Volume 7 Issue 12, December 2010

New tools are improving the prospects for transcranial light-based neuroscience, but better methods for using them are needed before they can reach their full potential.

Blue light pulls proteins together.

Some long noncoding RNAs act as enhancers for genes in their vicinity.

Using a virtual reality setup and a deep window into the brain, researchers can image the activity of neurons as mice navigate virtual environments.

Gene expression profiles identify chromosomal aberrations in human induced pluripotent stem cell lines.

A specialized supercomputer allows molecular dynamics simulations to be carried out for much longer periods of time than previously possible, yielding new insights into protein folding and dynamics.

A DNA walker–based system enables ordered, multistep synthesis of a peptide in a single solution.

New dyes emit near-infrared chemiluminescence when warmed to body temperature, allowing deep-tissue imaging in mice.

Quantum dots, nanodiamonds and other nanomaterials broaden researchers' tools for watching biology.

The most abundant proteins in our cells are there to generate mechanical forces, and measurement of these forces has just become possible.

Novel deep-sequencing strategies are used to monitor, at the genomic scale, the structure of cellular RNAs using enzymatic probing.

Synthetic surfaces displaying a glycosaminoglycan-binding peptide derived from vitronectin support long-term culture of human pluripotent stem cells.

Tracking the displacement of fluorescent beads surrounding a cell embedded in a hydrogel matrix allows quantitative measurement of the three-dimensional traction forces exerted by the cell.

Protein modules that dimerize rapidly upon exposure to light are reported. They permit light-induced control of dimerization of fused protein targets and can be manipulated with two-photon illumination for experiments in thick samples and in vivo.

Magnetic torque tweezers are used to directly measure the torsional stiffness of single molecules of bare DNA and RecA filaments.

A polished and reinforced thinned-skull procedure is used to create a large, chronically stable window in the skull that allows repeated imaging of cortical structures as well as optically guided physiological manipulation. It is proposed as an alternative to the craniotomy and current thinned-skull methods.

A soft X-ray microscope design using partially incoherent light and a sample holder that can be tilted permits three-dimensional ultrastructural imaging of cryopreserved adherent mammalian cells without chemical fixation.

Defined surfaces displaying heparin-binding peptides support long-term culture of multiple human embryonic and induced pluripotent stem cell lines in defined media.

High-throughput sequencing of RNA fragments generated from a single-strand RNA-specific nuclease followed by novel computational analysis yields structural insights into noncoding RNA at the transcriptome level.

Readily synthesized maltose–neopentyl glycol (MNG) amphiphiles are useful reagents for stabilizing, extracting and crystallizing a variety of integral membrane proteins and have favorable properties relative to conventional detergents.

The mixture of isoforms model (MISO) assesses the confidence in estimates of the abundance of spliced exons or isoforms from paired-end RNA-seq data and detects their differential expression.

A statistical approach to quantitatively derive single and double mutant fitness from colony-based growth assays is described. The resultant SGA score permits assessment of yeast fitness and genetic interactions on the genome scale.