Articles

The Wnt-specific astacin proteinase HAS-7 restricts head organizer formation in Hydra

The Hydra head organizer acts as a signaling center that initiates and maintains the primary body axis in steady state polyps and during budding or regeneration. Wnt/beta-Catenin signaling functions as a primary ...

Authors: Berenice Ziegler, Irene Yiallouros, Benjamin Trageser, Sumit Kumar, Moritz Mercker, Svenja Kling, Maike Fath, Uwe Warnken, Martina Schnölzer, Thomas W. Holstein, Markus Hartl, Anna Marciniak-Czochra, Jörg Stetefeld, Walter Stöcker and Suat Özbek

Publisher Correction to: Loss of splicing factor IK impairs normal skeletal muscle development

Authors: Hye In Ka, Hyemin Seo, Youngsook Choi, Joohee Kim, Mina Cho, Seok-Yong Choi, Sujeong Park, Sora Han, Jinsu An, Hak Suk Chung, Young Yang and Min Jung Kim

Membrane recruitment of Atg8 by Hfl1 facilitates turnover of vacuolar membrane proteins in yeast cells approaching stationary phase

The vacuole/lysosome is the final destination of autophagic pathways, but can also itself be degraded in whole or in part by selective macroautophagic or microautophagic processes. Diverse molecular mechanisms...

Authors: Cheng-Wen He, Xue-Fei Cui, Shao-Jie Ma, Qin Xu, Yan-Peng Ran, Wei-Zhi Chen, Jun-Xi Mu, Hui Li, Jing Zhu, Qingqiu Gong and Zhiping Xie

The amygdala modulates prepulse inhibition of the auditory startle reflex through excitatory inputs to the caudal pontine reticular nucleus

Sensorimotor gating is a fundamental pre-attentive process that is defined as the inhibition of a motor response by a sensory event. Sensorimotor gating, commonly measured using the prepulse inhibition (PPI) o...

Authors: Jose Carlos Cano, Wanyun Huang and Karine Fénelon

Cotton D genome assemblies built with long-read data unveil mechanisms of centromere evolution and stress tolerance divergence

Many of genome features which could help unravel the often complex post-speciation evolution of closely related species are obscured because of their location in chromosomal regions difficult to accurately cha...

Authors: Zhaoen Yang, Xiaoyang Ge, Weinan Li, Yuying Jin, Lisen Liu, Wei Hu, Fuyan Liu, Yanli Chen, Shaoliang Peng and Fuguang Li

Sexual conflict drives micro- and macroevolution of sexual dimorphism in immunity

Sexual dimorphism in immunity is believed to reflect sex differences in reproductive strategies and trade-offs between competing life history demands. Sexual selection can have major effects on mating rates an...

Authors: Basabi Bagchi, Quentin Corbel, Imroze Khan, Ellen Payne, Devshuvam Banerji, Johanna Liljestrand-Rönn, Ivain Martinossi-Allibert, Julian Baur, Ahmed Sayadi, Elina Immonen, Göran Arnqvist, Irene Söderhäll and David Berger

Boundaries potentiate polycomb response element-mediated silencing

Epigenetic memory plays a critical role in the establishment and maintenance of cell identities in multicellular organisms. Polycomb and trithorax group (PcG and TrxG) proteins are responsible for epigenetic m...

Authors: Maksim Erokhin, Fedor Gorbenko, Dmitry Lomaev, Marina Yu Mazina, Anna Mikhailova, Azat K. Garaev, Aleksander Parshikov, Nadezhda E. Vorobyeva, Pavel Georgiev, Paul Schedl and Darya Chetverina

Single-cell transcriptomics reveals the effect of PD-L1/TGF-β blockade on the tumor microenvironment

The anti-tumor activity of anti-PD-1/PD-L1 therapies correlates with T cell infiltration in tumors. Thus, a major goal in oncology is to find strategies that enhance T cell infiltration and efficacy of anti-PD...

