A 2-year field study has demonstrated that volatile compounds produced by plants when they are attacked by herbivores act as defenses by attracting predators to the herbivores and increasing the reproduction of the plants.
A unique form of regulation has been observed in the unfolded protein response of S. pombe, along with a novel mechanism of post-transcriptional mRNA processing.
The development of colonies of cells in choanoflagellates, water-dwelling organisms that feed on bacteria, is triggered by the presence of very low concentrations of a lipid molecule produced by certain types of bacteria.
Histones bound to lipid droplets inside cells offer protection against bacteria in flies, and possibly mice, thus suggesting a possible new innate immunity pathway.
The transcription machinery used to regulate gene expression and self-renewal in human embryonic stem cells is different from that found in other cells.
A genome-organizing protein that is present only in the olfactory system of mice has been found to orchestrate changes in the relative numbers of different odor-sensing neurons on the basis of how active these neurons are.
A protein that can recognize regions of DNA with a high proportion of unmethylated CpG dinucleotides, and then recruit polycomb group proteins to these CpG islands, has been identified.
