaviors are unrelated to the fitness gains conferred by causative alleles in two previously identified genes.
    1. Microbiology and Infectious Disease

    Maturing Mycobacterium smegmatis peptidoglycan requires non-canonical crosslinks to maintain shape

    Catherine Baranowski, Michael A Welsh ... E Hesper Rego
    Polar elongating mycobacteria (Mycobacterium smegmatis) require specific cell wall chemistries, those catalyzed by targets of critical antibiotics, to maintain rod shape at aging sites of the bacillus.
    1. Computational and Systems Biology
    2. Microbiology and Infectious Disease

    Integrated culturing, modeling and transcriptomics uncovers complex interactions and emergent behavior in a three-species synthetic gut community

    Kevin D'hoe, Stefan Vet ... Jeroen Raes
    Human gut bacteria alter their metabolism in response to each other's presence, which causes their community dynamics to deviate from predictions that are based on mono-culture data.
    1. Evolutionary Biology

    A biological switching valve evolved in the female of a sex-role reversed cave insect to receive multiple seminal packages

    Kazunori Yoshizawa, Yoshitaka Kamimura ... Alexander Blanke
    The discovery of a biological switching valve provides an example of a mechanism that evolved in nature long before its invention by man and could inspire alternative valve technologies.
    1. Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
    2. Cell Biology

    OGT binds a conserved C-terminal domain of TET1 to regulate TET1 activity and function in development

    Joel Hrit, Leeanne Goodrich ... Barbara Panning
    The epigenetic regulator TET1 is regulated by the nutrient-sensing enzyme OGT in vitro and in cells.
    1. Chromosomes and Gene Expression
    2. Genetics and Genomics

    The Aquilegia genome provides insight into adaptive radiation and reveals an extraordinarily polymorphic chromosome with a unique history

    Danièle L Filiault, Evangeline S Ballerini ... Magnus Nordborg
    The evolution columbine genus involved frequent mixing between incipient species, and one chromosome appears to have taken its own path.
    1. Neuroscience

    Dopamine maintains network synchrony via direct modulation of gap junctions in the crustacean cardiac ganglion

    Brian J Lane, Daniel R Kick ... David J Schulz
    Dopamine is able to ensure that neural networks maintain critical features of their output, such as synchrony of neuron firing, by directly increasing coupling strength to ensure robust output is maintained.
    1. Cell Biology
    2. Physics of Living Systems

    Mechanically stimulated ATP release from murine bone cells is regulated by a balance of injury and repair

    Nicholas Mikolajewicz, Elizabeth A Zimmermann ... Svetlana V Komarova
    Bone cells exposed to physiological forces release ATP through repairable membrane injury, generating an intercellular signal that conveys the destructive potential of forces and the adaptive capacity of endangered cells.
    1. Cancer Biology

    Loss of p53 suppresses replication-stress-induced DNA breakage in G1/S checkpoint deficient cells

    Bente Benedict, Tanja van Harn ... Hein te Riele
    During tumorigenesis loss of p53 not only abrogates cell cycle arrest and apoptosis, but also suppresses the induction of replication-stress-induced DNA double-stranded breaks.
    1. Evolutionary Biology
    2. Genetics and Genomics

    Recurrent loss of HMGCS2 shows that ketogenesis is not essential for the evolution of large mammalian brains

    David Jebb, Michael Hiller
    The evolutionary loss of the main enzyme required for ketone body biosynthesis suggests that alternative strategies to provide energy for large brains during fasting evolved repeatedly in mammals.
    1. Cancer Biology

    CD95/Fas ligand mRNA is toxic to cells

    Will Putzbach, Ashley Haluck-Kangas ... Marcus E Peter
    The mRNA of the apoptosis inducing death ligand CD95L/FasL kills cancer cells through RNAi after conversion into small RNAs that are loaded into the RNA-induced Silencing Complex.
    1. Genetics and Genomics

