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26.
2699 Accesses
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Genome of a songbird unveiled
Raphael Pinaud Journal of Biology 2010, 9:19 (1 April 2010)
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Editor’s summary
Pinaud heralds the publication of the zebra finch genome, reviewing some of the most exciting findings of this pioneering effort and explaining how this songbird model offers unique insights into auditory learning, singing behaviour and other biological phenomena.
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27.
2670 Accesses
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Bridge helix and trigger loop perturbations generate superactive RNA polymerases
Lin Tan, Simone Wiesler, Dominika Trzaska, Hannah C Carney, Robert OJ Weinzierl Journal of Biology 2008, 7:40 (2 December 2008)
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Editor’s summary
Mutations targeted to key functional areas of RNA polymerases can generate superactive enzymes that suggest how conformational changes in specialized domains of the enzyme contribute to the catalytic cycle.
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28.
2664 Accesses
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CNS progenitor cells and oligodendrocytes are targets of chemotherapeutic agents in vitro and in vivo
Joerg Dietrich, Ruolan Han, Yin Yang, Margot Mayer-Pröschel, Mark Noble Journal of Biology 2006, 5:22 (30 November 2006)
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Editor’s summary
Chemotherapeutic agents are more toxic to cells of the central nervous system than to cancer cells when administered to mice and cultured cells, providing an explanation for adverse neurological effects of systemic chemotherapy.
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29.
2574 Accesses
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Compound developmental eye disorders following inactivation of TGFβ signaling in neural-crest stem cells
Lars M Ittner, Heiko Wurdak, Kerstin Schwerdtfeger, Thomas Kunz, Fabian Ille, Per Leveen, Tord A Hjalt, Ueli Suter, Stefan Karlsson, Farhad Hafezi, Walter Born, Lukas Sommer Journal of Biology 2005, 4:11 (14 December 2005)
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Editor’s summary
Important structures in developing mouse eyes originate from neural crest cells controlled by TGFbeta signals from the lens, providing insight into human conditions that results in glaucoma and blindness.
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30.
2571 Accesses
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Oxidative stress, thermogenesis and evolution of uncoupling proteins
Eduardo Rial, Rafael Zardoya Journal of Biology 2009, 8:58 (16 June 2009)
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31.
2564 Accesses
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The hydrodynamics of dolphin drafting
Daniel Weihs Journal of Biology 2004, 3:8 (4 May 2004)
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Editor’s summary
Models of the hydrodynamic forces between two swimming dolphins show that baby dolphins keep up with their more powerful mothers by getting an almost energetically "free ride" in their slipstream.
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32.
2558 Accesses
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The functional landscape of mouse gene expression
Wen Zhang, Quaid D Morris, Richard Chang, Ofer Shai, Malina A Bakowski, Nicholas Mitsakakis, Naveed Mohammad, Mark D Robinson, Ralph Zirngibl, Eszter Somogyi, Nancy Laurin, Eftekhar Eftekharpour, Eric Sat, Jörg Grigull, Qun Pan, Wen-Tao Peng, Nevan Krogan, Jack Greenblatt, Michael Fehlings, Derek van der Kooy, Jane Aubin, Benoit G Bruneau, Janet Rossant, Benjamin J Blencowe, Brendan J Frey, Timothy R Hughes Journal of Biology 2004, 3:21 (6 December 2004)
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| F1000 Biology
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Editor’s summary
Gene function in mammals can be quickly and reliably predicted using a quantitative analysis of tissue-specific patterns of RNA expression.
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33.
2551 Accesses
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Small-molecule modulators of Hedgehog signaling: identification and characterization of Smoothened agonists and antagonists
Maria Frank-Kamenetsky, Xiaoyan M Zhang, Steve Bottega, Oivin Guicherit, Hynek Wichterle, Henryk Dudek, David Bumcrot, Frank Y Wang, Simon Jones, Janine Shulok, Lee L Rubin, Jeffery A Porter Journal of Biology 2002, 1:10 (6 November 2002)
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| F1000 Biology
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Editor’s summary
Characterization of small-molecule agonists and antagonists of the Hedgehog signaling pathway reveals that these candidate therapeutics act at the level of the pathway activator Smoothened, which may normally be regulated by an endogenous small molecule.
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34.
2529 Accesses
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Adaptations of proteins to cellular and subcellular pH
Bertrand Garcia-Moreno Journal of Biology 2009, 8:98 (2 December 2009)
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Editor’s summary
Protein function and stability are acutely sensitive to pH, which varies in different subcellular compartments. Garcia-Moreno discusses research recently reported in BMC Biology suggesting that adaptation to different compartments is reflected in charge distribution.
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35.
2483 Accesses
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The nature of cell-cycle checkpoints: facts and fallacies
Alexey Khodjakov, Conly L Rieder Journal of Biology 2009, 8:88 (16 November 2009)
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| F1000 Biology
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Editor’s summary
The development of the checkpoint concept was a landmark in the understanding of cell cycle control, but Alexey Khodjakov and Conly Rieder argue that it is widely misunderstood, to the detriment of progress in cell cycle research.
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36.
2477 Accesses
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Timing the first human migration into eastern Asia
Roscoe Stanyon, Marco Sazzini, Donata Luiselli Journal of Biology 2009, 8:18 (6 February 2009)
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37.
2471 Accesses
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ERK1 and ERK2 mitogen-activated protein kinases affect Ras-dependent cell signaling differentially
Chiara Vantaggiato, Ivan Formentini, Attilio Bondanza, Chiara Bonini, Luigi Naldini, Riccardo Brambilla Journal of Biology 2006, 5:14 (28 June 2006)
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Editor’s summary
The mitogen-activated protein kinases ERK1 and ERK2 have unexpectedly independent roles in normal and malignant Ras-dependent cell proliferation; ERK2 controls normal cell proliferation whereas ERK1 antagonizes ERK2 activity.
