Page 33 of 54
Affinity purification followed by mass spectrometry (AP/MS) is a widely used approach to identify protein interactions and complexes. In multicellular organisms, the accurate identification of protein complexe...
Rho GTPases have many and diverse roles in cell physiology, and some family members are very well studied, including RhoA, Rac1 and Cdc42. But many are relatively neglected, and fundamental questions about the...
Gene regulatory networks (GRNs) underlie developmental patterning and morphogenetic processes, and changes in the interactions within the underlying GRNs are a major driver of evolutionary processes. In order ...
It is generally thought that the evolutionary transition to parasitism is irreversible because it is associated with the loss of functions needed for a free-living lifestyle. Nevertheless, free-living taxa are...
The Erratum to this article has been published in BMC Biology 2016 14:77
The nerve net of Nematostella is generated using a conserved cascade of neurogenic transcription factors. For example, NvashA, a homolog of the achaete-scute family of basic helix-loop-helix transcription factors...
Metazoans transcribe many long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) that are poorly conserved and whose function remains unknown. This has raised the questions of what fraction of the predicted lncRNAs is actually functi...
Type IV collagen is the main component of the basement membrane that gives strength to the blood–gas barrier (BGB). In mammals, the formation of a mature BGB occurs primarily after birth during alveologenesis ...
The Erratum to this article has been published in BMC Biology 2016 14:73
A significant part of the communication between plant cells is mediated by signaling peptides and their corresponding plasma membrane-localized receptor-like kinases. This communication mechanism serves as a k...
Compartment boundaries are an essential developmental mechanism throughout evolution, designated to act as organizing centers and to regulate and localize differently fated cells. The hindbrain serves as a fas...
The combination of a meager fossil record of vermiform enteropneusts and their disparity with the tubicolous pterobranchs renders early hemichordate evolution conjectural. The middle Cambrian Oesia disjuncta from...
A tight regulation of the Wnt-signaling network, activated by 19 Wnt molecules and numerous receptors and co-receptors, is required for the establishment of a complex organism. Different branches of this Wnt-s...
Many pathogenic genetic variants have been shown to disrupt mRNA splicing. Besides splice mutations in the well-conserved splice sites, mutations in splicing regulatory elements (SREs) may deregulate splicing ...
Peptidyl-prolyl isomerases (PPIases) are present in all forms of life and play a crucial role in protein folding and regulation. They catalyze the cis-trans isomerization of the peptide bond that precedes proline...
Genesis of novel gene regulatory modules is largely responsible for morphological and functional evolution. De novo generation of novel cis-regulatory elements (CREs) is much rarer than genomic events that alter ...
In this experiment, the authors were interested in testing the effect of a small molecule inhibitor on the ratio of males and females in the offspring of their model Dipteran species. The authors report that i...
In HIV-infected macrophages, newly formed progeny virus particles accumulate in intracellular plasma membrane-connected compartments (IPMCs). Although the virus is usually seen in these compartments, it is unc...
Modern biomedical research depends critically on access to databases that house and disseminate genetic, genomic, molecular, and cell biological knowledge. Even as the explosion of available genome sequences a...
Both human and animal data indicate that disruption of the endogenously slow maturation of temporal association cortical (TeA) networks is associated with abnormal higher order cognitive development. However, ...
The epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT) has been implicated in metastasis and therapy resistance of carcinomas and can endow cancer cells with cancer stem cell (CSC) properties. The ability to detect ca...
Exosomes are extracellular vesicles first described as such 30 years ago and since implicated in cell–cell communication and the transmission of disease states, and explored as a means of drug discovery. Yet f...
A central goal of evolutionary biology is to link genomic change to phenotypic evolution. The origin of new transcription factors is a special case of genomic evolution since it brings opportunities for novel ...
One of the classic questions in the early evolution of eukaryotic life concerns the role of oxygen. Many unicellular eukaryotes are strict anaerobes and many animals have long anoxic phases in their life cycle...
The demonstration of the existence of metazoan life in absence of free oxygen is one of the most fascinating and difficult challenges in biology. Danovaro et al. (2010) discovered three new species of the Phyl...
Protein X is a signalling molecule that stimulates apoptosis. Treatment of cells with Protein X results in five times higher levels of cell death than those seen in untreated cells (wild type), as measured by ...
Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) plays an important role in the adaptation of lineages to changing environments. The extent of this process in eukaryotes, however, remains controversial. The most well-known and ...
The mechanism of memory remains one of the great unsolved problems of biology. Grappling with the question more than a hundred years ago, the German zoologist Richard Semon formulated the concept of the engram...
Programmed cell deaths in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans are generally considered suicides. Dying cells are engulfed by neighboring cells in a process of phagocytosis. To better understand the interaction be...
Host-microbe associations underlie many key processes of host development, immunity, and life history. Yet, none of the current research on the central model species Caenorhabditis elegans considers the worm’s na...
Until recently, almost nothing has been known about the natural microbiota of the model nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. Reporting their research in BMC Biology, Dirksen and colleagues describe the first sequenci...
Entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs) are lethal parasites of insects that are of interest as biocontrol agents for insect pests and disease vectors. Although EPNs have been successfully commercialized for pest co...
Caenorhabditis elegans has emerged over the last decade as a useful model for the study of innate immunity. Its infection with the pathogenic fungus Drechmeria coniospora leads to the ...
Smooth muscle cell (SMC) plasticity maintains the balance between differentiated SMCs and proliferative mesenchymal progenitors, crucial for muscular tissue homeostasis. Studies on the development of mesenchym...
The interferon-γ (IFN-γ)-inducible immunity-related GTPase (IRG), Irgm1, plays an essential role in restraining activation of the IRG pathogen resistance system. However, the loss of Irgm1 in mice also causes ...
Cell polarity, essential for cell physiology and tissue coherence, emerges as a consequence of asymmetric localization of protein complexes and directional trafficking of cellular components. Although molecule...
Extracellular signal-regulated kinase 2 (ERK2) is an S/T kinase with more than 200 known substrates, and with critical roles in regulation of cell growth and differentiation and currently no membrane proteins ...
Skeletal muscle stem cells enable the formation, growth, maintenance, and regeneration of skeletal muscle throughout life. The regeneration process is compromised in several pathological conditions, and muscle...
Chloroplast chaperonin, consisting of multiple subunits, mediates folding of the highly abundant protein Rubisco with the assistance of co-chaperonins. ATP hydrolysis drives the chaperonin allosteric cycle to ...
The authors of this paper were interested to see whether the expression of three proteins (A, B and C) was altered in a knockout mouse model of a gene encoding Protein X. Each experiment measured the expressio...
Regenerating damaged tissue is a complex process, requiring progenitor cells that must be stimulated to undergo proliferation, differentiation and, often, migratory behaviors and morphological changes. Multipl...
G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), in the form of monomers or homodimers that bind heterotrimeric G proteins, are fundamental in the transfer of extracellular stimuli to intracellular signaling pathways. Dif...
Synaptic loss strongly correlates with memory deterioration. Local accumulation of amyloid β (Aβ) peptide, and neurotoxic Aβ42 in particular, due to abnormal neuronal activity may underlie synaptic dysfunction...
A crucial event in the differentiation of mouse embryonic stem cells (ESCs) is the exit from the pluripotent ground state that leads to the acquisition of the ‘primed’ pluripotent phenotype, characteristic of ...
The dorsal midline region of the neural tube that results from closure of the neural folds is generally termed the roof plate (RP). However, this domain is highly dynamic and complex, and is first transiently ...
In his splendid article “Can a biologist fix a radio? — or, what I learned while studying apoptosis,” Y. Lazebnik argues that when one uses the right tools, similarity between a biological system, like a signa...
Resident fibroblasts synthesize the cardiac extracellular matrix, and can undergo phenotype conversion to myofibroblasts to augment matrix production, impairing function and contributing to organ failure. A si...
Self-renewing, chemoresistant breast cancer stem cells are believed to contribute significantly to cancer invasion, migration and patient relapse. Therefore, the identification of signaling pathways that regul...
Epithelial-mesenchymal cross talk is centerpiece in the development of many branched organs, including the lungs. The embryonic lung mesoderm provides instructional information not only for lung architectural ...
Understanding how embryos specify asymmetric axes is a major focus of biology. While much has been done to discover signaling pathways and transcription factors important for axis specification, comparatively ...
Because of their sessile lifestyle and the lack of the sensory and feeding structures usually associated with the cephalic end, fixing the antero-posterior (AP) polarity of tapeworms is somewhat equivocal and ...
Early developmental patterns of flatworms are extremely diverse and difficult to compare between distant groups. In parasitic flatworms, such as tapeworms, this is confounded by highly derived life cycles invo...
2022 Citation Impact
5.4 - 2-year Impact Factor
7.1 - 5-year Impact Factor
1.461 - SNIP (Source Normalized Impact per Paper)
2.324 - SJR (SCImago Journal Rank)
2023 Speed
10 days submission to first editorial decision for all manuscripts (Median)
180 days submission to accept (Median)
2023 Usage
2,378,081 downloads
3,761 Altmetric mentions
This journal is participating in a pilot of NISO/STM's Working Group on Peer Review Taxonomy, to identify and standardize definitions and terminology in peer review practices in order to make the peer review process for articles and journals more transparent. Further information on the pilot is available here.
The following summary describes the peer review process for this journal:
We welcome your feedback on this Peer Review Taxonomy Pilot. Please can you take the time to complete this short survey.
BMC Biology is recruiting new Editorial Board Members
We are looking for Editorial Board Members in all fields of biology. If you are interested in becoming an EBM please see this page.
Portable peer review
BMC Biology supports portable peer review by sharing reviews and evaluating papers based on existing reports. Learn more here.
BMC Biology is a member of the Neuroscience Peer Review Consortium.