Articles
Volume 8 (2010) - July 2010
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Research article
William A MacDonald, Debashish Menon, Nicholas J Bartlett, G Elizabeth Sperry, Vanya Rasheva, Victoria Meller, Vett K Lloyd BMC Biology 2010, 8:105 (30 July 2010) In mammals, CTCF acts as an insulator to maintain parent-specific expression from an imprinted domain.
McDonald and colleagues show that Drosophila does it the same way.
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Commentary
Insulators and imprinting from flies to mammals Chunhui Hou, Victor G Corces BMC Biology 2010, 8:104 (30 July 2010) CTCF is necessary for the maintenance of genetic imprinting in mammals. Hou and Corces comment on a report in BMC Biology on the evolutionary conservation of the mechanism in Drosophila.
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Commentary
Vertebrate Hedgehog signaling: cilia rule Christopher W Wilson, Didier YR Stainier BMC Biology 2010, 8:102 (29 July 2010) Recent work, including a study in BMC Biology, has shown that Hedgehog signaling through the primary cilium is conserved across the vertebrate phylum. Christopher Wilson and Didier Stainier comment.
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Commentary
Losing the desire: selection can promote obligate asexuality Kayla C King, Gregory DD Hurst BMC Biology 2010, 8:101 (28 July 2010) Hurst and King discuss how and why asexuality arises from sexual species in light of a new model proposed in BMC Evolutionary Biology in which the loss of sex in parasitoid wasps arises from infection with feminizing-symbionts.
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Research article
Noriko Ueki, Shigeru Matsunaga, Isao Inouye, Armin Hallmann BMC Biology 2010, 8:103 (27 July 2010) Hallmann and colleagues develop a model in the multicellular algae, Volvox, to predict how light orientation is achieved without any known direct intercellular communication; this mechanism indicates how multicellular organisms adapt the phototactic behavior of their unicellular ancestors.
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Commentary
Mitochondrial dynamics: quantifying mitochondrial fusion Alexis Jourdain, Jean-Claude Martinou BMC Biology 2010, 8:99 (26 July 2010) Jourdain and Martinou explain how a new technique reported in a recent BMC Biology paper for tracking mitochondrial fusion may help to identify therapeutic targets for associated neurodegenerative diseases.
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Methodology article
Astrid C Schauss, Huiyan Huang, Seok-Yong Choi, Liqun Xu, Sébastien Soubeyrand, Patricia Bilodeau, Rodolfo Zunino, Peter Rippstein, Michael A Frohman, Heidi M McBride BMC Biology 2010, 8:100 (26 July 2010) Mitochondria must occasionally fuse to maintain their integrity. McBride and colleagues describe the first assay to monitor the process in vitro and allow the identification of cytosolic factors and drugs modulating mitochondrial fusion.
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Question and Answer
Q&A: Robotics as a tool to understand the brain Daniel M Wolpert, J Randall Flanagan BMC Biology 2010, 8:92 (23 July 2010) Wolpert and Flanagan outline in Q&A format how a robotically controlled virtual reality can be used to explore how the brain works.
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Commentary
A question of scale: Human migrations writ large and small Murray P Cox, Michael F Hammer BMC Biology 2010, 8:98 (21 July 2010) Gene flow analysis is helping to reconstruct the genetic origin of humans. Murray Cox and Michael Hammer present some recent advances in the field and discuss some of the limitations and challenges facing current and future researchers.
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Commentary
Regulation of lipid droplet turnover by ubiquitin ligases Philipp Alberts, Daniela Rotin BMC Biology 2010, 8:94 (19 July 2010) Spartin is one of several proteins mutated in various forms of spastic paraplegia. Alberts and Rotin discuss new research, including a recent report in BMC Biology, showing a role for Spartin in lipid droplet turnover via the recruitment of ubiquitin ligases.
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Editorial
The evolution of gene regulation, the RNA universe, and the vexed questions of artefact and noise Miranda Robertson BMC Biology 2010, 8:97 (16 July 2010) Is there more to the evolution of complexity than regulatory circuits operated by proteins can explain? Miranda Robertson outlines some opposing views.
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Question and Answer
Video Q&A: Non-coding RNAs and eukaryotic evolution - a personal view John Mattick BMC Biology 2010, 8:67 (16 July 2010) In a Q&A with video option, John Mattick explains why he thinks the key to the evolution of complex organisms and cognition lies in non-coding RNA.
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Commentary
Genome-wide association studies in Bridget Penman, Caroline Buckee, Sunetra Gupta, Sean Nee BMC Biology 2010, 8:90 (13 July 2010) Researchers have begun to use GWAS in Plasmodium, Gupta and colleagues discuss recent studies including one in BMC Genetics and how at present these studies produce more questions than answers but ultimately will provide important results.
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Research article
Serious limitations of the QTL/Microarray approach for QTL gene discovery Ricardo A Verdugo, Charles R Farber, Craig H Warden, Juan F Medrano BMC Biology 2010, 8:96 (12 July 2010) |
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Commentary
The global dynamics of RNA stability orchestrates responses to cellular activation Jack D Keene BMC Biology 2010, 8:95 (8 July 2010) Cellular mRNA levels depend on the rates of both transcription and mRNA decay. Jack Keene comments on recent research in BMC Genomics that explores the role of mRNA stability in the dynamics of gene expression.
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Review
Assessing the human immune system through blood transcriptomics Damien Chaussabel, Virginia Pascual, Jacques Banchereau BMC Biology 2010, 8:84 (1 July 2010) Chaussabel and colleagues review the contributions of blood transcriptomics to identifying therapeutically relevant signatures of autoimmune and infectious disease, and the challenges of developing this approach into a mainstream tool.
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