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For a comprehensive review of the most interesting recent articles published in the biological sciences, visit Faculty of 1000 Biology, an online literature awareness tool published by BioMed Central. Faculty of 1000 Biology systematically highlights exciting recent publications on the basis of recommendations of a faculty of well over 1,000 of the world's leading researchers. |
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William Jeffery
University of Maryland, United States of America
DEVELOPMENTAL BIOLOGY
 New Finding
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How do gene regulatory regions with drastic sequence divergence work to make morphologically similar embryos? This question is addressed by comparing Otx regulatory sequences in the ascidians Ciona intestinalis and Halocynthia roretzi: members of evolutionarily distant families with highly divergent Otx regulatory regions but conserved cell lineages and larval body plans. According to this paper, the conserved developmental patterns are based on the use of simple cell-lineage specific enhancer modules consisting of a few critical repeated transcriptional-activator binding sites without functional constraints on the surrounding sequences.
Evaluated 30 Mar 2005 |
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Charles Auffray
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, France
PHYSIOLOGY
New Finding
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This is the first report of variations in gene expression in human monozygotic twins measured with microarrays. The authors have compared expression of 10,000 genes between 5 pairs of proven homozygotic twins and unrelated individuals. As no more than 2% of the genes show mostly low magnitude variations within twin pairs, compared to up to 14% of the genes in unrelated individuals, the authors suggest to use twin data as a reference to distinguish variations in expression due to genetic factors from those due to the environment. This appears to me as an encouraging initial step in this direction, provided that the limits of the technology (undetected genes) are taken into account, and that similar studies are conducted with larger numbers of twin pairs in a comparable format.
Evaluated 4 Apr 2005 |
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Stephen Busby
University of Birmingham, United Kingdom
MICROBIOLOGY
New Finding
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This paper reports a 'transcriptomics' study of the network of genes controlled by the Escherichia coli stationary phase sigma factor, sigma-S. This is a very thoughtfully presented paper that, in contrast to many transcriptomics papers, is easy to read, with the key messages spelled out clearly and comprehensibly. The results focus on cellular responses to low pH, high salt, and growth into stationary phase, and show how different sets of genes controlled by different factors are induced according to the conditions.
Evaluated 4 Apr 2005 |
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F1000 Factor 3.0 |
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Genes "Waiting" for Recruitment by the Adaptive Immune System: The Insights from Amphioxus.
Yu C, Dong M, Wu X, Li S, Huang S, Su J, Wei J, Shen Y, Mou C, Xie X, Lin J, Yuan S, Yu X, Yu Y, Du J, Zhang S, Peng X, Xiang M, Xu A
J Immunol 2005 Mar 15 174(6):3493-3500 [abstract on PubMed] [request from library] 
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Selected by | Masaru Nonaka
Evaluated 1 Apr 2005
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Masaru Nonaka
University of Tokyo Graduate School of Science, Japan
IMMUNOLOGY
New Finding
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Expressed sequence tag (EST) analysis is used here to seek for evidence of an adaptive immune system (AIS) in amphioxus (cephalochordates, the closest relative of vertebrates) and shows the absence of the key molecules such as TCR, Ig, MHC and RAG, but the presence of many genes homologous to vertebrate genes involved in the AIS directly or indirectly. These genes include Ig superfamily members, Ag processing and presentation molecules and signal trasduction molecules, indicating that many AIS-related genes were present before the cephalochordate/vertebrate divergence waiting for recruitment by the emergence of the AIS.
Evaluated 1 Apr 2005 |
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Sandra Knapp
The Natural History Museum, United Kingdom
PLANT BIOLOGY
 Hypothesis
New Finding
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This study shows that changes in a synthetic allopolypoid are remarkably fast, and are concentrated in only one of the component genomes, with the paternal genome being considerably more labile than the maternal genome. The authors show that rapid evolution - in only 4 generations - has occurred in repetitive sequences in synthetically constructed Nicotiana tabacum (tobacco), and that these changes occur predominantly in the paternal, N. tomentosiformis-derived genome; they suggest nucleocytoplasmic interference is not the only factor driving this change. The depth of knowledge about the Nicotiana tabacum genome, not from genome sequencing, but derived from a great deal of cytogenetic work, means that details of change in these synthetic plants can be compared to natural populations of N. tabacum, and hypotheses as to how change occurs in polyploids proposed. The natural history of genomes differs between taxa in ways we are only beginning to understand!
Evaluated 29 Mar 2005 |
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