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A microfluidic platform that is capable of efficiently and selectively separating viable circulating tumour cells (CTCs) from peripheral blood samples has been developed. Low levels of CTCs in the peripheral blood of patients with various cancers were identified, and it was shown that this device could be used to monitor an individual patient's response to anti-cancer therapy.
Stimulation of single neurons in somatosensory cortex affects rats' behavioural responses in a detection task, suggesting a sparser cortical code for sensations than previously anticipated.
A transposon surveillance and genome organization mechanism is described in fission yeast. CENP-B proteins bind to Tf2 retrotransposons and mediate their silencing by recruiting histone deacetylases. CENP-B proteins are also required for the clustering of Tf2 retrotransposons into network-like structures in the nucleus.
The synthesis of SrFeO2, a new compound bearing a square-planar oxygen coordination around Fe2+, is shown. SrFeO2 is isostructural with 'infinite layer' cupric oxides, and exhibits a magnetic order far above room temperature.
A bosonic excitation (mode) at energies 10.5 ± 2.5 meV in the electron doped superconductor Pr0.88LaCe0.12CuO4 (PLCCO) is reported. The analysis of this indicates an electronic origin of the mode consistent with spin excitations rather than phonons.
The circadian regulator CLOCK has histone acetyltransferase (HAT) activity that contributes to chromatin-remodelling events during circadian control of gene expression. Here, CLOCK is shown to acetylate its heterodimerization partner BMAL1, a step which facilitates recruitment of CRY1 and promotes transcriptional repression.
In plants and fungi, cellular ion homeostasis is powered by the proton pump, a member of the P-type ATPase family. The first X-ray structure of the H+-ATPase is presented, and insight into the mechanism by which protons are transported against an electrochemical gradient is provided.
The relationship between changes in sea surface temperature and a measure called 'tropical cyclone potential intensity', which provides an upper bound on cyclone intensity, is explored. It is found that changes in potential intensity are closely related to the regional structure of warming, rather than local sea surface temperature — regions that warm more than the tropical average are characterized by increased potential intensity, and vice versa.
The concept of rogue waves in an optical system is investigated by utilizing a new real-time detection technique to study a system that exposes extremely steep, large optical waves as rare outcomes from injection of a population of almost-identical optical pulses. Analysis of these results finds that the optical rogue waves arise when random noise perturbs the initially smooth pulses with a certain frequency shift and within a well-defined time window.
In plants and fungi, cellular ion homeostasis is powered by the proton pump, a member of the P-type ATPase family. The first X-ray structure of the H+-ATPase is presented, and insight into the mechanism by which protons are transported against an electrochemical gradient is provided
Viral microRNAs have been shown to downregulate complementary viral mRNA targets and to bind to 3′ untranslated regions of host cell mRNAs to prevent their translation or induce their degradation. This paper shows that viral miRNAs can also function as orthologues of cellular miRNAs and downregulate the expression of cellular mRNAs via target sites that may be evolutionary conserved.
Pregnancy makes the instability of upright walking even worse by its constant shifting the centre of gravity. The anatomical adaptations peculiar to female spines that balance the fetal load are detailed, and show that our australopithecine ancestors had much the same adaptations.
The halo of the Milky Way is clearly divisible into two broadly overlapping structural components, an inner and an outer halo. While the inner halo has a modest net prograde rotation, the outer halo exhibits a net retrograde rotation and a peak metallicity one third that of the inner.
Relatively little is known about the mechanisms that underlie the active transport of ions by Na+,K+-ATPase. A 3.5 Å X-ray structure of this fundamental protein is presented, revealing the two binding sites for potassium.
How the Sec translocon recognises transmembrane α-helices in newly synthesised proteins is revealed by the analysis of a large number of hydrophobic segments and presentation of a quantitative analysis of the position-dependent contribution of efficiency of membrane insertion for all amino acids. The results support the idea that recognition of transmembrane helices by the Sec translocon is a lipid-partitioning process.
The yeast chromatin remodelling complex Isw2 repositions nucleosomes that are adjacent to promoter regions and enforces directionality on transcription by preventing inappropriate transcription initiation from cryptic sites.