    Firefly genomes illuminate parallel origins of bioluminescence in beetles

    Timothy R Fallon, Sarah E Lower ... Jing-Ke Weng
    The first genomic view of beetle luciferase evolution indicates evolutionary independence of luciferase between fireflies and click-beetles, and provide valuable datasets which will accelerate the discovery of new biotechnological tools.
    1. Computational and Systems Biology

    Trajectories of childhood immune development and respiratory health relevant to asthma and allergy

    Howard HF Tang, Shu Mei Teo ... Michael Inouye
    Unsupervised cluster analysis identified similar groups of children in different cohorts, with distinct developmental patterns of immunorespiratory health, asthma and allergy.
    1. Neuroscience

    Myosin V functions as a vesicle tether at the plasma membrane to control neurotransmitter release in central synapses

    Dario Maschi, Michael W Gramlich, Vitaly A Klyachko
    Synaptic vesicles undergo reversible tethering at the plasma membrane which is activity- and myosin V- dependent.
    1. Neuroscience

    Dynamic neuromuscular remodeling precedes motor-unit loss in a mouse model of ALS

    Éric Martineau, Adriana Di Polo ... Richard Robitaille
    Motor axons undergo dynamic branch-specific changes for weeks before complete neuronal degeneration in a model of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, highlighting the importance of peripheral factors, intrinsic and extrinsic to motoneurons.
    1. Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics

    Structural basis for isoform-specific kinesin-1 recognition of Y-acidic cargo adaptors

    Stefano Pernigo, Magda S Chegkazi ... Roberto A Steiner
    X-ray crystallography reveals how kinesin-1 recognises a novel class of cargo adaptor motifs in an isoform-specific manner.
    1. Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics

    Screening of candidate substrates and coupling ions of transporters by thermostability shift assays

    Homa Majd, Martin S King ... Edmund RS Kunji
    It is technically difficult to identify transport proteins, but here a method is presented that exploits the principle that they are stabilized in detergent solution when they bind their substrate.
    1. Cell Biology

    RalB directly triggers invasion downstream Ras by mobilizing the Wave complex

    Giulia Zago, Irina Veith ... Maria Carla Parrini
    By moving from correlations to causality in cancer signal transduction using optogenetics, the sufficiency of RalB activation to trigger invasion and the underlying molecular mechanisms were established.
    1. Cell Biology

    Dynein-2 intermediate chains play crucial but distinct roles in primary cilia formation and function

    Laura Vuolo, Nicola L Stevenson ... David J Stephens
    Genetic knock-outs of the dynein-2 intermediate chains reveals that both are essential for correct cilia function and transition zone organization, but play different functions in the assembly of dynein-2 motor and in primary cilia formation.
    1. Microbiology and Infectious Disease

    Characterization of a Toxoplasma effector uncovers an alternative GSK3/β-catenin-regulatory pathway of inflammation

    Huan He, Marie-Pierre Brenier-Pinchart ... Alexandre Bougdour
    A genetic screen in combination with biochemical approaches reveal hijacking of the host β-catenin destruction complex by the parasite T. gondii to reprogram immune gene expression.
    1. Evolutionary Biology

    Can Hamilton’s rule be violated?

    Matthijs van Veelen
    Hamilton's rule can be violated when costs and benefits of cooperation are defined using the counterfactual method, and when they depend on the cooperation of others.
    1. Chromosomes and Gene Expression
    2. Neuroscience

    Species and cell-type properties of classically defined human and rodent neurons and glia

    Xiao Xu, Elitsa I Stoyanova ... Nathaniel Heintz
    Gene expression and epigenetic profiling of defined cell types in the central nervous system of mouse, rat, and human reveals inter-species and inter-individual differences.
    1. Neuroscience

    Perceptual processing in the ventral visual stream requires area TE but not rhinal cortex

    Mark AG Eldridge, Narihisa Matsumoto ... Barry J Richmond
    Bilateral removal of cortical area 'TE' produced deficits in monkeys' ability to discriminate among images with many similar features, whereas removal of subjacent rhinal cortex did not.
    1. Developmental Biology
    2. Neuroscience

