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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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Martin Giurfa
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), France
NEUROSCIENCE
 New Findinge
 Tech Advance
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The authors demonstrate the existence of gene expression differences in the brain of honeybees depending on their task specialization. Tasks that occupy longer periods (> 1 week) such as nursing and foraging are consistently associated with different brain gene expression. Transient tasks that are performed during 1 or 2 days such as guarding or undertaking do not show such differences. These results support the notion that genomic plasticity underlies changes in behavioral tasks in a social system based on the division of labor.
Evaluated 8 Aug 2005 |
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Elizabeth Kellogg
University of Missouri-St. Louis, United States of America
DEVELOPMENTAL BIOLOGY
New Finding
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Another family, another genome duplication; this paper documents a duplication event that preceded the divergence of Glycine (soybean) and Medicago, placing the duplication near the origin of the papilionoid legumes. The authors use a powerful combination of phylogenetic analysis and estimates of synonymous mutation rates to show that even the "diploid" Medicago truncatula is an ancient polyploid. It is possible to distinguish the recent genome duplication that led to tetraploid Glycine from the more ancient event that characterizes at least one major clade of legumes.
Evaluated 29 Jul 2005 |
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Russell Hill
University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute, United States of America
MICROBIOLOGY
New Finding
Tech Advance
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This is the first study to analyze gene expression in marine and freshwater bacterioplankton communities by the direct retrieval of mRNA transcripts. This environmental transcriptomics approach has the advantage of revealing all genes that are expressed whether they are present in databases or not, unlike most PCR-based approaches in which primers are designed to retrieve only known sequences. Many transcripts from microbial communities from a tidal salt water marsh creek and Mono Lake could be linked to environmentally important processes. This approach has great potential for linking genetic potential indicated by environmental genomics with biogeochemical activity in natural microbial communities.
Evaluated 26 Jul 2005 |
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Douglas Turner
University of Rochester, United States of America
STRUCTURAL BIOLOGY
Tech Advance
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This article provides a way to deal with the large number of possible RNA secondary structures that are generated by algorithms that use thermodynamics to predict structure. The authors use a statistical sampling method to show that the large number of structures generated usually belong to a small number of centroids, i.e. similar structures. They also provide a program that will present the most representative structure of a centroid.
Evaluated 4 Aug 2005 |
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Charles Auffray
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), France
PHYSIOLOGY
Tech Advance
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This paper highlights the value of using gene expression profiles registered in normal tissues as signatures for the interpretation of cancer type and status. The authors have collected expression profiles using pooled normal human tissue samples and published datasets, to identify tissue-specific sets of genes. They demonstrate that the tissue-specific signatures can be used to identify precisely the tissue origin of cancer samples including metastases established in other tissues.
Evaluated 27 Jul 2005 |
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