Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Volume 16 Issue 3, March 2010

In this issue, Gary Nabel and his colleagues report on the development of a potential vaccine against Chikungunya virus (depicted), an insect-borne virus that causes fever in humans (pp 334–338). Image courtesy of Siyang Sun and Michael Rossmann (Purdue University).

Editorial

  • The peer review process can be frustrating to researchers eager to get their work published. Changes to the process might be warranted—but only if they are based in fact, not conjecture.

    Editorial

    Advertisement

Top of page ⤴

News

Top of page ⤴

Book Review

Top of page ⤴

News & Views

  • Galectins are carbohydrate-binding proteins with diverse activities, but there is no unifying picture of their primary physiological role. Galectins now emerge as autonomous bacteria-killing agents (pages 295–301), unexpected findings that may point to a principal role of these proteins in innate immunity.

    • Fu-Tong Liu
    • Charles L Bevins
    News & Views
  • Serotonin produced in the gut reduces the formation of bone. This biology is now harnessed with an orally available inhibitor of gut serotonin synthesis (pages 308–312). The inhibitor promotes bone formation in rodents and points the way to the development of much-needed bone-building drugs.

    • Ego Seeman
    News & Views
  • Systemic inflammation results in a life-threatening drop in blood pressure. Targeting known players of blood pressure regulation has so far failed to improve outcomes for individuals with sepsis. But a study points to a regulatory pathway involving the amino acid metabolite kynurenine that may provide new avenues for therapies (pages 279–285).

    • Franz Hofmann
    News & Views
  • Altered lipid metabolism underlies the production of excess mucus in a mouse model of cystic fibrosis (313–318). The findings point to the nuclear receptor peroxisome proliferator–activated receptor-γ (PPAR-γ) as a potential therapeutic target in this disease.

    • Erich Gulbins
    News & Views
  • The extraordinary diversity of HIV is a major barrier in the path of developing a vaccine. One way forward may be mosaic antigens—biometrically designed genes that maximize overlap between sequences used in the vaccine and circulating HIV-1 strains worldwide (pages 319–323 and 324–328).

    • Lawrence Corey
    • M Juliana McElrath
    News & Views
  • The involuntary muscle spasms that occur as a result of neuromotor disorders and spinal cord injury can have dangerous consequences for affected individuals. New findings shed light on one mechanism contributing to spasticity: limited chloride transport in motoneurons (pages 302–307).

    • V Reggie Edgerton
    • Roland R Roy
    News & Views
Top of page ⤴

Community Corner

Top of page ⤴

Between Bedside and Bench

  • Thinking about how asthma and allergic diseases arise is undergoing several shifts. In 'Bedside to Bench', Clare M. Lloyd and Sejal Saglani examine how recent human studies are putting the focus on the epithelium as a major contributor to asthma. The findings shift the emphasis away from the T helper type 2 immune response, and call into question the utility of current animal models of the disease. Although asthma and other allergic disorders are known to have origins in infancy, some researchers are looking even earlier, to effects in utero and before conception. In 'Bench to Bedside', Catherine Hawrylowicz and Kimuli Ryanna highlight animal studies that outline some of the effects of the maternal environment, and they examine the potential implications for prevention of disease.

    • Clare M Lloyd
    • Sejal Saglani
    Between Bedside and Bench
Top of page ⤴

Research Highlights

Top of page ⤴

Article

  • Kynurenine, a metabolite produced by the action of the enzyme indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase on tryptophan, accumulates under inflammatory conditions and has immunomodulatory effects. This study by Yutang Wang et al. describes a new function for kynurenine as an endogenous vasodilator under conditions of systemic inflammation, such as malaria infection and endotoxemia in mice, and provides insight into the molecular mechanisms involved (pages 265–267).

    • Yutang Wang
    • Hanzhong Liu
    • Roland Stocker
    Article
  • Metastasis is a fatal complication of prostate cancer, but its mechanisms remain largely unknown. In this report, the authors identify a signaling pathway commonly deregulated in human prostate cancer and describe how it can foster both primary growth and metastatic tumor progression. Epigenetic silencing of the RasGAP DAB2IP by EZH2 overexpression results in aberrant activation of Ras signaling, but also of NF-κB. These two events are mediated by different DAB2IP domains and have distinct roles in localized growth and distant dissemination.

    • Junxia Min
    • Alexander Zaslavsky
    • Karen Cichowski
    Article
  • The expression of blood group antigens causes deletion of cells that generate self-specific antibodies to those antigens, but this deletion could limit adaptive immunity toward pathogens bearing cognate antigens. Two innate immune lectins, galectin-4 and galectin-8, are now reported to recognize and kill human blood group antigen–expressing bacteria.

    • Sean R Stowell
    • Connie M Arthur
    • Richard D Cummings
    Article
Top of page ⤴

Letter

Top of page ⤴

Technical Report

  • Lukas Flatz et al. have exploited the characteristics of the lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV) to create a vaccine vector platform that elicits potent CD8+ T cell immunity. Using a recombinant, replication-defective LCMV, they show that these modified viral vectors target dendritic cells in vivo and trigger cytotoxic T lymphocyte responses that compare favorably with existing vectors. Other benefits include low global seroprevalence to LCMV and minimal interference of preexisting antibodies with vaccine efficacy.

    • Lukas Flatz
    • Ahmed N Hegazy
    • Daniel D Pinschewer
    Technical Report
Top of page ⤴

Search

Quick links