There was more to osmolyte selection than just osmotic balance

There was more to osmolyte selection than just osmotic balance.

Jason Treberg discusses the impact of Paul Yancey et al.'s classic paper 'Living with water stress: evolution of osmolyte systems', published in Science in 1982. Occasionally a hypothesis comes along that is so broadly applicable to biological systems that it borders on being universal. Even less frequent is when the hypothesis involves linking knowledge from almost a century before with recent...

Regulatory dendritic cells: there is more than just immune activation

The immune system exists in a delicate equilibrium between inflammatory responses and tolerance. This unique feature allows the immune system to recognize and respond to potential threats in a controlled but normally limited fashion thereby preventing a destructive overreaction against healthy tissues. While the adaptive immune system was the major research focus concerning activation vs. toler...

More than just vanilla.

Neurotrophins: More to NGF than just survival

NGF's role in neuronal survival has tended to mask other potential functions. But now the generation of mice lacking both Bax - required for the death of NGF-deprived neurons - and NGF or its receptor has shown that NGF plays a key role in establishing cutaneous innervation and regulating neuropeptide expression.

Osmolyte dynamics and microbial communities vary in response to osmotic more than matric water deficit gradients in two soils

Sodium chloride and other osmotically active molecules are often applied to microbial cultures or soils to describe microbial responses and adaptation to desiccation in soils. However, salts and other osmolytes may have different effects on microorganisms than matric deficits caused by soil drying. It was thus hypothesized that low matric and osmotic potentials would have different effects on s...