Leung Lab Blog

Science special section - Forces in Development

1. Purnell BA. Forces in development. Forceful thinking. Introduction. Science. 2012 Oct 12;338(6104):209. doi: 10.1126/science.338.6104.209. PubMed PMID: 23066070.
2. Kicheva A, Cohen M, Briscoe J. Developmental pattern formation: insights from physics and biology. Science. 2012 Oct 12;338(6104):210-2. doi: 10.1126/science.1225182. Review. PubMed PMID: 23066071.
3. Furusawa C, Kaneko K. A dynamical-systems view of stem cell biology. Science.  2012 Oct 12;338(6104):215-7. doi: 10.1126/science.1224311. Review. PubMed PMID: 23066073.
4. Newman SA. Physico-genetic determinants in the evolution of development. Science. 2012 Oct 12;338(6104):217-9. doi: 10.1126/science.1222003. PubMed PMID: 23066074.
5. Behrndt M, Salbreux G, Campinho P, Hauschild R, Oswald F, Roensch J, Grill SW, Heisenberg CP. Forces driving epithelial spreading in zebrafish gastrulation. Science. 2012 Oct 12;338(6104):257-60. doi: 10.1126/science.1224143. PubMed PMID: 23066079.

Visual sciences

1. Hardie RC, Franze K. Photomechanical responses in Drosophila photoreceptors. Science. 2012 Oct 12;338(6104):260-3. doi: 10.1126/science.1222376. PubMed PMID: 23066080.

Neural behaviour

1. Fernandes AM, Fero K, Arrenberg AB, Bergeron SA, Driever W, Burgess HA. Deep Brain Photoreceptors Control Light-Seeking Behavior in Zebrafish Larvae. Curr Biol. 2012 Sep 18. pii: S0960-9822(12)00944-X. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2012.08.016. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 23000151.

Retinal development

1. Xiang M. Intrinsic control of mammalian retinogenesis. Cell Mol Life Sci. 2012 Oct 12. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 23064704.

Eye diseases

1. Sahly I, Dufour E, Schietroma C, Michel V, Bahloul A, Perfettini I, Pepermans E, Estivalet A, Carette D, Aghaie A, Ebermann I, Lelli A, Iribarne M, Hardelin JP, Weil D, Sahel JA, El-Amraoui A, Petit C. Localization of Usher 1 proteins to the photoreceptor calyceal processes, which are absent from mice. J Cell Biol. 2012 Oct 15;199(2):381-99. doi: 10.1083/jcb.201202012. Epub 2012 Oct 8. PubMed PMID: 23045546; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3471240.

Medicine

1. Krogsbøll LT, Jørgensen KJ, Grønhøj Larsen C, Gøtzsche PC. General health checks in adults for reducing morbidity and mortality from disease. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2012 Oct 17;10:CD009009. doi: 10.1002/14651858.CD009009.pub2. PubMed PMID: 23076952.
   • News coverage:
     • BBC news: “General health check-ups ‘offer no benefit‘”
     • Time: “Are Health Check-Ups Necessary? Study Says Not So Much“

Stem cells

1. Nakano T, Ando S, Takata N, Kawada M, Muguruma K, Sekiguchi K, Saito K, Yonemura S, Eiraku M, Sasai Y. Self-formation of optic cups and storable stratified neural retina from human ESCs. Cell Stem Cell. 2012 Jun 14;10(6):771-85. PubMed PMID: 22704518.
2. Cyranoski D. Tissue engineering: The brainmaker. Nature. 2012 Aug 23;488(7412):444-6. doi: 10.1038/488444a. PubMed PMID: 22914148.
   • An interesting article about Dr. Sasai who leads the team to make the eye cup from human ESCs as described above and from mouse ESCs, among many other interesting discoveries!