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38.
2466 Accesses
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Robust and specific inhibition of microRNAs in Caenorhabditis elegans
Samrat T Kundu, Frank J Slack Journal of Biology 2010, 9:20 (1 April 2010)
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Editor’s summary
Frank Slack and Samrat Kundu highlight a refinement of the antisense strategy used to inhibit miRNAs in C.elegans, published in Silence, with an adaptation that supports transmission through the germline, and combinatorial use to target several different miRNAs in developing tissues.
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39.
2465 Accesses
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Scale-eating cichlids: from hand(ed) to mouth
A Richard Palmer Journal of Biology 2010, 9:11 (24 February 2010)
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Editor’s summary
Palmer discusses recent studies, including one in BMC Biology, suggesting that mouth bending in scale-eating cichlids cannot be explained by frequency dependent selection alone, but that the behavior of the fish may amplify mouth asymmetry during growth.
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40.
2458 Accesses
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Small changes, big results: evolution of morphological discontinuity in mammals
Rodney L Honeycutt Journal of Biology 2008, 7:9 (18 March 2008)
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41.
2436 Accesses
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Making progress in genetic kin recognition among vertebrates
Jane L Hurst, Robert J Beynon Journal of Biology 2010, 9:13 (17 February 2010)
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Editor’s summary
Highlighting recent research in BMC Evolutionary Biology that analyzes the scent profiles of ring-tailed lemurs in relation to their genetic distance, Hurst and Benyon discuss recent progress and remaining challenges in deciphering how vertebrates recognise kin by their smell.
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42.
2396 Accesses
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Targeting TNF-α for cancer therapy
Elizabeth R Burton, Steven K Libutti Journal of Biology 2009, 8:85 (23 October 2009)
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43.
2375 Accesses
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Search for a 'Tree of Life' in the thicket of the phylogenetic forest
Pere Puigbò, Yuri I Wolf, Eugene V Koonin Journal of Biology 2009, 8:59 (13 July 2009)
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Editor’s summary
Koonin and colleagues, comparing a forest of 7000 phylogenetic trees, discern vertical inheritance even at the earliest stages of prokaryotic evolution, despite horizontal gene transfer, but the branching order of the earliest radiations may never be resolved.
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44.
2374 Accesses
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A functional genomic analysis of cell morphology using RNA interference
AA Kiger, B Baum, S Jones, MR Jones, A Coulson, C Echeverri, N Perrimon Journal of Biology 2003, 2:27 (1 October 2003)
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| F1000 Biology
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45.
2364 Accesses
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Why didn't Darwin discover Mendel's laws?
Jonathan C Howard Journal of Biology 2009, 8:15 (24 February 2009)
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Editor’s summary
In an opinion piece, Jonathan Howard suggests that Darwin failed to discover the laws of inheritance (Mendel’s laws) due to his focus on small quantitative variations as the raw material of evolution.
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46.
2334 Accesses
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No better time to FRET: shedding light on host pathogen interactions
Richard D Hayward, Jon D Goguen, John M Leong Journal of Biology 2010, 9:12 (18 February 2010)
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Editor’s summary
Hayward and colleagues discuss the promise of fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET)-based techniques to study the spatio-temporal subversion of host cell signaling by pathogens, reviewing the few existing examples of this, which include a recent paper in BMC Biology, to illustrate the power of an approach that has been surprisingly under-exploited to date.
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47.
2296 Accesses
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SnoPatrol: how many snoRNA genes are there?
Paul P Gardner, Alex Bateman, Anthony M Poole Journal of Biology 2010, 9:4 (25 January 2010)
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Editor’s summary
Gardner, Bateman and Poole review the current knowledge of small nucleolar RNAs (snoRNAs) and discuss two BMC Genomic papers reporting the identification of novel snoRNAs and the likelihood that there are many more out there.
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48.
2261 Accesses
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Dosage compensation is less effective in birds than in mammals
Yuichiro Itoh, Esther Melamed, Xia Yang, Kathy Kampf, Susanna Wang, Nadir Yehya, Atila Van Nas, Kirstin Replogle, Mark R Band, David F Clayton, Eric E Schadt, Aldons J Lusis, Arthur P Arnold Journal of Biology 2007, 6:2 (22 March 2007)
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Editor’s summary
Male:female ratios of gene expression in zebra finch and chicken reveal that birds, unlike mammals, have surprisingly ineffective sex-chromosome dosage compensation mechanisms resulting in an imbalance between autosomal and sex-linked genes.
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49.
2239 Accesses
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Life and death as a T lymphocyte: from immune protection to HIV pathogenesis
Nienke Vrisekoop, Judith N Mandl, Ronald N Germain Journal of Biology 2009, 8:91 (27 November 2009)
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Editor’s summary
Vrisekekoop, Mandl and Germain discuss the consequences of deleting activated CD4 T cells both in HIV infected humans and in engineered mice described in a paper published in Journal of Biology, and how both the similarities and the differences may be instructive.
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50.
2239 Accesses
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The gene complement of the ancestral bilaterian - was Urbilateria a monster?
David J Miller, Eldon E Ball Journal of Biology 2009, 8:89 (19 November 2009)
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Editor’s summary
Bilateral animals have selectively shed genes as they evolved from their hypothetical ancestor, Urbilateria. Miller and Ball review this genomic history and ask if a recent paper in BMC Evolutionary Biology points to an ancestral worm.
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