September 16, 2005
GENOMICS: Integrated Technology Predicts Functional Systems in Cell
In a study that combines the newest technologies for gathering data about protein
function, a team including Marc Vidal and other members of HMS has created
a global map of protein interactions in C. elegans during the first moments
of life. The study, published in the Aug. 11 Nature, looks at early embryogenesis:
the first two cell divisions when a single cell becomes four in a little more
than an hour. The resulting model reveals a wide-angle view of cellular activity,
and from this vantage point can be used to make predictions about unknown protein
interactions.
EPIGENETICS:
Novel Players Identified in Gene Regulation
Findings about the molecular process of trimming methyl groups from histone proteins
are shedding light on a newly discovered dimension of gene regulation. Reporting
in the Sept. 16 Molecular Cell, Yang Shi and his colleagues describe both a positive
and negative controller of an enzyme dubbed LSD1, which bundles DNA and silences
genes by removing the methyl groups; the enzyme was the first demethylase to
be discovered. The current paper clarifies this genetic switching mechanism and
offers clues to further understanding the errors that may occur in the development
of diseases such as cancer.
SLEEP
MEDICINE:
Heart Tracings Reveal Sleep Patterns for Health and Disease
Medical investigators have come up with a simple tool to measure the quality
of sleep, the electrocardiograph, and by applying it they have discovered a fundamental
way to map sleep’s landscape. Recordings of an electrocardiograph, one
of more than a dozen devices routinely used simultaneously to evaluate sleep,
seem to be able to do the job of all these instruments. Led by Robert Thomas
and appearing in the September issue of Sleep, the analysis reveals that healthy
people tend to have more stable sleep, and unstable sleep predominates in disease.