Imaging

1. Small A. Faster and more versatile tools for super-resolution fluorescence microscopy. Nat Methods. 2012 Jun 28;9(7):655-6. doi: 10.1038/nmeth.2079. PubMed PMID: 22743767.
2. Weber M, Huisken J. Omnidirectional microscopy. Nat Methods. 2012 Jun 28;9(7):656-7. doi: 10.1038/nmeth.2022. PubMed PMID: 22743768.
3. Schindelin J, Arganda-Carreras I, Frise E, Kaynig V, Longair M, Pietzsch T, Preibisch S, Rueden C, Saalfeld S, Schmid B, Tinevez JY, White DJ, Hartenstein V, Eliceiri K, Tomancak P, Cardona A. Fiji: an open-source platform for biological-image analysis. Nat Methods. 2012 Jun 28;9(7):676-82. doi: 10.1038/nmeth.2019. PubMed PMID: 22743772.
4. Kankaanpää P, Paavolainen L, Tiitta S, Karjalainen M, Päivärinne J, Nieminen J, Marjomäki V, Heino J, White DJ. BioImageXD: an open, general-purpose and high-throughput image-processing platform. Nat Methods. 2012 Jun 28;9(7):683-9.doi: 10.1038/nmeth.2047. PubMed PMID: 22743773.
5. de Chaumont F, Dallongeville S, Chenouard N, Hervé N, Pop S, Provoost T, Meas-Yedid V, Pankajakshan P, Lecomte T, Le Montagner Y, Lagache T, Dufour A, Olivo-Marin JC. Icy: an open bioimage informatics platform for extended reproducible research. Nat Methods. 2012 Jun 28;9(7):690-6. doi: 10.1038/nmeth.2075. PubMed PMID: 22743774.
6. Eliceiri KW, Berthold MR, Goldberg IG, Ibáñez L, Manjunath BS, Martone ME, Murphy RF, Peng H, Plant AL, Roysam B, Stuurmann N, Swedlow JR, Tomancak P, Carpenter AE. Biological imaging software tools. Nat Methods. 2012 Jun 28;9(7):697-710. doi: 10.1038/nmeth.2084. PubMed PMID: 22743775.
7. Ronneberger O, Liu K, Rath M, Rueß D, Mueller T, Skibbe H, Drayer B, Schmidt T, Filippi A, Nitschke R, Brox T, Burkhardt H, Driever W. ViBE-Z: a framework for 3D virtual colocalization analysis in zebrafish larval brains. Nat Methods. 2012  Jun 17;9(7):735-42. doi: 10.1038/nmeth.2076. PubMed PMID: 22706672.
8. Lubeck E, Cai L. Single-cell systems biology by super-resolution imaging and combinatorial labeling. Nat Methods. 2012 Jun 3;9(7):743-8. doi: 10.1038/nmeth.2069. PubMed PMID: 22660740; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3418883.
9. Tomer R, Khairy K, Amat F, Keller PJ. Quantitative high-speed imaging of entire developing embryos with simultaneous multiview light-sheet microscopy. Nat Methods. 2012 Jun 3;9(7):755-63. doi: 10.1038/nmeth.2062. PubMed PMID: 22660741.
10. The quest for quantitative microscopy. Nat Methods. 2012 Jul;9(7):627. PubMed PMID: 22930824.
11. Schneider CA, Rasband WS, Eliceiri KW. NIH Image to ImageJ: 25 years of image analysis. Nat Methods. 2012 Jul;9(7):671-5. PubMed PMID: 22930834.

Systems Biology

1. Karr JR, Sanghvi JC, Macklin DN, Gutschow MV, Jacobs JM, Bolival B Jr, Assad-Garcia N, Glass JI, Covert MW. A whole-cell computational model predicts phenotype from genotype. Cell. 2012 Jul 20;150(2):389-401. PubMed PMID: 22817898; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3413483.
   • Commentary: Freddolino PL, Tavazoie S. The dawn of virtual cell biology. Cell. 2012 Jul 20;150(2):248-50. PubMed PMID: 22817888.

