Small RNAs Shed Some Light

Small RNAs Shed Some Light

Small regulatory RNAs can act by pairing with their target messages, targeting themselves and the mRNA for degradation; Lenz et al. (this issue of Cell) now report that multiple small RNAs are essential regulators of the quorum-sensing systems of Vibrio species, including the regulation of virulence in V. cholerae.

Single molecule fluorescence approaches shed light on intracellular RNAs.

Shed some (sun)light on vitamin D deficiency

We do not read an article that can make us change practice very often. “Vitamin D deficiency in children and adolescents submitted to hematopoietic stem cell transplantation” by Campos DJ from the Curitiba Pediatric Transplantation group is one of these articles.1 Although vitamin D deficiency has been the theme of many publications in the last few years,2 Brazilians would tend to disregard it ...

Genotype networks shed light on evolutionary constraints.

An evolutionary constraint is a bias or limitation in phenotypic variation that a biological system produces. One can distinguish physicochemical, selective, genetic and developmental causes of such constraints. Here, I discuss these causes in three classes of system that bring forth many phenotypic traits and evolutionary innovations: regulatory circuits, macromolecules and metabolic networks....

Quantum dots shed light on diagnoses.

Featured article: Kim S, Lim YT, Soltesz EG, De Grand AM, Lee J, Nakayama A, Parker JA, Mihaljevic T, Laurence RG, Dor DM, Cohn LH, Bawendi MG, Frangioni JV. Near-infrared fluorescent type II quantum dots for sentinel lymph node mapping. Nat Biotechnol 2004;22:93–7. Near-infrared (NIR) (700 –2500 nm) in vivo imaging with semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) can offer nonradioactive extraction of me...