Authors: Yoong Wearn Lim, Garry L. Coles, Savreet K. Sandhu, David S. Johnson, Adam S. Adler and Erica L. Stone

Honeybee communication during collective defence is shaped by predation

Social insect colonies routinely face large vertebrate predators, against which they need to mount a collective defence. To do so, honeybees use an alarm pheromone that recruits nearby bees into mass stinging ...

Authors: Andrea López-Incera, Morgane Nouvian, Katja Ried, Thomas Müller and Hans J. Briegel

The epigenetic regulator G9a attenuates stress-induced resistance and metabolic transcriptional programs across different stressors and species

Resistance and tolerance are two coexisting defense strategies for fighting infections. Resistance is mediated by signaling pathways that induce transcriptional activation of resistance factors that directly e...

Authors: Human Riahi, Michaela Fenckova, Kayla J. Goruk, Annette Schenck and Jamie M. Kramer

A comprehensive survey of developmental programs reveals a dearth of tree-like lineage graphs and ubiquitous regeneration

Multicellular organisms are characterized by a wide diversity of forms and complexity despite a restricted set of key molecules and mechanisms at the base of organismal development. Development combines three ...

Authors: Somya Mani and Tsvi Tlusty

The dorsoanterior brain of adult amphioxus shares similarities in expression profile and neuronal composition with the vertebrate telencephalon

The evolutionary origin of the telencephalon, the most anterior part of the vertebrate brain, remains obscure. Since no obvious counterpart to the telencephalon has yet been identified in invertebrate chordate...

Authors: Èlia Benito-Gutiérrez, Giacomo Gattoni, Manuel Stemmer, Silvia D. Rohr, Laura N. Schuhmacher, Jocelyn Tang, Aleksandra Marconi, Gáspár Jékely and Detlev Arendt

An epilepsy-causing mutation leads to co-translational misfolding of the Kv7.2 channel

The amino acid sequence of proteins generally carries all the necessary information for acquisition of native conformations, but the vectorial nature of translation can additionally determine the folding outco...

Authors: Janire Urrutia, Alejandra Aguado, Carolina Gomis-Perez, Arantza Muguruza-Montero, Oscar R. Ballesteros, Jiaren Zhang, Eider Nuñez, Covadonga Malo, Hee Jung Chung, Aritz Leonardo, Aitor Bergara and Alvaro Villarroel

Very long intergenic non-coding (vlinc) RNAs directly regulate multiple genes in cis and trans

The majority of the human genome is transcribed in the form of long non-coding (lnc) RNAs. While these transcripts have attracted considerable interest, their molecular mechanisms of function and biological si...

Authors: Huifen Cao, Dongyang Xu, Ye Cai, Xueer Han, Lu Tang, Fan Gao, Yao Qi, DingDing Cai, Huifang Wang, Maxim Ri, Denis Antonets, Yuri Vyatkin, Yue Chen, Xiang You, Fang Wang, Estelle Nicolas…

Characterization of a novel type of carbonic anhydrase that acts without metal cofactors

Carbonic anhydrases (CAs) are universal metalloenzymes that catalyze the reversible conversion of carbon dioxide (CO₂) and bicarbonate (HCO₃^-). They are involved in various biological processes, including pH cont...

Authors: Yoshihisa Hirakawa, Miki Senda, Kodai Fukuda, Hong Yang Yu, Masaki Ishida, Masafumi Taira, Kazushi Kinbara and Toshiya Senda

Characterization of the dynamics and variability of neuronal subtype responses during growth, degrowth, and regeneration of Nematostella vectensis

The ability to regenerate body parts is a feature of metazoan organisms and the focus of intense research aiming to understand its basis. A number of mechanisms involved in regeneration, such as proliferation ...