Genomics/Genetics

1. Kong A, Frigge ML, Masson G, Besenbacher S, Sulem P, Magnusson G, Gudjonsson SA, Sigurdsson A, Jonasdottir A, Jonasdottir A, Wong WS, Sigurdsson G, Walters GB, Steinberg S, Helgason H, Thorleifsson G, Gudbjartsson DF, Helgason A, Magnusson OT, Thorsteinsdottir U, Stefansson K. Rate of de novo mutations and the importance of father’s age to disease risk. Nature. 2012 Aug 23;488(7412):471-5. doi: 10.1038/nature11396. PubMed PMID: 22914163.
   • A new study that shows the older the father is, the more the mutations that he will pass to the next generation!
   • News: Callaway E. Fathers bequeath more mutations as they age. Nature. 2012 Aug 23;488(7412):439. doi: 10.1038/488439a. PubMed PMID: 22914142.
   • Commentary: Kondrashov A. Genetics: The rate of human mutation. Nature. 2012 Aug 23;488(7412):467-8. doi: 10.1038/488467a. PubMed PMID: 22914161.
2. Schuster-Böckler B, Lehner B. Chromatin organization is a major influence on regional mutation rates in human cancer cells. Nature. 2012 Aug 23;488(7412):504-7. PubMed PMID: 22820252.

Development

1. Lefebvre JL, Kostadinov D, Chen WV, Maniatis T, Sanes JR. Protocadherins mediate dendritic self-avoidance in the mammalian nervous system. Nature. 2012 Aug 23;488(7412):517-21. PubMed PMID: 22842903; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3427422.

Development

1. Vogel G. Reproductive biology. Potential egg stem cells reignite debate. Science. 2012 Mar 2;335(6072):1029-30. PubMed PMID: 22383817.

Scientific career

1. Mervis J. Scientific careers. Is motherhood the biggest reason for academia’s gender imbalance? Science. 2012 Mar 2;335(6072):1030-1. PubMed PMID: 22383818.

Genomics

1. Xu X, Hou Y, Yin X, Bao L, Tang A, Song L, Li F, Tsang S, Wu K, Wu H, He W, Zeng L, Xing M, Wu R, Jiang H, Liu X, Cao D, Guo G, Hu X, Gui Y, Li Z, Xie W, Sun X, Shi M, Cai Z, Wang B, Zhong M, Li J, Lu Z, Gu N, Zhang X, Goodman L, Bolund L, Wang J, Yang H, Kristiansen K, Dean M, Li Y, Wang J. Single-cell exome sequencing reveals single-nucleotide mutation characteristics of a kidney tumor. Cell. 2012 Mar 2;148(5):886-95. PubMed PMID: 22385958.
2. Hou Y, Song L, Zhu P, Zhang B, Tao Y, Xu X, Li F, Wu K, Liang J, Shao D, Wu H, Ye X, Ye C, Wu R, Jian M, Chen Y, Xie W, Zhang R, Chen L, Liu X, Yao X, Zheng H, Yu C, Li Q, Gong Z, Mao M, Yang X, Yang L, Li J, Wang W, Lu Z, Gu N, Laurie G, Bolund L, Kristiansen K, Wang J, Yang H, Li Y, Zhang X, Wang J. Single-Cell ExomeSequencing and Monoclonal Evolution of a JAK2-Negative Myeloproliferative Neoplasm. Cell. 2012 Mar 2;148(5):873-85. PubMed PMID: 22385957.

Systems biology

1. Angermann BR, Klauschen F, Garcia AD, Prustel T, Zhang F, Germain RN, Meier-Schellersheim M. Computational modeling of cellular signaling processes embedded into dynamic spatial contexts. Nat Methods. 2012 Jan 29;9(3):283-9. doi: 10.1038/nmeth.1861. PubMed PMID: 22286385.
• Commentary: Sneddon MW, Emonet T. Modeling cellular signaling: taking space into the computation. Nat Methods. 2012 Feb 28;9(3):239-42. doi: 10.1038/nmeth.1900. PubMed PMID: 22373909.

