Catálogo de publicaciones - revistas

<jats:title>Taking Out the Trash</jats:title> <jats:p> The purpose of sleep remains mysterious. Using state-of-the-art in vivo two-photon imaging to directly compare two arousal states in the same mouse, <jats:bold> Xie <jats:italic>et al.</jats:italic> </jats:bold> (p. <jats:related-article xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" ext-link-type="doi" issue="6156" page="373" related-article-type="in-this-issue" vol="342" xlink:href="10.1126/science.1241224">373</jats:related-article> ; see the Perspective by <jats:bold> <jats:related-article issue="6156" page="" related-article-type="in-this-issue" vol="342">Herculano-Houzel</jats:related-article> </jats:bold> ) found that metabolic waste products of neural activity were cleared out of the sleeping brain at a faster rate than during the awake state. This finding suggests a mechanistic explanation for how sleep serves a restorative function, in addition to its well-described effects on memory consolidation. </jats:p>

<jats:title>A Good Read</jats:title> <jats:p> Theory of Mind is the human capacity to comprehend that other people hold beliefs and desires and that these may differ from one's own beliefs and desires. The currently predominant view is that literary fiction—often described as narratives that focus on in-depth portrayals of subjects' inner feelings and thoughts—can be linked to theory of mind processes, especially those that are involved in the understanding or simulation of the affective characteristics of the subjects. <jats:bold>Kidd and Castano</jats:bold> (p. <jats:related-article xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" ext-link-type="doi" issue="6156" page="377" related-article-type="in-this-issue" vol="342" xlink:href="10.1126/science.1239918">377</jats:related-article> , published online 3 October) provide experimental evidence that reading passages of literary fiction, in comparison to nonfiction or popular fiction, does indeed enhance the reader's performance on theory of mind tasks. </jats:p>

<jats:p>Genetic testing methods for cancer research play an important role detecting gene variance in disease. As researchers learn more about the mechanisms of cancer, the development of accurate and affordable technologies for effective and quick detection becomes paramount. Advances in next generation sequencing (NGS) have allowed accurate variant detection that can uncover the specific genetic mutations that may drive cancer. The application of NGS to breast cancer research has enabled the development of cost-effective, multigene sequencing panels that have advanced our understanding of the disease and may in the future translate into better diagnosis and outcomes for patients. The audience will learn about the current state of breast cancer research, how data generated by NGS gene panels target variants of interest and have been developed and used in routine laboratory research, and the broader issues of breast cancer education, awareness, and community services.</jats:p>

<jats:p>Listen to stories on a fungus deadly to frogs, Denisovans in Southeast Asia, the U.S. government shutdown's effect on science, and more.</jats:p>

<jats:p>A weekly roundup of information on newly offered instrumentation, apparatus, and laboratory materials of potential interest to researchers.</jats:p>

<jats:sec> <jats:title>Introduction</jats:title> <jats:p>The shape of the face is one of the most distinctive features among humans, and differences in facial morphology have substantial implications in areas such as social interaction, psychology, forensics, and clinical genetics. Craniofacial shape is highly heritable, including the normal spectrum of morphological variation as well as susceptibility to major craniofacial birth defects. In this study, we explored the role of transcriptional enhancers in the development of the craniofacial complex. Our study is based on the rationale that such enhancers, which can be hundreds of kilobases away from their target genes, regulate the spatial patterns, levels, and timing of gene expression in normal development. </jats:p> </jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title>Methods</jats:title> <jats:p>To identify distant-acting enhancers active during craniofacial development, we used chromatin immunoprecipitation on embryonic mouse face tissue followed by sequencing to identify noncoding genome regions bound by the enhancer-associated p300 protein. We used LacZ reporter assays in transgenic mice and optical projection tomography (OPT) to determine three-dimensional expression patterns of a subset of these candidate enhancers. Last, we deleted three of the craniofacial enhancers from the mouse genome to assess their effect on gene expression and craniofacial morphology during development.</jats:p> </jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title>Results</jats:title> <jats:p>We identified more than 4000 candidate enhancer sequences predicted to be active in the developing craniofacial complex. The majority of these sequences are at least partially conserved between humans and mice, and many are located in chromosomal regions associated with normal facial morphology or craniofacial birth defects. Characterization of more than 200 candidate enhancer sequences in transgenic mice revealed a remarkable spatial complexity of in vivo expression patterns. Targeted deletions of three craniofacial enhancers near genes with known roles in craniofacial development resulted in changes of expression of those genes as well as quantitatively subtle but definable alterations of craniofacial shape. </jats:p> </jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title>Discussion</jats:title> <jats:p>Our analysis identifies enhancers that fine tune expression of genes during craniofacial development in mice. These results support that variation in the sequence or copy number of craniofacial enhancers may contribute to the spectrum of facial variation we find in human populations. Because many craniofacial enhancers are located in genome regions associated with craniofacial birth defects, such as clefts of the lip and palate, our results also offer a starting point for exploring the contribution of noncoding sequences to these disorders.</jats:p> </jats:sec>