Authors: Jamie A. Havrilak, Layla Al-Shaer, Noor Baban, Nesli Akinci and Michael J. Layden

Single-cell genomics unveils a canonical origin of the diverse mitochondrial genomes of euglenozoans

The supergroup Euglenozoa unites heterotrophic flagellates from three major clades, kinetoplastids, diplonemids, and euglenids, each of which exhibits extremely divergent mitochondrial characteristics. Mitocho...

Authors: Kristína Záhonová, Gordon Lax, Savar D. Sinha, Guy Leonard, Thomas A. Richards, Julius Lukeš and Jeremy G. Wideman

Parental energy-sensing pathways control intergenerational offspring sex determination in the nematode Auanema freiburgensis

Environmental stimuli experienced by the parental generation influence the phenotype of subsequent generations (Demoinet et al., Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 114:E2689-E2698, 2017; Burton et al., Nat Cell Biol 19:...

Authors: Pedro Robles, Anisa Turner, Giusy Zuco, Sally Adams, Panagiota Paganopolou, Michael Winton, Beth Hill, Vikas Kache, Christine Bateson and Andre Pires-daSilva

Measuring and modeling energy and power consumption in living microbial cells with a synthetic ATP reporter

Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) is the main energy carrier in living organisms, critical for metabolism and essential physiological processes. In humans, abnormal regulation of energy levels (ATP concentration) a...

Authors: Yijie Deng, Douglas Raymond Beahm, Steven Ionov and Rahul Sarpeshkar

Apoptosis is not conserved in plants as revealed by critical examination of a model for plant apoptosis-like cell death

Animals and plants diverged over one billion years ago and evolved unique mechanisms for many cellular processes, including cell death. One of the most well-studied cell death programmes in animals, apoptosis,...

Authors: Elena A. Minina, Adrian N. Dauphinee, Florentine Ballhaus, Vladimir Gogvadze, Andrei P. Smertenko and Peter V. Bozhkov

MATISSE: a method for improved single cell segmentation in imaging mass cytometry

Visualizing and quantifying cellular heterogeneity is of central importance to study tissue complexity, development, and physiology and has a vital role in understanding pathologies. Mass spectrometry-based me...

Authors: Matthijs J. D. Baars, Neeraj Sinha, Mojtaba Amini, Annelies Pieterman-Bos, Stephanie van Dam, Maroussia M. P. Ganpat, Miangela M. Laclé, Bas Oldenburg and Yvonne Vercoulen

NMR structural analysis of the yeast cytochrome c oxidase subunit Cox13 and its interaction with ATP

Mitochondrial respiration is organized in a series of enzyme complexes in turn forming dynamic supercomplexes. In Saccharomyces cerevisiae (baker’s yeast), Cox13 (CoxVIa in mammals) is a conserved peripheral subu...

Authors: Shu Zhou, Pontus Pettersson, Markus L. Björck, Hannah Dawitz, Peter Brzezinski, Lena Mäler and Pia Ädelroth

An agent-based model clarifies the importance of functional and developmental integration in shaping brain evolution

Vertebrate brain structure is characterised not only by relative consistency in scaling between components, but also by many examples of divergence from these general trends.. Alternative hypotheses explain th...

Authors: Shahar Avin, Adrian Currie and Stephen H. Montgomery

The CAT-SIR is out of the bag: tumors prefer host rather than dietary nutrients

The extent to which tumors acquire nutrients from dietary sources as opposed to from the breakdown of host tissues is not known. In this issue of BMC Biology, Holland et al. report an approach where food sourc...

Authors: Keene L. Abbott and Matthew G. Vander Heiden

Natural abundance isotope ratios to differentiate sources of carbon used during tumor growth in vivo

Radioactive or stable isotopic labeling of metabolites is a strategy that is routinely used to map the cellular fate of a selected labeled metabolite after it is added to cell culture or to the circulation of ...

