Featured
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Letter |
Elastic energy storage in the shoulder and the evolution of high-speed throwing in Homo
Humans are able to throw projectiles with high speed and accuracy largely as a result of anatomical features that enable elastic energy storage and release at the shoulder; features that first appear together approximately 2 million years ago in Homo erectus, possibly as a means to hunt.
- Neil T. Roach
- , Madhusudhan Venkadesan
- & Daniel E. Lieberman
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News & Views |
Muscle's dual origins
Jellyfish move using a set of muscles that look remarkably similar to striated muscles in vertebrates. However, new data show that the two muscle types contain different molecules, implying that they evolved independently. See Letter p.231
- Andreas Hejnol
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Letter |
MAP and kinesin-dependent nuclear positioning is required for skeletal muscle function
Skeletal muscle cells are multinucleate, and improper positioning of the nuclei contributes to muscle dysfunction.
- Thomas Metzger
- , Vincent Gache
- & Mary K. Baylies
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Letter |
Spalt mediates an evolutionarily conserved switch to fibrillar muscle fate in insects
- Cornelia Schönbauer
- , Jutta Distler
- & Frank Schnorrer
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Letter |
Fossil jawless fish from China foreshadows early jawed vertebrate anatomy
- Zhikun Gai
- , Philip C. J. Donoghue
- & Marco Stampanoni
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News & Views |
Muscle for a damaged heart
When cardiac muscle cells die during a heart attack, this can lead to heart failure and even death. It now emerges that stem cells of the 'sheet' enveloping the heart can be coaxed to form new muscle after such an event. See Letter p.640
- Vincent Christoffels
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Letter |
Neural crest regulates myogenesis through the transient activation of NOTCH
- Anne C. Rios
- , Olivier Serralbo
- & Christophe Marcelle
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Letter |
A tension-induced mechanotransduction pathway promotes epithelial morphogenesis
This study describes a mechanotransduction pathway that links the body wall with the epidermis in Caenorhabditis elegans. The pathway involves the p21 activated kinase PAK 1, an adaptor GIT 1 and its partner PIX 1. Tension exerted by muscles or external pressure keeps GIT 1 on station at hemidesmosomes — the small rivet like bodies that attach epidermal cells to the underlying musculature — and stimulates PAK 1 through PIX 1 and Rac GTPase. The C. elegans hemidesmosome is more than a passive attachment structure, therefore, but a sensor that responds to tension by triggering signalling processes.
- Huimin Zhang
- , Frédéric Landmann
- & Michel Labouesse
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Research Highlights |
Cancer biology: Muscling in on cancer
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News |
Drug flexes muscle against cancer
Decoy protein helps to fight cancer in mice by stopping muscle breakdown.
- Alla Katsnelson
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News |
Muscling in on limb regeneration
Researchers pin down a pathway coming between mammals and the ability to regenerate tissue salamander-style.
- Alla Katsnelson
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News |
Teeth tell temperature tales
Dinosaurs' dental samples could reveal details of body temperature.
- Richard Lovett
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Letter |
Designed biomaterials to mimic the mechanical properties of muscles
Here, artificial proteins are described that mimic the molecular architecture of titin — a protein that helps to govern the passive elastic properties of muscle. The new artificial proteins combine structured and unstructured domains, and can be photochemically crosslinked into a solid biomaterial that is resilient at low strains and extensible and tough at high strains. This provides an example of tailoring the macroscopic properties of a material through engineering at the single-molecule level.
- Shanshan Lv
- , Daniel M. Dudek
- & Hongbin Li
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News & Views |
Muscle mimic
An elastic polymer has been made whose molecular structure mimics that of titin, a protein found in muscle. The resulting material is tough, stretchy and dissipates energy — just like muscle itself.
- Elliot L. Chaikof
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News |
Protein jab mends broken bones
Injecting mice with Wnt proteins speeds up healing.
- Janelle Weaver
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Letter |
Zebrafish heart regeneration occurs by cardiomyocyte dedifferentiation and proliferation
Zebrafish are able to replace lost heart muscle efficiently, and are used as a model to understand why natural heart regeneration — after a heart attack, for instance — is blocked in mammals. Here, and in an accompanying paper, genetic fate-mapping approaches reveal which cell population contributes prominently to cardiac muscle regeneration after an injury approximating myocardial infarction. The results show that cardiac muscle regenerates through activation and expansion of existing cardiomyocytes, without involving a stem-cell population.
- Chris Jopling
- , Eduard Sleep
- & Juan Carlos Izpisúa Belmonte
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Letter |
Systematic genetic analysis of muscle morphogenesis and function in Drosophila
A genome-wide RNA interference screen to systematically test the genetic basis for formation and function of the Drosophila muscle is described. A role in muscle for 2,785 genes is identified; many of these genes are phylogenetically conserved.
- Frank Schnorrer
- , Cornelia Schönbauer
- & Barry J. Dickson