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Volume 30 Issue 2, February 2002

Cover art: Knit DNA by Emily Poe, based on a double helix cable pattern by June Oshiro

Volume 30 Issue 2

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Editorial

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News & Views

  • A genome-wide linkage map for the threespine stickleback provides a first glimpse of the evolutionary genetic basis of morphological differentiation in a non-model vertebrate. Within extremely short evolutionary time spans, significant adaptive changes of known ecological consequence seem to have been brought about by a surprisingly small number of loci with major phenotypic effects.

    • Axel Meyer
    News & Views

  • The Jun and JunB proteins have been proposed to play distinct and antagonizing roles in controlling gene expression and cell proliferation. The surprising observation that JunB can functionally replace Jun during mouse development challenges the way we think about the interplay between members of the Jun family of transcription factors.

    • Jonathan B. Weitzman
    News & Views

  • Genes of the Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) are extraordinarily diverse. MHC variants influence many important biological traits, including immune recognition, susceptibility to infectious and autoimmune diseases, individual odors, mating preferences, kin recognition, cooperation and pregnancy outcome. The MHC story now becomes even more complex with the demonstration that human females prefer odors from males carrying allelic matches to their own paternally inherited MHC genes.

    • Wayne K. Potts
    News & Views

  • The human body is grossly contaminated with microbes and, for the most part, this is beneficial. Consequently, the finding of microbial and viral transcripts within human EST databases should not come as a big surprise. However, the extent of human-associated microbial diversity and the possible role of infectious agents in common human diseases remains relatively unknown. An increasingly detailed understanding of the human genome will allow us to distinguish between endogenous human transcripts and those expressed by microbial residents.

    • David A. Relman
    News & Views

  • In 1994, Ralph Brinster and colleagues demonstrated that male germ cells could repopulate a mouse testis into which they had been transplanted and could then continue and complete their differentiation. They now report production of transgenic progeny after retroviral infection of germline stem cells in culture prior to their transfer to a recipient male. This achievement may lead to new developments in the manipulation and study of mammalian genomes.

    • Minoo Rassoulzadegan
    News & Views
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