    Dlk1-Dio3 locus-derived lncRNAs perpetuate postmitotic motor neuron cell fate and subtype identity

    Ya-Ping Yen, Wen-Fu Hsieh ... Jun-An Chen
    LncRNAs are important to stabilize postmitotic cell fate of spinal motor neurons.
    1. Neuroscience

    Sensory experience inversely regulates feedforward and feedback excitation-inhibition ratio in rodent visual cortex

    Nathaniel J Miska, Leonidas MA Richter ... Gina G Turrigiano
    Sensory deprivation suppresses cortical responsiveness through a selective remodeling of excitatory and inhibitory microcircuit motifs, by simultaneously amplifying feedforward and suppressing feedback excitation.
    1. Cell Biology
    2. Neuroscience

    High N-glycan multiplicity is critical for neuronal adhesion and sensitizes the developing cerebellum to N-glycosylation defect

    Daniel Medina-Cano, Ekin Ucuncu ... Vincent Cantagrel
    Impairment of protein N-glycosylation disrupts neural cell adhesion mediated by highly glycosylated members of the IgSF-CAM protein family.
    1. Developmental Biology
    2. Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine

    WNT signaling memory is required for ACTIVIN to function as a morphogen in human gastruloids

    Anna Yoney, Fred Etoc ... Ali H Brivanlou
    The requirement for WNT signaling in mesendoderm differentiation is temporally separate from that of ACTIVIN signaling and acts to switch the output of ACTIVIN/SMAD2 from pluripotency maintenance to mesendoderm patterning.
    1. Plant Biology

    The chloroplast 2-cysteine peroxiredoxin functions as thioredoxin oxidase in redox regulation of chloroplast metabolism

    Mohamad-Javad Vaseghi, Kamel Chibani ... Karl-Josef Dietz
    The chloroplast 2-cysteine peroxiredoxin is central player and missing link in the chloroplast thiol-disulfide redox regulatory network, and participates in oxidative inactivation of reductively activated enzymes in photosynthesis.
    1. Neuroscience

    The fate of hippocampal synapses depends on the sequence of plasticity-inducing events

    J Simon Wiegert, Mauro Pulin ... Thomas G Oertner
    Non-invasive optogenetic induction of synaptic plasticity revealed that long-term potentiation and long-term depression alter the chances of a synapse to survive the next seven days.
    1. Neuroscience

    Central Dicer-miR-103/107 controls developmental switch of POMC progenitors into NPY neurons and impacts glucose homeostasis

    Sophie Croizier, Soyoung Park ... Sebastien G Bouret
    Loss miRNA maturation in proopiomelanocortin (POMC) neurons causes metabolic dysregulation and favors the differentiation of Pomc progenitors into neuropeptide Y neurons, a developmental process that appears to specifically involve miR-103/107.
    1. Microbiology and Infectious Disease

    Chromatin mapping identifies BasR, a key regulator of bacteria-triggered production of fungal secondary metabolites

    Juliane Fischer, Sebastian Y Müller ... Axel A Brakhage
    Genome-wide chromatin mapping during bacterial-fungal cocultivation identifies the Myb-like transcription factor BasR as the major regulatory node of bacteria-triggered production of fungal secondary metabolites.
    1. Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics

    Calcium-dependent electrostatic control of anion access to the pore of the calcium-activated chloride channel TMEM16A

    Andy KM Lam, Raimund Dutzler
    Ion conduction in the calcium-activated chloride channel TMEM16A is directly regulated by calcium, which binds to a site close to the pore thereby shaping the electrostatics at its intracellular entrance.
    1. Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
    2. Plant Biology

    Effects of microcompartmentation on flux distribution and metabolic pools in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii chloroplasts

