BIN YANG AND VIVIANA GRADINARUThe ability to see through organs and whole animals, reported in Cell this week (July 31) by Caltech researchers and their colleagues, could be a boon to a variety of biomedical disciplines. Biologist Viviana Gradinaru has improved upon a tissue-clearing method developed by Stanford University’s Karl Deisseroth, called CLARITY, by enabling 3-D visualization of cellular structures and connections throughout a mouse or other model organism.
“This is a paper that develops the CLARITY technology to the next level,” Deisseroth told The Scientist.
SIEGFRIED USSARResearchers from the Helmholtz Center Munich and their colleagues have identified three adipocyte-specific cell surface markers that can be used to distinguish white from brown and beige fat cells. Their work was published in Science Translational Medicine this week (July 30).
“These markers look pretty selective and the key is that they are cell-surface markers, which will allow their use in a variety of applications in the future,” said Patrick Seale, an adipose tissue researcher at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia who was not involved in the work. “I think these are going to be a really great resource.”
WIKIMEDIA, SCIENCEGENETICSWhen a child is born with a genetic disorder, caused by a mutation that neither of her parents have, clinicians are likely to deem the mutation de novo. But some mysterious clinical cases led a team at the Baylor College of Medicine to search for certain mutations that most genetic screens might miss: those present only in a small number of one parent’s cells.