Imaging

1. Allan C, Burel JM, Moore J, Blackburn C, Linkert M, Loynton S, Macdonald D, Moore WJ, Neves C, Patterson A, Porter M, Tarkowska A, Loranger B, Avondo J, Lagerstedt I, Lianas L, Leo S, Hands K, Hay RT, Patwardhan A, Best C, Kleywegt GJ, Zanetti G, Swedlow JR. OMERO: flexible, model-driven data management for experimental biology. Nat Methods. 2012 Feb 28;9(3):245-53. doi: 10.1038/nmeth.1896. PubMed PMID: 22373911.
2. Ragan T, Kadiri LR, Venkataraju KU, Bahlmann K, Sutin J, Taranda J, Arganda-Carreras I, Kim Y, Seung HS, Osten P. Serial two-photon tomography for automated ex vivo mouse brain imaging. Nat Methods. 2012 Jan 15;9(3):255-8. doi:  10.1038/nmeth.1854. PubMed PMID: 22245809; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3297424

Genetics

1. Wang X, Chen X, Yang Y. Spatiotemporal control of gene expression by a light-switchable transgene system. Nat Methods. 2012 Feb 12;9(3):266-9. doi: 10.1038/nmeth.1892. PubMed PMID: 22327833.

Evolution

1. Ramani AK, Chuluunbaatar T, Verster AJ, Na H, Vu V, Pelte N, Wannissorn N, Jiao A, Fraser AG. The majority of animal genes are required for wild-type fitness. Cell. 2012 Feb 17;148(4):792-802. PubMed PMID: 22341449.
2. Loehlin DW, Werren JH. Evolution of shape by multiple regulatory changes to a growth gene. Science. 2012 Feb 24;335(6071):943-7. PubMed PMID: 22363002.

Psychology and human behaviour

1. Pazda AD, Elliot AJ, Greitemeyer T. Sexy red: Perceived sexual receptivity mediates the red-attraction relation in men viewing woman. J Exp Soc Psychol. 2012; 48: 787-790
• Commentary in Science Now: The red-dress effect.
2. Cohen S, Schulz MS, Weiss E, Waldinger RJ. Eye of the Beholder: The Individual and Dyadic Contributions of Empathic Accuracy and Perceived Empathic Effort to Relationship Satisfaction. J Fam Psychol. 2012 Feb 27. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 22369462.
• Commentary in NPR: Upset Men And The Happy Women Who Love Them.
• Deep insights from the article (quoted from the NPR commentary):

Men like it when women let them know when they’re happy. Women like it when men share their anger and frustration.

Evidently we women see a man’s willingness to share negative feelings as a sign that he’s invested in the relationship. Cohen says: “That’s telling her something about his availability to engage in the conflict.”

Men feel exactly the opposite about those moments of conflict: They see it as a threat to the relationship. Instead, Cohen says, “They do derive satisfaction when their girlfriends or wives are happy.”

Stem cells/ development

1. White YA, Woods DC, Takai Y, Ishihara O, Seki H, Tilly JL. Oocyte formation by mitotically active germ cells purified from ovaries of reproductive-age women. Nat Med. 2012 Feb 26;18(3):413-21. doi: 10.1038/nm.2669. PubMed PMID: 22366948; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3296965.
• News from Nature: Egg-making stem cells found in adult ovaries: Discovery could pave the way for new fertility treatments and a longer reproductive life.

Development

1. Balaskas N, Ribeiro A, Panovska J, Dessaud E, Sasai N, Page KM, Briscoe J, Ribes V. Gene regulatory logic for reading the sonic hedgehog signaling gradient in the vertebrate neural tube. Cell. 2012 Jan 20;148(1-2):273-84. PubMed PMID: 22265416; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3267043.
2. Lassar A. Finding MyoD with a little help from my friends. Nat Cell Biol. 2012 Feb 2;14(2):116. doi: 10.1038/ncb2421. PubMed PMID: 22298038.
• An interesting personal account of the discovery of MyoD.