    Anika Küken, Frederik Sommer ... Tabea Mettler-Altmann
    Mathematical models reveal that under the physiologically different conditions ambient and high CO2, two algal microcompartments are metabolically connected by facilitated transport.
    1. Neuroscience

    A complex peripheral code for salt taste in Drosophila

    Alexandria H Jaeger, Molly Stanley ... Michael D Gordon
    Unlike other taste modalities, the Drosophila taste system encodes salt taste combinatorially across multiple sensory neuron classes, which combine to produce behavioural valence and plasticity.
    1. Computational and Systems Biology
    2. Immunology and Inflammation

    Context-enriched interactome powered by proteomics helps the identification of novel regulators of macrophage activation

    Arda Halu, Jian-Guo Wang ... Amitabh Sharma
    Enriching the interactome with context-specific information from proteomics helps the identification of novel regulators of macrophage activation.
    1. Developmental Biology

    Adrb2 controls glucose homeostasis by developmental regulation of pancreatic islet vasculature

    Alexis M Ceasrine, Eugene E Lin ... Rejji Kuruvilla
    β2-adrenergic receptors control glucose metabolism by regulating cross-talk between pancreatic islet endocrine cells and vasculature during development.
    1. Neuroscience

    Ongoing, rational calibration of reward-driven perceptual biases

    Yunshu Fan, Joshua I Gold, Long Ding
    The rational application of heuristic learning strategies and satisficing goals accounted for near-optimal decisions that combined reward and noisy visual information by well-trained monkeys.
    1. Cell Biology

    Mitochondria reorganization upon proliferation arrest predicts individual yeast cell fate

    Damien Laporte, Laëtitia Gouleme ... Isabelle Sagot
    Mitochondria morphology can be use to identify quiescent and senescent yeast cells.
    1. Ecology
    2. Epidemiology and Global Health

    Personality links with lifespan in chimpanzees

    Drew M Altschul, William D Hopkins ... Alexander Weiss
    Among captive chimpanzees, higher agreeableness males and higher openness females survive longer.
    1. Developmental Biology
    2. Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine

    Spatiotemporal mosaic self-patterning of pluripotent stem cells using CRISPR interference

    Ashley RG Libby, David A Joy ... Todd C McDevitt
    Dynamic control of intrinsic pluripotent multicellular self-organization to yield robust symmetry breaking patterns that recapitulate morphogenic processes associated with developmental events.
    1. Cell Biology

    The DWORF micropeptide enhances contractility and prevents heart failure in a mouse model of dilated cardiomyopathy

    Catherine A Makarewich, Amir Z Munir ... Eric N Olson
    Cardiac-specific overexpression of a recently discovered micropeptide, DWORF, enhances calcium cycling and contractility in the heart and rescues the heart failure phenotype of a genetic mouse model of dilated cardiomyopathy.
    1. Computational and Systems Biology
    2. Microbiology and Infectious Disease

    Transition between fermentation and respiration determines history-dependent behavior in fluctuating carbon sources

    Bram Cerulus, Abbas Jariani ... Kevin J Verstrepen
    Live-cell microscopy and genome-wide screens reveal how slow transitions in metabolism can underlie metabolic memory, providing a model for organisms demonstrating similar history-dependent behaviour and routes to improve industrial microbes.
    1. Genetics and Genomics

    Ancient mechanisms for the evolution of the bicoid homeodomain's function in fly development

    Qinwen Liu, Pinar Onal ... Joseph W Thornton
    Transgenic animals carrying reconstructed ancestral alleles reveal how two ancient mutations allowed a regulatory protein to evolve a controlling role in embryonic development in flies.
    1. Neuroscience

    Range, routing and kinetics of rod signaling in primate retina

    William N Grimes, Jacob Baudin ... Fred Rieke
    Signals from primate rod photoreceptors do not exhibit the light-level-dependent routing through parallel retinal circuits observed in rodents and often invoked in interpreting psychophysical experiments.
    1. Evolutionary Biology

    Oldest skeleton of a fossil flying squirrel casts new light on the phylogeny of the group

