In this issue - pv

doi:10.1038/nchembio0307-v

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A mechanistic meeting point - p127

doi:10.1038/nchembio0307-127

Scientists from across the chemistry and biology communities often have divergent ideas of what constitutes mechanistic insight into a biological system. Science that forges a middle ground between these disciplines offers the best way forward for chemical biologists.

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Tools, tricks and trade secrets: the challenges of disseminating methodology - pp128 - 130

Stefan Lutz

doi:10.1038/nchembio0307-128

The broad range of techniques used in chemical biology presents many challenges in reporting, translating and implementing experimental knowledge. By taking advantage of some readily available solutions and instituting some new approaches, it should be possible to more effectively disseminate technological advances.

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Probing cellular systems with chemistry - pp131 - 134

Rami N Hannoush

doi:10.1038/nchembio0307-131

Chemical and genetic approaches are extensively used to probe living systems at the subcellular level and to advance therapeutic target discovery. The 2006 American Society for Cell Biology meeting highlighted the growing importance of chemical biology approaches in cell biology research.

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Small-molecule switch for zebrafish gene expression - pp135 - 136

Young-Tae Chang

doi:10.1038/nchembio0307-135

The zebrafish is a highly promising model system for vertebrate genetics study, but the temporal control of gene expression has remained underdeveloped. A new chemical genetic system using a small-molecule switch for protein synthesis promises to increase the usefulness of the zebrafish as a vertebrate model system.

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See also: Brief Communication by Esengil et al.

Transcriptional activation by small RNA duplexes - pp136 - 137

John J Rossi

doi:10.1038/nchembio0307-136

Short double-stranded RNA duplexes are the triggers for post-transcriptional gene silencing and can also induce epigenetic silencing of genes at the level of transcription. A surprising new finding is that short RNA duplexes targeted to promoter regions can also mediate potent enhancement of transcription.

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See also: Article by Janowski et al.

A RSK kinase inhibitor reporting its selectivity in vivo - pp138 - 139

Morten Frödin

doi:10.1038/nchembio0307-138

The presence of 491 very similar protein kinases in humans has proven to be a serious obstacle to generating specific kinase inhibitors and assessing their selectivity. Now, rational drug design has led to the generation of an irreversible kinase inhibitor with built-in features for demonstrating specificity in cells.

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See also: Letter by Cohen et al.

Per2 has time on its side - pp139 - 140

Urs Albrecht

doi:10.1038/nchembio0307-139

The circadian clock runs with a period of about 24 h and therefore allows mammals to predict sunrise at the cellular level. Phosphorylation of the clock protein period 2 influences this process by varying the clock's period length.

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Taking the inventory inside single cells - pp141 - 142

G Balázsi & J J Collins

doi:10.1038/nchembio0307-141

Despite having an increasingly accurate parts list for biological cells, much is left to discover about how these parts act together to create functional cells, and how distinct individual cells interact to create functional tissues and organs. Biologists are increasingly aware of the cell-to-cell variability in molecule copy numbers—a trend that is revealed by several new techniques, including one that permits counting molecules in single cells.

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Research highlights - p143

doi:10.1038/nchembio0307-143

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Corrigendum: Paradoxical hotspots for guanine oxidation by a chemical mediator of inflammation - p183

Yelena Margolin, Jean-Francois Cloutier, Vladimir Shafirovich, Nicholas E Geacintov & Peter C Dedon

doi:10.1038/nchembio0307-183

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