Volume 16 Issue 12, December 2015

If research and technology are to become the driving force for turning Greece into a productive society, evidence-based governance, strategic restructuring of infrastructure and a substantial inflow of fresh human capital is urgently needed.

Small, soluble, ubiquitous ligands are difficult to visualize. Schwab and colleagues have created a functional receptor reporter that gauges the in vivo concentration, location and biological action of sphingolipids.

The transcription factor Nr4a1 can negatively regulate norepinephrine production in the context of neuroinflammation and thereby prevent the ensuing neuroinflammatory cascade in a mouse model of experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis.

Holtzman and colleagues identify PARP9-DTX3L as an E3 ubiquitin ligase complex that interacts with STAT1 to modify chromatin accessibility for expression in interferon-stimulated genes and to target viral proteases for degradation.

Stress can induce expression of norepinephrine, which can enhance neuroinflammation. Shaked, Hedrick and colleagues show that the transcriptional repressor Nr4a1 limits this stress-induced response by suppressing expression of tyrosine hydroxylase required for the synthesis of norepinephrine.

Ectopic lymphoid structures develop at sites of chronic inflammation and are generally thought to be beneficial in the control of cancer. Pikarsky and colleagues show that these structures can instead nurture liver tumor progenitor cells.

The lipid S1P confers signals that regulate leukocyte trafficking. Schwab and colleagues generate mice that can faithfully report the bioavailability of S1P within tissues and reveal how S1P gradients are shaped in the spleen.

The molecular details of the control of TCR signaling are still being determined. Cao and colleagues report that the E3 ligase Nrdp1 negatively regulates activity of the signaling kinase Zap70 selectively in CD8⁺ T cells.

Little is known about the phosphatases involved in the control of TH17 cells. Yin and colleagues demonstrate that the phosphatase DUSP2 targets the transcription activator STAT3 to regulate the differentiation and function of TH17 cells.

Antigen-activated B cells differentiate into plasmablasts or germinal center B cells that undergo further affinity maturation. Singh and colleagues identify the antagonistic roles of transcription factors IRF4 and IRF8 that establish these opposing cell fates.

Long non-coding RNAs contribute to the regulation of gene expression. Crooks and colleagues profile the long non-coding RNA transcriptome during the specification and development of human lymphocytes.