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Volume 7 Issue 1, January 2010

Induced pluripotency is beginning to show its mettle as a powerful tool for biological discovery and is Nature Methods' pick for Method of the Year 2009. Cover design by Erin Dewalt. Special feature starts on p17.

Editorial

  • The ability to return mature body cells to a pluripotent state has wide-ranging potential as a tool for discovery in both disease and basic biology.

    Editorial

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This Month

  • Supercharged SRM: synthetic peptides bring high-throughput assays to targeted proteomics.

    • Monya Baker
    This Month
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Correspondence

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Research Highlights

  • A miniature head-mounted two-photon microscope small enough for a rat to carry allows researchers to visualize neuronal signaling while the animal freely interacts with its environment.

    • Daniel Evanko
    Research Highlights
  • High-throughput saturation mutagenesis determines the contribution of each base in a core promoter to overall promoter strength.

    • Nicole Rusk
    Research Highlights
  • The Negatome is a database of non-interacting protein pairs that can be used for training protein-protein interaction prediction algorithms.

    • Allison Doerr
    Research Highlights
  • Screening reveals a chemical activator that triggers apoptosis by locking inactive but dynamic proenzymes into a more active state, suggesting a promising strategy for targeting proteases.

    • Michael Eisenstein
    Research Highlights
  • A new technique finds genomic subpopulations to indicate cancer progression.

    • Monya Baker
    Research Highlights
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News Feature

  • Now that the generation of induced pluripotent stem cells is becoming routine, researchers can get on to the more exciting prospect of using the cells to make discoveries in disease and basic biology. Monya Baker reports.

    • Monya Baker
    News Feature
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Primer

  • A brief overview of methods for reprogramming to induced pluripotency and of the properties of induced pluripotent stem cells.

    • Natalie de Souza
    Primer
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Commentary

  • The discovery that it is possible to render somatic cells pluripotent by the exogenous expression of a set of transcription factors provides an experimental model for studying the molecular nature of cellular identity.

    • Andras Nagy
    • Kristina Nagy
    Commentary
  • The field of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) will be subject to a wide range of laws and research ethics policies, many of which exist as a result of the controversies associated with research on human embryonic stem cells. Understanding this potentially complex regulatory environment will help iPSC research move forward and will inform future policy.

    • Timothy Caulfield
    • Christopher Scott
    • Amy Zarzeczny
    Commentary
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Method to Watch

  • Technology for sensitively and reproducibly detecting targeted proteins by mass spectrometry picks up speed.

    • Allison Doerr
    Method to Watch
  • Methodological developments are opening the functioning brain to cellular-level investigation using light.

    • Daniel Evanko
    Method to Watch
  • Refinements in methods to uncover the higher-order structure of the genome will allow functional insight into genomic architecture at high resolution.

    • Nicole Rusk
    Method to Watch
  • The ability to study single cells will permit a better understanding of cellular heterogeneity.

    • Natalie de Souza
    Method to Watch
  • New methods to coax signals from unlabeled biological molecules may finally fulfill the promise of practical label-free microscopy with molecular specificity.

    • Daniel Evanko
    Method to Watch
  • Automated methods to score phenotypes in model organisms continue to develop and will permit previously inaccessible areas of biology to be probed.

    • Natalie de Souza
    Method to Watch
  • Will new methods and an emerging understanding of the minimal requirements for cellular life be sufficient to construct a synthetic organism?

    • Allison Doerr
    Method to Watch
  • Will some single molecule sequencing strategies be able to deliver on the promise of direct methyl cytosine sequencing?

    • Nicole Rusk
    Method to Watch
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News & Views

  • Mouse lines with inducible reprogramming factors expressed from a single genomic locus will allow reprogramming studies in multiple cell types and defined genetic backgrounds.

    • Thomas P Zwaka
    News & Views
  • Cardiomyocytes can be sorted to high purity upon staining them with a dye that labels mitochondria. This permits the preparation of pure populations of cardiomyocytes differentiated from stem cells.

    • Christine Mummery
    News & Views
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Brief Communication

  • Selected reaction monitoring (SRM) is a powerful mass spectrometry technology to reliably detect selected protein targets, even those at very low abundance, but requires tedious assay development for each protein of interest. High-throughput SRM assay development is now possible by using crude synthetic peptide libraries without purification to represent each protein target.

    • Paola Picotti
    • Oliver Rinner
    • Ruedi Aebersold
    Brief Communication
  • An efficient system for the reversion and modification of mouse gene trap alleles is presented. It is applicable to available collections of gene trap embryonic stem cell lines.

    • Veena Singla
    • Julie Hunkapiller
    • Jeremy F Reiter
    Brief Communication
  • A mouse strain in which cellular reprogramming factors are expressed from a defined genomic locus is presented. It will enable studies of reprogramming in multiple cell types as well as facilitate comparisons between induced pluripotent stem cells and embryonic stem cells. Also in this issue, a paper by Carey et al. presents related tools.

    • Matthias Stadtfeld
    • Nimet Maherali
    • Konrad Hochedlinger
    Brief Communication
  • Mouse strains in which three or four cellular reprogramming factors are expressed from a defined genomic locus are presented. They will enable studies of reprogramming in multiple cell types as well as facilitate comparisons between induced pluripotent stem cells and embryonic stem cells. Also in this issue, a paper from Stadtfeld et al. presents related tools.

    • Bryce W Carey
    • Styliani Markoulaki
    • Rudolf Jaenisch
    Brief Communication
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Article

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Technology Feature

  • Rapid progress with induced pluripotent stem cells is bringing scientists closer to understanding their strengths and weaknesses as embryonic stem cell stand-ins.

    • Michael Eisenstein
    Technology Feature
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Special

  • Nature Methods' Method of the Year 2009 goes to induced pluripotency for its potential for biological discovery. This series of articles—and the related video—showcase how induced pluripotency is coming into its own in 2009 as a tool for discovery in both basic and disease biology and explore the incredible impact this area promises to have in biological research.

    Special
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