Credit: © Russell Kightley / rkm.com.au" /> Credit: © Russell Kightley / rkm.com.au The paper: Deleault et al., "Formation of native prions from minimal components in vitro," Proc Natl Acad Sci, 104: 9741-6, 2007. (Cited in 53 papers) The finding: To test whether misfolded, disease-causing prion proteins could form from their normal counterparts without being see

Credit: © hybrid medical animation / Photo Researchers, Inc." /> Credit: © hybrid medical animation / Photo Researchers, Inc. The paper: S. Koussevitzky et al., "Signals from chloroplasts converge to regulate nuclear gene expression," Science, 316:715–9, 2007. (Cited in 58 papers) The finding: Joanne Chory, a Salk Institute molecular biologist, used Arabidopsis

A team led by Yin-Yuan Mo, a tumor cell biologist at the Southern Illinois University School of Medicine, measured global protein levels in mouse carcinoma tumors

Using the bacterium Streptococcus thermophilis, a team led by Philippe Horvath at the Danish food ingredient company Danisco, integrated bacteriophage sequences into "clustered regularly interspersed short palindromic repeat" (CRISPR) regions to generate phage-resistant bacterial strains. "They directly confirmed the prediction," says Eugene Koonin, a computational biologist at the US National Center for Biotechnology Information.

Credit: WAPMC" /> Credit: WAPMC The paper: S. Lavergne and J. Molofsky, "Increased genetic variation and evolutionary potential drive the success of an invasive grass," Proc Natl Acad Sci, 104:3883–8, 2007. (Cited in 37 papers) The finding: To compare genetic diversity between invasive and indigenous plants, University of Vermont evolutionary ecologists Sébastie

Credit: Ajin Mandaokar / Washington State University" /> Credit: Ajin Mandaokar / Washington State University The paper: B. Thines et al., "JAZ repressor proteins are targets of the SCFCOI1 complex during jasmonate signaling," Nature, 448: 661-8, 2007. (Cited in 81 papers) The finding: John Browse of Washington State University and colleagues used transcript profiling and d

Credit: courtesy of Jayasankar Jasti, Hiroyasu Furukawa, Eric B. Gonzales, Eric Gouaux" /> Credit: courtesy of Jayasankar Jasti, Hiroyasu Furukawa, Eric B. Gonzales, Eric Gouaux The paper: E. Gouaux et al. "Structure of acid-sensing ion channel 1 at 1.9 Å resolution and low pH," Nature, 449:316-23, 2007. (Cited in 68 papers) The finding: Neuroscientist Er

Credit: AP Liao, et al. / public library of science" /> Credit: AP Liao, et al. / public library of science The paper: M.J. Evans, et al., "Claudin1 is a hepatitis C virus co-receptor required for a late step in entry," Nature, 446:801-5, 2007. (Cited in 81 papers) The finding: In attempts to find out why hepatitis C virus (HCV) would not infect any cell type except liver, Matthew Evans at

Credit: Courtesy of Janez Plavec" /> Credit: Courtesy of Janez Plavec The paper: A. Grimson, et al., "MicroRNA targeting specificity in mammals: determinants beyond seed pairing," Mol Cell, 27:91-105, 2007. (Cited in 109 papers) The bottom line: Massachusetts Institute of Technology biologist David Bartel and colleagues constructed an algorithm to predict miRNA target sites on untranslated

Credit: Courtesy of Thomas von Zglinicki and PLoS Biology" /> Credit: Courtesy of Thomas von Zglinicki and PLoS Biology The paper: J. F. Passos et al., "Mitochondrial dysfunction accounts for the stochastic heterogeneity in telomere-dependent senescence," PLoS Biology, 5:1138, 2007. (Cited in 31 papers) The study: To investigate why cells senesce at different rates, Thomas von Zglinicki of