    Isaac Casanovas-Vilar, Joan Garcia-Porta ... David M Alba
    Flying squirrels may have originated earlier than previously thought and remained unchanged for almost 12 million years.
    1. Cancer Biology

    Replication Study: Intestinal inflammation targets cancer-inducing activity of the microbiota

    Kathryn Eaton, Ali Pirani ... Reproducibility Project: Cancer Biology
    Editors' Summary: This Replication Study has reproduced some parts of the original paper but it also contains results that are not consistent with other parts of the original paper.
    1. Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
    2. Immunology and Inflammation

    The allosteric activation of cGAS underpins its dynamic signaling landscape

    Richard M Hooy, Jungsan Sohn
    Rigorous biophysical studies reconcile several conflicting views on how cGAS is activated, and present a new unifying allosteric activation mechanism.
    1. Neuroscience

    Dopamine neuron glutamate cotransmission evokes a delayed excitation in lateral dorsal striatal cholinergic interneurons

    Nao Chuhma, Susana Mingote ... Stephen Rayport
    Dopamine neurons make novel glutamatergic connections to striatal cholinergic interneurons in the lateral dorsal striatum that are mediated by metabotropic glutamate receptors coupled to TrpC channels.
    1. Neuroscience

    Motor thalamus supports striatum-driven reinforcement

    Arnaud L Lalive, Anthony D Lien ... Anatol C Kreitzer
    While the basal ganglia have long been thought to mediate learning through dopamine-dependent striatal plasticity, their regulation of motor thalamus plays an unexpected and critical role in reinforcement.
    1. Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
    2. Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics

    BRCT domains of the DNA damage checkpoint proteins TOPBP1/Rad4 display distinct specificities for phosphopeptide ligands

    Matthew Day, Mathieu Rappas ... Laurence H Pearl
    Structural and biochemical analyses of BRCT domain interactions defines TOPBP1/Rad4 selectivity for phosphorylated motifs, allowing identification of new interactions, and providing insights into assembly of different TOPBP1-scaffolded DNA repair complexes.
    1. Computational and Systems Biology
    2. Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics

    Simulation of spontaneous G protein activation reveals a new intermediate driving GDP unbinding

    Xianqiang Sun, Sukrit Singh ... Gregory R Bowman
    Combining powerful simulation methods uncovers the structural and dynamical changes driving G protein activation in atomic detail, revealing the allosteric network that triggers GDP release and reconciling diverse experimental data.
    1. Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics

    Crystal structure of the full Swi2/Snf2 remodeler Mot1 in the resting state

    Agata Butryn, Stephan Woike ... Karl-Peter Hopfner
    The structure of the entire Mot1 Swi2/Snf2 protein uncovers an unexpected auto-inhibited resting state activated by substrate binding, and suggests a DNA pulling mechanism of TBP displacement.
    1. Ecology
    2. Plant Biology

    The decoration of specialized metabolites influences stylar development

    Jiancai Li, Meredith C Schuman ... Ian T Baldwin
    Regulation of diterpene glycoside malonylation status influences stylar elongation through affecting auxin signaling in Nicotiana attenuata.
    1. Neuroscience

    Feedback optimizes neural coding and perception of natural stimuli

    Chengjie G Huang, Michael G Metzen, Maurice J Chacron
    Neurophysiological and behavioral approaches reveal how coordinated input from descending pathways shapes the tuning properties of electrosensory neurons in order to optimize coding of natural stimuli through temporal whitening.
    1. Developmental Biology

    The ectodomains determine ligand function in vivo and selectivity of DLL1 and DLL4 toward NOTCH1 and NOTCH2 in vitro

    Lena Tveriakhina, Karin Schuster-Gossler ... Achim Gossler
    Regions outside the major receptor binding interface of DLL1 and DLL4 contribute to context-dependent divergence of ligand function in vivo and differential Notch1 and Notch2 activation in vitro.
    1. Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
    2. Chromosomes and Gene Expression

