News & Views in 2003

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  • The most common form of inherited peripheral neuropathy results from overexpression of a single gene. Simple application of an antiprogesterone drug can reduce gene expression and alleviate symptoms in a rat model (pages 1533–1537).

    • Peter De Jonghe
    • Vincent Timmerman
    News & Views
  • Infection of tissues outside the nervous system occurs in a number of prion diseases, but sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans has not been considered one of them. A clinical study of Swiss patients with sporadic disease reconsiders this assumption, and a second study examines the spread of infection between follicular dendritic cells and nerves.

    • Neil A Mabbott
    • Moira E Bruce
    News & Views
  • A new study strengthens the view that heat-shock proteins serve as alarm bells for the immune system. Hsp70 appears to influence the immune response to endogenous stimuli, and may serve as a trigger for autoimmunity (pages 1469–1476).

    • Andrew E Gelman
    • Laurence A Turka
    News & Views
  • Nitric oxide has achieved fame as a regulator of numerous physiological processes, far outshining its humbler cousins, nitrate and nitrite. Now, nitrite steps into the spotlight. It appears that this ion may provide a source of NO during the regulation of blood flow under stressful conditions (pages 1498–1505).

    • David A Wink
    News & Views
  • A new immunosuppressive agent makes its debut in primate models of kidney transplantation. The drug has the potential to join the ranks of immunosuppressants currently used in transplantation.

    • Megan Sykes
    News & Views
  • One approach to developing antiobesity drugs is to shift the energy balance in the body in favor of burning fat. A transcriptional coactivator is now assigned this task.

    • Robert Walczak
    • Peter Tontonoz
    News & Views
  • Glucose transport into the cell is a delicate process that is highly responsive to insulin. A newly identified protein that may tether to the glucose transporter helps keep glucose traffic running smoothly in human cells.

    • Alan R Saltiel
    News & Views
  • Effective cancer vaccines targeted against specific antigens have eluded researchers for decades. When combined with a drug, one such vaccine now shrinks tumors in a mouse model of promyelocytic leukemia (pages 1413–1417).

    • John Donnelly
    News & Views
  • M. tuberculosis persists in the body, sequestered inside macrophages and subverting the phagocytic machinery to create a membrane-bound home. Microarray profiling studies reveal how the bacterium settles into its new environment.

    • John D McKinney
    • James E Gomez
    News & Views
  • Molecules that regulate contraction in skeletal muscle have now found a place in the axon. In response to injury, the ryanodine receptor mediates the release of internal calcium stores, which contributes to axonal damage.

    • Jean R Wrathall
    News & Views
  • Artemin reverses pain and neurochemical changes after nerve injury in an animal model. The molecule could potentially treat neuropathic pain, in which even the slightest touch can hurt (pages 1383–1389).

    • Halina Machelska
    • Paul A Heppenstall
    • Christoph Stein
    News & Views
    • Charlotte Schubert
    News & Views