Issues

Summary: Recent genetic discoveries have suggested that DNA repair processes are central to CAG repeat disease pathogenesis. In this review, we consider how DNA damage and repair could trigger, and also result from, CAG repeat expansion to drive neurodegeneration.

Summary: An overview of porcine models of human disease, including cardiovascular diseases, cancers, diabetes mellitus, Alzheimer's disease, cystic fibrosis and Duchenne muscular dystrophy. We summarise the technologies involved and potential future impact of recent technical advances.

Summary: A neonatal mouse model that mimics abused head trauma in children offers a novel and reliable tool for finding mechanisms underlying the trauma and assessing treatments.

Summary: To unlock the therapeutic potential of curcumin and related compounds, we employ a tractable model system to characterise their cellular and molecular effects and propose novel targets implicated in disease.

Summary: Genetics and therapeutic responses of uncommon neoplasms, including salivary gland cancers, are investigatable through isolation of primary cells from patient material using conditional reprogramming cell technology without compromising pathological diagnosis.

Summary: Heat-killed Listeria monocytogenes induces immune responses that lead to increased clearance of mycobacterial infection in the adult zebrafish tuberculosis model via innate immune mechanisms.

Summary: Here, we show a novel mouse model carrying a point mutation in dipeptidylpeptidase 10 (Dpp10). Our data provide evidence that DPP10 might play a protective role in asthma.

Summary: We carried out a temporal analysis of hippocampal gene coexpression networks to identify relevant genes in a rat model of hyperthermic seizures. These genes were mostly related to immune response, cell adhesion and neurogenesis.

Editor's choice: Formation of the kidney relies on maintaining progenitor cells throughout development. The authors find that apoptotic loss of nephron progenitor cells provokes compensatory proliferation mediated by trophic factors released by phagocytes.

Summary: We describe two D2A1 mouse mammary cancer sublines with enhanced spontaneous metastasis in a syngeneic host, and highlight the limitations of in vitro assays to predict in vivo metastatic behaviour.

Summary: The protein kinase Hipk can promote proliferation and invasive behaviors, and can synergize with known cancer pathways, in a new Drosophila model for tumorigenesis.

Summary: This work reveals that the Drosophila Junctophilin protein has similar functions to its mammalian homologues and uncovers new interactions of potential biomedical interest with Huntingtin and Notch signalling.

Summary: Using a mouse model of inflammatory bowel disease, this article provides an improved understanding of the relative effects of GH/IGF-1 on bone health in experimental colitis.

Summary: We generated a new transgenic rat model expressing CD63-GFP driven by the Sox2 promoter, which enables the tracking and analysis of neural stem cell-derived extracellular vesicles.

Summary: Outbred stocks of Peromyscus californicus (California mice), upon pharmacological immunosuppression, provide an alternative to conventional inbred mice models, and can support the growth of hormone-insensitive and hormone-sensitive human breast cancers.