    Multiple serine transposase dimers assemble the transposon-end synaptic complex during IS607-family transposition

    Wenyang Chen, Sridhar Mandali ... Reid C Johnson
    Genetic, structural, and biochemical analyses of IS607-family transposons shows that the DNA translocation reaction proceeds very differently from other reactions promoted by serine recombinases.
    1. Plant Biology

    A plant chitinase controls cortical infection thread progression and nitrogen-fixing symbiosis

    Anna Malolepszy, Simon Kelly ... Simona Radutoiu
    Lotus japonicus chitinase modulates the level of rhizobial Nod factor and thereby enables cortical infection and functional symbiosis in root nodules.
    1. Developmental Biology
    2. Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine

    Cellular localization of the cell cycle inhibitor Cdkn1c controls growth arrest of adult skeletal muscle stem cells

    Despoina Mademtzoglou, Yoko Asakura ... Frederic Relaix
    Ablation of the Cdkn1c cell cycle inhibitor leads to defective muscle stem cell dynamics and myogenic potential, while progressive cytoplasmic to nuclear cellular localization of the Cdkn1c protein regulates growth arrest.
    1. Neuroscience

    Medial orbitofrontal inactivation does not affect economic choice

    Matthew PH Gardner, Jessica C Conroy ... Geoffrey Schoenbaum
    Inactivation of the medial orbitofrontal cortex using an optogenetic approach did not affect behavior in rats on an iconic economic choice task.
    1. Cell Biology

    Bid maintains mitochondrial cristae structure and function and protects against cardiac disease in an integrative genomics study

    Christi T Salisbury-Ruf, Clinton C Bertram ... Sandra S Zinkel
    An integrative approach, combining genetic mouse and large-scale human genetics studies, was used to reveal a novel role for the Bcl-2 protein Bid in maintenance of mitochondrial function that alters susceptibility to myocardial infarction.
    1. Microbiology and Infectious Disease

    Genetic basis for coordination of meiosis and sexual structure maturation in Cryptococcus neoformans

    Linxia Liu, Guang-Jun He ... Linqi Wang
    Meiosis and differentiation of basidium, a defining sexual structure of the phylum Basidiomycota, are genetically integrated by a shared regulatory program to ensure the formation of infectious meiospores in Cryptococcus neoformans.
    1. Genetics and Genomics

    Differing isoforms of the cobalamin binding photoreceptor AerR oppositely regulate photosystem expression

    Haruki Yamamoto, Mingxu Fang ... Carl E Bauer
    A novel B12 containing photoreceptor is synthesized as two different isoforms that interact with the same transcription factor, with one isoform directing activation and the other promoting repression of photosystem synthesis.
    1. Chromosomes and Gene Expression
    2. Microbiology and Infectious Disease

    Changes in mRNA abundance drive shuttling of RNA binding proteins, linking cytoplasmic RNA degradation to transcription

    Sarah Gilbertson, Joel D Federspiel ... Britt Glaunsinger
    Messenger RNA degradation alters protein trafficking to control transcription.
    1. Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
    2. Chromosomes and Gene Expression

    Yeast Ded1 promotes 48S translation pre-initiation complex assembly in an mRNA-specific and eIF4F-dependent manner

    Neha Gupta, Jon R Lorsch, Alan G Hinnebusch
    Yeast RNA helicase Ded1 stimulates ribosome recruitment of structure-laden native mRNAs in a reconstituted system by interactions between domains in Ded1 and initiation factor eIF4G that stabilizes a Ded1-eIF4F complex.
    1. Microbiology and Infectious Disease

    Visualization of the type III secretion mediated Salmonella–host cell interface using cryo-electron tomography

    Donghyun Park, Maria Lara-Tejero ... Jun Liu
    Visualization of the type III secretion mediated Salmonella-host cell interface reveals the intact translocon and the profound remodeling of the host membrane at unprecedented resolution.
    1. Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
    2. Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics

