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Elife,
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CED-3, a protein that is essential for programmed cell death, also has an unexpected role in the regulation of non-apoptotic genes during normal development.
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Neuron,
2012]
The adult mammalian central nervous system exhibits restricted regenerative potential. Chen etal. (2011) and El Bejjani and Hammarlund (2012) used Caenorhabditis elegans to uncover intrinsic factors that inhibit regeneration of axotomized mature neurons, opening avenues for potential therapeutics.
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Cell,
2014]
Surface receptors can link binding of ligands to changes in the actin-based cell cytoskeleton. Chia etal. and Chen etal. provide evidence for direct binding between the cytoplasmic tails ofreceptorsand the WAVE complex, a regulator of the actin nucleator Arp2/3 complex, which mighthelp to explain how environmental signals are translated into changes in morphology andmotility.
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Nature,
1999]
Advances in human genetics have meant that the genes mutated in human diseases can be identified exclusively by their location in the genome. But how do we work out the cellular functions of the associated protein products? Reports on pages 383 and 386 of this issue begin to address this problem for two proteins - polycystin-1 (PKD1) and polycystin-2 (PKD2) - that are defective in human kidney disease. From their studies of the nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans, Barr and Sternberg present evidence that homologues of the polycystins act together in a signal-transduction pathway in sensory neurons. Chen et al., by contrast, have used an oocyte-expression system in the from Xenopus laevis to show that a homologue of PKD2 is associated with the activity of a cation channel. These results support the hypothesis that polycystin-related proteins belong to a hitherto unknown class of signal-transduction molecules.
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Curr Biol,
2011]
Recent work on a Caenorhabditis elegans transmembrane ATPase reveals a central role for the aminophospholipid phosphatidylethanolamine in the production of a class of extracellular vesicles.
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Nat Cell Biol,
2011]
Aurora A kinase is a key regulator of cell division, whose functions were attributed to its ability to phosphorylate diverse substrates. Aurora A is now shown to have a kinase-independent role in the regulation of chromatin-mediated microtubule assembly.
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Elife,
2015]
Chromosome separation is regulated by a cycle that involves a protein undergoing an unusual topological conversion.
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Curr Biol,
2015]
As a microtubule-organizing center, the centrosome undergoes a dramatic increase in size - via expansion of the pericentriolar material - during mitosis. Recent work reveals shared assembly properties of a protein scaffold that facilitates and supports this expansion, a process critical to spindle assembly.
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Cell,
2014]
Li et al. demonstrate that a single interneuron can regulate analog- and digital-like behaviors guided by two different postsynaptic neurons. Releasing a single neurotransmitter onto downstream neurons that express receptors with distinct biophysical properties enables a small set of neurons to direct a range of functional responses.
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Nat Chem Biol,
2009]
Screening a library of expressed cyclic peptides identified clones that reverse the cytotoxicity of alpha-synuclein in yeast and Caenorhabditis elegans. The results suggest a new approach for intervention in Parkinson's disease, and perhaps a druggable target.