Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Volume 11 Issue 3, March 2009

Prions spread between cells through tunnelling nanotubes.letter p328

Editorial

  • The impact of the continuing economic woes on science funding remains uncertain. Surprisingly, the crisis may actually reinvigorate research. Investment in science and education is a prerequisite not only for emergence from the economic downward spiral, but also for addressing pressing global needs.

    Editorial

    Advertisement

Top of page ⤴

Review Article

Top of page ⤴

News & Views

  • Prions are abnormal isoforms of host proteins that are the infectious agents in certain mammalian neurodegenerative diseases. How prions travel from their peripheral entry sites to the brain where they cause disease is poorly understood. A new study finds that tunnelling nanotubes are important for the intercellular transfer of prions during neuroinvasion.

    • Hans-Hermann Gerdes
    News & Views
  • Frizzled receptors regulate cell fate decisions and planar cell polarity by means of distinct intracellular effectors. The choice between these two signalling outputs may involve a pH-dependent interaction between Dishevelled and negatively charged lipids at the plasma membrane.

    • François Schweisguth
    News & Views
  • Tumorigenesis is regulated by several mechanisms including signalling, transcription and DNA replication. Now a cytoplasmic protein quality-control pathway is implicated in the suppression of breast cancer cell growth, suggesting a new role for quality-control mechanisms in suppressing cells with malignant potential.

    • Cam Patterson
    • Sarah Ronnebaum
    News & Views
  • Epigenetic mechanisms participate in the regulation of gene transcription in eukaryotes. Two studies in yeast have revealed an additional mechanism for controlling global gene transcription that is based on an inherited self-perpetuating change in the conformation of two different components of key transcriptional regulatory complexes.

    • Mick F. Tuite
    • Brian S. Cox
    News & Views
  • The growth of daughter cells in budding yeast is a classic model for investigating mechanisms involved in asymmetric cell division. An unexpected collaboration between the DEAD-box protein Dbp5 and the nuclear transport receptor Kap104 controls localized protein synthesis at the bud tip during mitosis.

    • David S. Goldfarb
    News & Views
Top of page ⤴

Research Highlights

Top of page ⤴

Article

Top of page ⤴

Letter

Top of page ⤴

Search

Quick links