Retinal Regeneration

1. Qin Z, Kidd AR 3rd, Thomas JL, Poss KD, Hyde DR, Raymond PA, Thummel R. FGF signaling regulates rod photoreceptor cell maintenance and regeneration in zebrafish. Exp Eye Res. 2011 Nov;93(5):726-34. Epub 2011 Sep 17. PubMed PMID: 21945172; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3243491.
2. Hochmann S, Kaslin J, Hans S, Weber A, Machate A, Geffarth M, Funk RH, Brand M. Fgf Signaling is Required for Photoreceptor Maintenance in the Adult Zebrafish Retina. PLoS One. 2012;7(1):e30365. Epub 2012 Jan 26. PubMed PMID: 22291943; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3266925.

Genetics

1. Visscher PM, Brown MA, McCarthy MI, Yang J. Five Years of GWAS Discovery. Am J Hum Genet. 2012 Jan 13;90(1):7-24. PubMed PMID: 22243964.

Genomics

1. Baker M. Structural variation: the genome’s hidden architecture. Nat Methods. 2012 Jan 30;9(2):133-7. doi: 10.1038/nmeth.1858. PubMed PMID: 22290183.
2. Xiong Q, Ancona N, Hauser ER, Mukherjee S, Furey TS. Integrating genetic and gene expression evidence into genome-wide association analysis of gene sets. Genome Res. 2012 Feb;22(2):386-97. Epub 2011 Sep 22. PubMed PMID: 21940837.

Imaging

1. Cox S, Rosten E, Monypenny J, Jovanovic-Talisman T, Burnette DT, Lippincott-Schwartz J, Jones GE, Heintzmann R. Bayesian localization microscopy reveals nanoscale podosome dynamics. Nat Methods. 2011 Dec 4;9(2):195-200. doi: 10.1038/nmeth.1812. PubMed PMID: 22138825.
• Commentary: Lidke KA. Super resolution for common probes and common microscopes. Nat Methods. 2012 Jan 30;9(2):139-41. doi: 10.1038/nmeth.1863. PubMed PMID: 22290184.
• This looks like an interesting article that talks about how to use common fluorescent setup for super-resolution imaging.
2. Xu K, Babcock HP, Zhuang X. Dual-objective STORM reveals three-dimensional filament organization in the actin cytoskeleton. Nat Methods. 2012 Jan 8;9(2):185-8. doi: 10.1038/nmeth.1841. PubMed PMID: 22231642.

Gene Regulatory Network

1. Damle SS, Davidson EH. Synthetic in vivo validation of gene network circuitry. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012 Jan 11. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 22238426.
2. Weaver J. New signaling chemicals spur worms to seek company. PLoS Biol. 2012 Jan;10(1):e1001240. Epub 2012 Jan 10. PubMed PMID: 22253575; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3254651.
3. Gross L. Built-in Timer Delays Differentiation. PLoS Biol. 2012 Jan;10(1):e1001254. Epub 2012 Jan 31. PubMed PMID: 22303284.
4. van Dijk AD, van Mourik S, van Ham RC. Mutational robustness of gene regulatory networks. PLoS One. 2012;7(1):e30591. Epub 2012 Jan 25. PubMed PMID: 22295094; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3266278.

Ageing

1. Heidinger BJ, Blount JD, Boner W, Griffiths K, Metcalfe NB, Monaghan P. Telomere length in early life predicts lifespan. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012 Jan 9. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 22232671.

Brg1

1. Curtis CD, Griffin CT. The chromatin-remodeling enzymes BRG1 and CHD4 antagonistically regulate vascular Wnt signaling. Mol Cell Biol. 2012 Jan 30. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 22290435.

Funding

1. Macilwain C. Funding in 2012: “great recession” starts to bite. Cell. 2012 Jan 20;148(1-2):14-6. PubMed PMID: 22265395.

Today there is an article published in CELL about the generation of chimeric monkey. Unlike the traditional way for generation of chimeric mouse for making transgenic animal that can utilize pluripotent stem cells or inner cell mass, the process in primates requires the usage of totipotent cells at a much earlier stage – 4-cell stage. The authors could aggregate these early embryos and generate chimera. See a simple and good news coverage from the BBC for further discussions of the importance.

