The EMBO Reports

Ramani, Donato; Saviane, Chiara

doi: 10.1038/embor.2010.177pmid: 21088677

Commercial genetic testing challenges traditional medical practice and the doctor–patient relationship. Neurodegenerative diseases may serve as the practical and ethical testing ground for the application of genomics to medicine.

Hunter, Philip

doi: 10.1038/embor.2010.175pmid: 21102642

The global response to the credit crunch has varied from belt tightening to spending sprees. Philip Hunter investigates how various countries react to the financial crisis in terms of supporting scientific research.

Szabad, János

doi: 10.1038/embor.2010.183pmid: 21088678

The EMBO workshop on the ‘Systems Biology of Development’ was held between 16 and 20 August and brought together a multidisciplinary group of scientists to make use of systems approaches to understand how multicellular organisms and organs acquire their specific sizes and shapes.

Morris, Simon Conway

doi: 10.1038/embor.2010.176pmid: 21102639

Simon Conway Morris marvels at the perfection of sensory organs: shaped by eons of evolution, they can detect a single photon or an individual molecule. Only scientific instruments are able to reach beyond the limits of nature's detectors.

Chambers, Paul J; Pretorius, Isak S

doi: 10.1038/embor.2010.179pmid: 21072064

In the second article of the ‘Food and Science’ series, Paul Chambers and Isak Pretorius explain the central role of yeast in wine making and how biotechnology can contribute to improving the quality of wine.

Cobreros‐Reguera, Laura; Fernández‐Miñán, Ana; Fernández‐Espartero, Cecilia H; López‐Schier, Hernán; González‐Reyes, Acaimo; Martín‐Bermudo, María D

doi: 10.1038/embor.2010.156pmid: 21102643

Stationary‐to‐migratory transitions of epithelial cells have a key role in development and tumour progression. Border cell migration is a powerful system in which to investigate this transition in living organisms. Here, we identify the Ste20‐like kinase misshapen (msn) as a novel regulator of border‐cell migration in Drosophila. Expression of msn in border cells is independent of the transcription factor slow border cells and of inputs from all pathways that are known to control border‐cell migration. The msn gene functions to modulate the levels and/or distribution of Drosophila E‐cadherin to promote the invasive migratory behaviour of border cells.

Malet, Hélène; Topf, Maya; Clare, Daniel K; Ebert, Judith; Bonneau, Fabien; Basquin, Jerome; Drazkowska, Karolina; Tomecki, Rafal; Dziembowski, Andrzej; Conti, Elena; Saibil, Helen R; Lorentzen, Esben

doi: 10.1038/embor.2010.164pmid: 21072061

The eukaryotic exosome is a key nuclease for the degradation, processing and quality control of a wide variety of RNAs. Here, we report electron microscopic reconstructions and pseudo‐atomic models of the ten‐subunit Saccharomyces cerevisiae exosome in the unbound and RNA‐bound states. In the RNA‐bound structures, extra density that is visible at the entry and exit sites of the exosome channel indicates that a substrate‐threading mechanism is used by the eukaryotic exosome. This channelling mechanism seems to be conserved in exosome‐like complexes from all domains of life, and might have been present in the most recent common ancestor.

Tataroğlu, Özgür; Schafmeier, Tobias

doi: 10.1038/embor.2010.174pmid: 21052092

Investigation of the phosphorylation of circadian clock proteins has shown that this modification contributes to circadian timing in all model organisms. Phosphorylation alters the stability, transcriptional activity and subcellular localization of clock proteins during the course of a day, such that time‐of‐day‐specific phosphorylation encodes information for measuring time and is crucial for the establishment of an approximately 24‐h period. One main feature of molecular timekeeping is the daytime‐specific nuclear accumulation of clock proteins, which can be regulated by phosphorylation. Here, we discuss increasing knowledge of how subcellular shuttling is regulated in circadian clocks, on the basis of recent observations in Neurospora crassa showing that clock proteins undergo maturation through sequential phosphorylation. In this model organism, clock proteins are regulated by the phosphorylation‐dependent modulation of rapid shuttling cycles that alter their subcellular localization in a time‐of‐day‐specific manner.

Humbert, Sandrine

doi: 10.1038/embor.2010.182pmid: 21102640

The recently discovered roles of huntingtin in non‐differentiated cells indicate that it is a key molecule in brain development. Humbert argues that the haploinsufficiency of wild‐type huntingtin in Huntington disease might lead to various cellular alterations well before the onset of symptoms and ultimately cause disease.

Kuroha, Kazushige; Akamatsu, Mayuko; Dimitrova, Lyudmila; Ito, Takehiko; Kato, Yuki; Shirahige, Katsuhiko; Inada, Toshifumi

doi: 10.1038/embor.2010.169pmid: 21072063

Nascent peptide‐dependent translation arrest is crucial for the quality control of eukaryotic gene expression. Here we show that the receptor for activated C kinase 1 (RACK1) participates in nascent peptide‐dependent translation arrest, and that its binding to the 40S subunit is crucial for this. Translation arrest by a nascent peptide results in Dom34/Hbs1‐independent endonucleolytic cleavage of mRNA, and this is stimulated by RACK1. We propose that RACK1 stimulates the translation arrest that is induced by basic amino‐acid sequences that leads to endonucleolytic cleavage of the mRNA, as well as to co‐translational protein degradation.