    Fusion surface structure, function, and dynamics of gamete fusogen HAP2

    Juan Feng, Xianchi Dong ... Timothy A Springer
    Structure, dynamics, and mutation of a gamete fusion protein and comparisons to viral homologues suggest that after trimerization the domain bearing the membrane-inserting fusion loops can pivot with respect to the trimer 3-fold axis.
    1. Computational and Systems Biology
    2. Neuroscience

    Integrated systems analysis reveals conserved gene networks underlying response to spinal cord injury

    Jordan W Squair, Seth Tigchelaar ... Michael A Skinnider
    Integrating decades of small-scale experiments with human gene expression data provides a systems-level view of the coordinated molecular processes triggered by spinal cord injury, and their relationship to recovery.
    1. Microbiology and Infectious Disease

    An essential Staphylococcus aureus cell division protein directly regulates FtsZ dynamics

    Prahathees J Eswara, Robert S Brzozowski ... Kumaran S Ramamurthi
    GpsB in Staphylococcus aureus directly regulates the central cell division protein FtsZ, a different function from that assigned for GpsB in other closely related organisms.
    1. Ecology

    Mammal communities are larger and more diverse in moderately developed areas

    Arielle Waldstein Parsons, Tavis Forrester ... Roland Kays
    Citizen science camera trapping showing suburban and wild areas maintain similar levels of mammalian diversity and relative abundance, challenging conventional thoughts about the impacts of urbanization on wildlife.
    1. Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
    2. Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics

    Redox-dependent rearrangements of the NiFeS cluster of carbon monoxide dehydrogenase

    Elizabeth C Wittenborn, Mériem Merrouch ... Catherine L Drennan
    Structural analysis reveals large-scale conformational changes in the active site metallocluster of a CO2-fixing enzyme.
    1. Chromosomes and Gene Expression

    Tri-methylation of histone H3 lysine 4 facilitates gene expression in ageing cells

    Cristina Cruz, Monica Della Rosa ... Jonathan Houseley
    A widely studied chromatin modification associated with gene promoters is important for proper gene expression across organismal lifetime.
    1. Chromosomes and Gene Expression
    2. Developmental Biology

    Rif1 inhibits replication fork progression and controls DNA copy number in Drosophila

    Alexander Munden, Zhan Rong ... Jared T Nordman
    To regulate DNA copy number during development in Drosophila, the SUUR protein recruits Rif1 to replisomes where Rif1 inhibits replication fork progression, thus controlling copy number independently of origin firing.
    1. Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics

    Cryo-EM structure of respiratory complex I at work

    Kristian Parey, Ulrich Brandt ... Volker Zickermann
    The site of ubiquinone binding observed in the cryo-EM structure of respiratory complex I during turnover supports a two-state stabilization change mechanism.
    1. Neuroscience

    How biological attention mechanisms improve task performance in a large-scale visual system model

    Grace W Lindsay, Kenneth D Miller
    Implementing neural changes associated with attention in a deep neural network causes performance changes that mimic those observed in humans and macaques.
    1. Computational and Systems Biology
    2. Genetics and Genomics

    New insights into the cellular temporal response to proteostatic stress

    Justin Rendleman, Zhe Cheng ... Christine Vogel
    A time-resolved analysis of protein and RNA concentrations and interactions during proteostasis stress highlights the dominant role of translation regulation and a shift of energy metabolism.
    1. Cell Biology

    KChIP3 coupled to Ca2+ oscillations exerts a tonic brake on baseline mucin release in the colon

    Gerard Cantero-Recasens, Cristian M Butnaru ... Vivek Malhotra
    KChIP3 localisation by intracellular calcium oscillations controls mucin release from colonic goblet cells.

Magazine

    1. Neuroscience

    Autoresuscitation: The central role of serotonin

    Gary C Mouradian, Matthew R Hodges
  1. Early-career researcher webinars from eLife

    #ECRWednesday webinars

    Edited by Emma Pewsey et al.