Adopted from the journal website

References

1. Tachibana M, Sparman M, Ramsey C, Ma H, Lee HS, Penedo MC, Mitalipov S. Generation of Chimeric Rhesus Monkeys. Cell. 2012 Jan 4. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 22225614.
• Commentary: Trounson A, Grieshammer U. Chimeric Primates: Embryonic Stem Cells Need Not Apply. Cell. 2012 Jan 4. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 22225613.

Development

1. Lander AD. Pattern, growth, and control. Cell. 2011 Mar 18;144(6):955-69. Review. PubMed PMID: 21414486; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3128888.
2. Braendle C, Felix MA. The other side of phenotypic plasticity: a developmental system that generates an invariant phenotype despite environmental variation. J Biosci. 2009 Oct;34(4):543-51. Review. PubMed PMID: 19920340.
3. Noordermeer D, Leleu M, Splinter E, Rougemont J, De Laat W, Duboule D. The dynamic architecture of Hox gene clusters. Science. 2011 Oct 14;334(6053):222-5. PubMed PMID: 21998387.

Genomics

1. Sadeh R, Allis CD. Genome-wide “Re”-Modeling of Nucleosome Positions. Cell. 2011 Oct 14;147(2):263-6. PubMed PMID: 22000006.
2. Lupski JR, Belmont JW, Boerwinkle E, Gibbs RA. Clan genomics and the complex architecture of human disease. Cell. 2011 Sep 30;147(1):32-43. PubMed PMID: 21962505.
3. Raychaudhuri S. Mapping rare and common causal alleles for complex human diseases. Cell. 2011 Sep 30;147(1):57-69. PubMed PMID: 21962507; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3198013.

Genetics

1. Cesana M, Cacchiarelli D, Legnini I, Santini T, Sthandier O, Chinappi M, Tramontano A, Bozzoni I. A long noncoding RNA controls muscle differentiation by functioning as a competing endogenous RNA. Cell. 2011 Oct 14;147(2):358-69. PubMed PMID: 22000014.

Funding

1. Mervis J. Peer review. Beyond the data. Science. 2011 Oct 14;334(6053):169-71. PubMed PMID: 21998363.

Systems biology

1. Liu C, Fu X, Liu L, Ren X, Chau CK, Li S, Xiang L, Zeng H, Chen G, Tang LH, Lenz P, Cui X, Huang W, Hwa T, Huang JD. Sequential establishment of stripe patterns in an expanding cell population. Science. 2011 Oct 14;334(6053):238-41.  PubMed PMID: 21998392.

Medical research

1. Novarino G, Akizu N, Gleeson JG. Modeling human disease in humans: the ciliopathies. Cell. 2011 Sep 30;147(1):70-9. PubMed PMID: 21962508.

There are so many different kinds of neurons in the brain and they control all sorts of mechanisms. In C.elegans, several dopamine(a neurotransmitter) -secreting neurons are differentiated from different lineage, but they are all producing dopamine. This has raised an interesting question: are the genes controlling the dopamine synthesis regulated differently or the same way in different dopamine-secreting neurons?

A recent study by Nuria Flames & Oliver Hobert from Columbia University has revealed the latter is true. They made extensive promoter constructs of all the genes involved in dopamine production (which is a good example for those of us who are going to do similar promoter analyses). Their results showed all five genes were regulated by the same regulatory element, presumably by the same transcription factor(s). Therefore, these dopamine synthesis genes are regulated the same way in different dopaminergic neurons. More importantly, they have also found that this regulatory mechanism is conserved in mice!

This is the terminal differentiation we have just discussed. The study has demonstrated that this differentiation circuit is modular and has been incorporated in different types of dopaminergic neurons to carry out the same final function. In other words, the final output function of the gene network is the same while the upstream specification architecture can be quite different.

Reference

Flames N, Hobert O. Gene regulatory logic of dopamine neuron differentiation. Nature. 2009 Apr 16;458(7240):885-9. [PubMed][Nature][Commentary in Nature]