Issues

Summary: This Review discusses how human pluripotent stem cells have revolutionised the study of cardiac disease, highlighting their impact in investigating pathogenesis and their use in drug discovery, as well as current challenges facing the field.

Summary: This Review describes the currently available mouse models of metastasis, focusing on the mechanistic and therapeutic insights that have been gained by their application, strengths and weaknesses of different models and key technological advances that are generating more refined models.

Summary: The authors review the α-synuclein structural, biophysical and biochemical properties that influence relevant mitochondrial physiological processes such as fusion-fission, transport and clearance, and propose that α-synuclein contributes to the mitochondrial defects that are associated with Parkinson's disease.

Editors’ choice: This study demonstrates neurogenic alterations in the most common neurodegenerative disease of children and reports a novel function of the CLN5 protein.

Summary: Loss of Pdgfrα in endothelial-derived mesenchyme results in defective neural crest behavior and is associated with conotruncal defects including, surprisingly, transposition of the great arteries.

Summary: In a genetically engineered mouse model of aRMS, disrupting the NFκB pathway facilitated tumor initiation, suggesting it is a modifier of the disease rather than the driver.

Summary: Small molecule L1CAM mimetics, showing L1 functions by promoting neurite outgrowth and neuronal survival in vitro, are now shown in vivo, with correlated signal transduction, to promote recovery after injury.

Summary: A novel high-throughput, automated, genome-wide yeast screen was used to identify genetic modifiers of the steady-state levels of proteins of the dystonia-associated torsinAΔE variant. This article has an associated First Person interview with the first author of the paper as part of the supplementary information.

Summary: The lipidome of stem cells is remodelled in response to supplies available in the cell culture media, and as a result of changing expression of genes involved in lipid metabolism, as the cells differentiate and mature towards functional HLCs.

Summary: Fifteen fluorescent compounds have tissue-specific distributions in zebrafish larvae: three anthraquinones were identified as bone dyes in live vertebrates, and two chemotherapeutic drugs were shown to have distinct preferences for the liver.