Volume 23 Issue 12, December 2013

Pluripotency can be experimentally induced from somatic cells by nuclear transfer, fusion with embryonic stem cells, or ectopic transcription factor induction, but attempts to recapitulate this process by chemical means alone have previously failed. In a recent paper published in Science, Hou et al. pursue a rational, albeit laborious approach to identify cocktails of small molecules whose treatment restores pluripotency in adult somatic cells.

Intestinal bacterial metabolites are an important communication tool between the host immune system and the commensal microbiota to establish mutualism. In a recent paper published in Science, Wendy Garrett and her colleagues report an exciting role of the three most abundant microbial-derived short-chain fatty acids (SCFA), acetic acid, propionic acid and butyric acid, in colonic regulatory T cell (cTreg) homeostasis.

In a recent paper published in Cell, He and colleagues reported the identification and functional characterization of Beclin 2, a mammal-specific homolog of the evolutionarily conserved autophagy-regulatory and oncosuppressive factor Beclin 1. In spite of a non-negligible degree of sequence identity, Beclin 1 and Beclin 2 differ from each other in multiple aspects, including their functional profile as well as the genomic organization of the respective loci.

Since its discovery in 1989, researchers strive after a small animal model for Hepatitis C virus infection, so far with very limited success. A study recently published in Nature now for the first time reports the recapitulation of the complete life cycle of this virus in inbred mice with a functional adaptive immune system.

Trisomy 21 in human causes Down syndrome, a common chromosome disorder with devastating phenotypes ranging from early death in utero to intellectual disability together with an array of physical anomalies and late-onset diseases. In a recent study published in Nature, Jeanne Lawrence and her colleagues restored normal gene expression in trisomy 21 cells by silencing the extra chromosome using XIST, the non-coding RNA that normally silences one X chromosome in females; this improved growth and differentiation of neural cells, which offers hope that some deleterious effects of the trisomy could be reversed to improve this incurable disease.