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Volume 9 (2011) - August 2011

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Research article   Open Access

A novel reporter of notch signalling indicates regulated and random notch activation during vertebrate neurogenesis

Filipe Vilas-Boas, Rita Fior, Jason R Swedlow, Kate G Storey, Domingos Henrique BMC Biology 2011, 9:58 (31 August 2011)

Abstract | Full text | PDF | PubMed | Cited on BioMed Central |  Editor’s summary

A new Notch reporter allows cell- by-cell readout of Notch activity in neurogenesis in real time, thanks to a promoter based on the well characterized Notch target Hes5-1 and multiple destabilization elements.

Opinion   Open Access Highly Accessed

Origins of cellular geometry

Wallace F Marshall BMC Biology 2011, 9:57 (31 August 2011)

Abstract | Full text | PDF | PubMed | Cited on BioMed Central |  Editor’s summary

Many cells, both protozoan and metazoan, have extremely elaborate architectures, and most have organelles that obey scaling laws. Wallace Marshall discusses what is known of these remarkably ill understood properties.

Commentary   Open Access Highly Accessed

Is sex necessary?

Sheng Sun, Joseph Heitman BMC Biology 2011, 9:56 (31 August 2011)

Abstract | Full text | PDF | PubMed |  Editor’s summary

Sexuality is the reproductive mode of choice for eukaryotes, but fungal species often evolve apparent asexuality. Sun and Heitman explain why this might happen, but add a word of caution about the experimental difficulty of definitively identifying a fungus as asexual.

Research article   Open Access Highly Accessed

The taming of an impossible child: a standardized all-in approach to the phylogeny of Hymenoptera using public database sequences

Ralph S Peters, Benjamin Meyer, Lars Krogmann, Janus Borner, Karen Meusemann, Kai Schütte, Oliver Niehuis, Bernhard Misof BMC Biology 2011, 9:55 (18 August 2011)

Abstract | Full text | PDF | PubMed | Cited on BioMed Central | 2 comments |  Editor’s summary

Ralph Peters and colleagues feed the available data on the super-diverse insect order of wasps, bees, sawflies and ants into an improved bioinformatic pipeline designed to generate phylogenetic trees from rapidly accumulating sequence data, and demonstrate its usefulness, and the need for more data to resolve outstanding phylogenetic issues.

Research article   Open Access Highly Accessed

Identification and characterization of a set of conserved and new regulators of cytoskeletal organization, cell morphology and migration

Siau Bai, Maria Herrera-Abreu, Jennifer L Rohn, Victor Racine, Virginia Tajadura, Narendra Suryavanshi, Stephanie Bechtel, Stefan Wiemann, Buzz Baum, Anne J Ridley BMC Biology 2011, 9:54 (11 August 2011)

Abstract | Full text | PDF | PubMed |  Editor’s summary

Anne Ridley and colleagues identify novel regulators of cytoskeletal organization and cell migration in human cells through a genome-wide RNAi screen in Drosophila cells.

Research article   Open Access

Identification of specificity determining residues in peptide recognition domains using an information theoretic approach applied to large-scale binding maps

Kevin Y Yip, Lukas Utz, Simon Sitwell, Xihao Hu, Sachdev S Sidhu, Benjamin E Turk, Mark Gerstein, Philip M Kim BMC Biology 2011, 9:53 (11 August 2011)

Abstract | Full text | PDF | PubMed | Cited on BioMed Central