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This photograph of an Anopheles gambiae (mosquito) heart took first place in the 2010 Nikon Small world photomicrography competition. The image was taken by Jonas King of the Vanderbilt University Department of Biological Sciences. The heart musculature was stained using Alexa Fluor 488–conjugated phalloidin, and DNA was stained with Hoechst 33342. Other images from this year's competition are on display at http://www.nikonsmallworld.com/.
The community of scientists should celebrate the Nobel Prize, even if awards bestowed on one discipline are associated with another discipline. A new prize might help.
An efficient one-step method for re-engineering mouse mutant alleles harboring loxP and FRT sites is reported. It may be applied to the large collection of targeted alleles from the International Knockout Mouse Consortium.
Stimulation of the light-activated cation channel channelrhodopsin-2 can depolarize heart muscle in vitro and in vivo, resulting in precise localized stimulation and constant prolonged depolarization of genetically targeted cardiomyocytes and cardiac tissue.
Using 600 oligonucleotides with 60 bases each and three enzymes, the authors assemble the entire mouse mitochondrial genome in four isothermal reactions.
Recombinant SV40 viral vectors intravenously injected into mice pretreated with mannitol effectively deliver transgenes to adult neurons in several regions of the central nervous system.
By pooling barcoded genomes of thirty rats before enrichment of a 1.4-megabase target sequence, mutation discovery in 770 genes is achieved with high accuracy.
Retroviral integration is used to mark clones in human embryonic stem cell cultures and clonal distribution is assessed after functionally testing the cells with different methods. Distinct subsets of clones are detected after in vitro differentiation versus teratoma formation in vivo.
Proteins can be transferred between cells in contact, such as via trogocytosis in lymphocytes, or acquired via bacteria-host interactions during infection. A quantitative proteomics approach to identify such non-cell-autonomous proteins is described.
A targeting method for lentiviral vectors relying on the use of single-chain antibodies recognizing cell-surface antigens is applied to generate lentiviral vectors specific for endothelial cells, hematopoietic progenitors and neurons.