Authors: Petter Holland, William M. Hagopian, A. Hope Jahren and Tor Erik Rusten

The genome of a wild Medicago species provides insights into the tolerant mechanisms of legume forage to environmental stress

Medicago ruthenica, a wild and perennial legume forage widely distributed in semi-arid grasslands, is distinguished by its outstanding tolerance to environmental stress. It is a close relative of commonly cultiva...

Authors: Tianzuo Wang, Lifei Ren, Caihong Li, Di Zhang, Xiuxiu Zhang, Gang Zhou, Dan Gao, Rujin Chen, Yuhui Chen, Zhaolan Wang, Fengling Shi, Andrew D. Farmer, Yansu Li, Mengyan Zhou, Nevin D. Young and Wen-Hao Zhang

TORC1 regulates the transcriptional response to glucose and developmental cycle via the Tap42-Sit4-Rrd1/2 pathway in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Target of Rapamycin Complex 1 (TORC1) is a highly conserved eukaryotic protein complex that couples the presence of growth factors and nutrients in the environment with cellular proliferation. TORC1 is primari...

Authors: Mohammad Alfatah, Jin Huei Wong, Vidhya Gomathi Krishnan, Yong Cheow Lee, Quan Feng Sin, Corinna Jie Hui Goh, Kiat Whye Kong, Wei Ting Lee, Jacqueline Lewis, Shawn Hoon and Prakash Arumugam

Global population genetic structure and demographic trajectories of the black soldier fly, Hermetia illucens

The black soldier fly (Hermetia illucens) is the most promising insect candidate for nutrient-recycling through bioconversion of organic waste into biomass, thereby improving sustainability of protein supplies fo...

Authors: Cengiz Kaya, Tomas N. Generalovic, Gunilla Ståhls, Martin Hauser, Ana C. Samayoa, Carlos G. Nunes-Silva, Heather Roxburgh, Jens Wohlfahrt, Ebenezer A. Ewusie, Marc Kenis, Yupa Hanboonsong, Jesus Orozco, Nancy Carrejo, Satoshi Nakamura, Laura Gasco, Santos Rojo…

Genome sequencing sheds light on the contribution of structural variants to Brassica oleracea diversification

Brassica oleracea includes several morphologically diverse, economically important vegetable crops, such as the cauliflower and cabbage. However, genetic variants, especially large structural variants (SVs), that...

Authors: Ning Guo, Shenyun Wang, Lei Gao, Yongming Liu, Xin Wang, Enhui Lai, Mengmeng Duan, Guixiang Wang, Jingjing Li, Meng Yang, Mei Zong, Shuo Han, Yanzheng Pei, Theo Borm, Honghe Sun, Liming Miao…

Cell culture-based production and in vivo characterization of purely clonal defective interfering influenza virus particles

Infections with influenza A virus (IAV) cause high morbidity and mortality in humans. Additional to vaccination, antiviral drugs are a treatment option. Besides FDA-approved drugs such as oseltamivir or zanami...

Authors: Marc D. Hein, Prerna Arora, Pavel Marichal-Gallardo, Michael Winkler, Yvonne Genzel, Stefan Pöhlmann, Klaus Schughart, Sascha Y. Kupke and Udo Reichl

Downregulation of GeBP-like α factor by MiR827 suggests their involvement in senescence and phosphate homeostasis

Leaf senescence is a genetically controlled degenerative process intimately linked to phosphate homeostasis during plant development and responses to environmental conditions. Senescence is accelerated by phos...

Authors: Chao Ma, Qiuju Chen, Shiping Wang and Amnon Lers

Impact of male trait exaggeration on sex-biased gene expression and genome architecture in a water strider

Exaggerated secondary sexual traits are widespread in nature and often evolve under strong directional sexual selection. Although heavily studied from both theoretical and empirical viewpoints, we have little ...

Authors: William Toubiana, David Armisén, Corentin Dechaud, Roberto Arbore and Abderrahman Khila

Sensory adaptations reshaped intrinsic factors underlying morphological diversification in bats

Morphological evolution may be impacted by both intrinsic (developmental, constructional, physiological) and extrinsic (ecological opportunity and release) factors, but can intrinsic factors be altered by adap...

