SYNTHORXInvestigators at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, have created and introduced into Escherichia coli a synthetic nitrogenous base pair that replicated within the bacteria, advancing a long-sought goal in the field—creating cells capable of producing proteins with synthetic DNA elements. Their work was published in Nature this week (May 7).
“This is the first paper to show the possibility that living organisms can have really artificial DNA with [an] expanded genetic alphabet,” Ichiro Hirao, a synthetic biologist at the RIKEN Center for Life Science Technologies in Japan who was not involved in the work, told The Scientist in an e-mail.
WIKIMEDIA, BIOMED CENTRAL; SÁNCHEZ-SORIANO, TEAR, WHITINGTON, PROKOPOnce considered a byproduct of action potential-stimulated neurotransmission, miniature neurotransmission—or “minis,” in which presynaptic neurons spontaneously release synaptic vesicles that induce postsynaptic neuronal activity—are essential for synaptic maturation at Drosophila larval neuromuscular junction, according to a study published in Neuron this week (May 7). The work “adds to several reports over the last 10 years that have established a functional role for miniature events at synapses,” said Michael Sutton, an associate professor at the University of Michigan Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience Institute, who was not involved in the research.
FLICKR, GEORGE SHULKINWhether c-kit cells—supposed cardiac stem cells—can help repair cardiac tissue following a heart attack is an open question, as scientists continue to review basic research results. And a study published in Nature this week (May 7) adds to mounting evidence that c-kit cells rarely produce new heart muscle in vivo.
“The conclusion I am led to from this is that the c-kit cell is not a cardiac stem cell, at least in term of its ...
