© AAAS; E. Pennisi, Science, 295: 1809–11, 2002Wolbachia pipientis is a biological eye opener. This intracellular bacterium that colonizes insects and filarial nematodes kills male hosts but thrives in females, sometimes even influencing sexual determination. The recent completion of the W. pipientis genome reveals another unique quality: A streamlined genome without the loss of mobile elements and junk DNA."This finding was an enormous surprise," says Jonathan Eisen, investigator at

Second-hand smoke reduces fibroblast motility, but increases cell survival

Studies of leptin-deficient mice reveal new roles for the hormone in the hypothalamus

Yeast prion strain differences directly linked to conformation of original infecting prion

PROMISCUOUS PATHWAY:Courtesy of BiocartaIn addition to cell-cycle regulation, mTOR plays a role in muscle hypertrophy following increased use through the growth factor IGF-1 and tumor suppressor PTEN. Blocking mTOR with drugs like rapamycin prevents muscle growth.Rapamycin could have been an anti- than tumor contender. Indeed, for more than 30 years, researchers have sized up this immunosuppressant's potential in treating a variety of cancers, including prostate, brain, and lung. Currently, howe

Like the plastic aglets at the ends of shoelaces, telomeres normally protect the ends of chromosomes from instability and degradation – the hallmarks of cancer. Johns Hopkins University researchers recently revamped the model of how degradation happens. Previously, end-to-end chromosomal fusion events and breakage were regarded as the prime initiator, but new work reveals that exonucleases first chew away at chromosomes with short telomeres. Carol Greider, a Johns Hopkins professor, calls

Posttranslational protein fragment splicing can generate many more epitopes than thought

possesses highly reduced mitochondria-derived organelles

3D cryoelectronics reveal unexpected functional roles for mitoribosomal proteins

CFTR regulates uterine bicarbonate secretion and influences sperm fertilization

An age-dependent switch causes old yeast cells to show increased genomic instability

DNA damage-induced apoptosis relies on histone H1.2 release into the cytosol