Authors: J. H. Arbour, A. A. Curtis and S. E. Santana

Differing effects of size and lifestyle on bone structure in mammals

Mammals are a highly diverse group, with body mass ranging from 2 g to 170 t, and encompassing species with terrestrial, aquatic, aerial, and subterranean lifestyles. The skeleton is involved in most aspects o...

Authors: Eli Amson and Faysal Bibi

Rat PRDM9 shapes recombination landscapes, duration of meiosis, gametogenesis, and age of fertility

Vertebrate meiotic recombination events are concentrated in regions (hotspots) that display open chromatin marks, such as trimethylation of lysines 4 and 36 of histone 3 (H3K4me3 and H3K36me3). Mouse and human...

Authors: Ondrej Mihola, Vladimir Landa, Florencia Pratto, Kevin Brick, Tatyana Kobets, Fitore Kusari, Srdjan Gasic, Fatima Smagulova, Corinne Grey, Petr Flachs, Vaclav Gergelits, Karel Tresnak, Jan Silhavy, Petr Mlejnek, R. Daniel Camerini-Otero, Michal Pravenec…

Notch signaling is a critical initiator of roof plate formation as revealed by the use of RNA profiling of the dorsal neural tube

The dorsal domain of the neural tube is an excellent model to investigate the generation of complexity during embryonic development. It is a highly dynamic and multifaceted region being first transiently popul...

Authors: Shai Ofek, Sophie Wiszniak, Sarah Kagan, Markus Tondl, Quenten Schwarz and Chaya Kalcheim

Evolution of the codling moth pheromone via an ancient gene duplication

Defining the origin of genetic novelty is central to our understanding of the evolution of novel traits. Diversification among fatty acid desaturase (FAD) genes has played a fundamental role in the introductio...

Authors: Jean-Marc Lassance, Bao-Jian Ding and Christer Löfstedt

A cornucopia of research resources for the fourth rodent malaria parasite species

The study of human malaria caused by species of Plasmodium has undoubtedly been enriched by the use of model systems, such as the rodent malaria parasites originally isolated from African thicket rats. A signific...

Authors: Jane M. Carlton

Holistic description of new deep sea megafauna (Cephalopoda: Cirrata) using a minimally invasive approach

In zoology, species descriptions conventionally rely on invasive morphological techniques, frequently leading to damage of the specimens and thus only a partial understanding of their structural complexity. Mo...

Authors: Alexander Ziegler and Christina Sagorny

Plasmodium vinckei genomes provide insights into the pan-genome and evolution of rodent malaria parasites

Rodent malaria parasites (RMPs) serve as tractable tools to study malaria parasite biology and host-parasite-vector interactions. Among the four RMPs originally collected from wild thicket rats in sub-Saharan ...

Authors: Abhinay Ramaprasad, Severina Klaus, Olga Douvropoulou, Richard Culleton and Arnab Pain

Author Correction to: Single-cell RNA-seq reveals a concomitant delay in differentiation and cell cycle of aged hematopoietic stem cells

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via the original article.

Authors: Léonard Hérault, Mathilde Poplineau, Adrien Mazuel, Nadine Platet, Élisabeth Remy and Estelle Duprez

Chromatin accessibility landscapes of immune cells in rheumatoid arthritis nominate monocytes in disease pathogenesis

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic, systemic autoimmune disease that involves a variety of cell types. However, how the epigenetic dysregulations of peripheral immune cells contribute to the pathogenesis o...

Authors: Dandan Zong, Beibei Huang, Young Li, Yichen Lu, Nan Xiang, Chuang Guo, Qian Liu, Qing Sha, Pengcheng Du, Qiaoni Yu, Wen Zhang, Pengfei Cai, Yanping Sun, Jinhui Tao, Xiaomei Li, Shanbao Cai…

Engineered sex ratio distortion by X-shredding in the global agricultural pest Ceratitis capitata

Genetic sex ratio distorters are systems aimed at effecting a bias in the reproductive sex ratio of a population and could be applied for the area-wide control of sexually reproducing insects that vector disea...

Authors: Angela Meccariello, Flavia Krsticevic, Rita Colonna, Giuseppe Del Corsano, Barbara Fasulo, Philippos Aris Papathanos and Nikolai Windbichler

Gregarine single-cell transcriptomics reveals differential mitochondrial remodeling and adaptation in apicomplexans

Apicomplexa is a diverse phylum comprising unicellular endobiotic animal parasites and contains some of the most well-studied microbial eukaryotes including the devastating human pathogens Plasmodium falciparum a...

Authors: Eric D. Salomaki, Kristina X. Terpis, Sonja Rueckert, Michael Kotyk, Zuzana Kotyková Varadínová, Ivan Čepička, Christopher E. Lane and Martin Kolisko

Multi-omic profiling of pituitary thyrotropic cells and progenitors

The pituitary gland is a neuroendocrine organ containing diverse cell types specialized in secreting hormones that regulate physiology. Pituitary thyrotropes produce thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH), a critic...

Authors: Alexandre Z. Daly, Lindsey A. Dudley, Michael T. Peel, Stephen A. Liebhaber, Stephen C. J. Parker and Sally A. Camper

Chronic temperature stress inhibits reproduction and disrupts endocytosis via chaperone titration in Caenorhabditis elegans

Temperature influences biology at all levels, from altering rates of biochemical reactions to determining sustainability of entire ecosystems. Although extended exposure to elevated temperatures influences org...

Authors: Rosemary N. Plagens, Isiah Mossiah, Karen S. Kim Guisbert and Eric Guisbert

Experimental infection with the hookworm, Necator americanus, is associated with stable gut microbial diversity in human volunteers with relapsing multiple sclerosis

Helminth-associated changes in gut microbiota composition have been hypothesised to contribute to the immune-suppressive properties of parasitic worms. Multiple sclerosis is an immune-mediated autoimmune disea...

Authors: Timothy P. Jenkins, David I. Pritchard, Radu Tanasescu, Gary Telford, Marina Papaiakovou, Riccardo Scotti, Alba Cortés, Cris S. Constantinescu and Cinzia Cantacessi

Comparison of 15 dinoflagellate genomes reveals extensive sequence and structural divergence in family Symbiodiniaceae and genus Symbiodinium

Dinoflagellates in the family Symbiodiniaceae are important photosynthetic symbionts in cnidarians (such as corals) and other coral reef organisms. Breakdown of the coral-dinoflagellate symbiosis due to enviro...

Authors: Raúl A. González-Pech, Timothy G. Stephens, Yibi Chen, Amin R. Mohamed, Yuanyuan Cheng, Sarah Shah, Katherine E. Dougan, Michael D. A. Fortuin, Rémi Lagorce, David W. Burt, Debashish Bhattacharya, Mark A. Ragan and Cheong Xin Chan

Rac1 activation can generate untemplated, lamellar membrane ruffles

Membrane protrusions that occur on the dorsal surface of a cell are an excellent experimental system to study actin machinery at work in a living cell. Small GTPase Rac1 controls the membrane protrusions that ...

Authors: F. Leyden, S. Uthishtran, U. K. Moorthi, H. M. York, A. Patil, H. Gandhi, E. P. Petrov, T. Bornschlögl and S. Arumugam

Plasma membrane integrity: implications for health and disease

Plasma membrane integrity is essential for cellular homeostasis. In vivo, cells experience plasma membrane damage from a multitude of stressors in the extra- and intra-cellular environment. To avoid lethal con...

Authors: Dustin A. Ammendolia, William M. Bement and John H. Brumell