Issues

Summary: Human organoids are important tools for modelling disease. This At a Glance article summarises the current organoid models of several human diseases, and discusses future prospects for these technologies.

Summary: This Review details the potential of photoacoustic imaging to visualise features of the tumour microenvironment such as blood vessels, hypoxia, fibrosis and immune infiltrate to provide unprecedented insight into tumour biology.

Summary: Specific mitochondrial parameters in muscle of a minipig model of Huntington's disease can be used as potential biomarkers of disease progression and suggest that similar pathogenic mechanisms underlie disease progression in TgHD minipigs and HD patients.

Summary: We present a MYC-driven transformation model of breast cancer that recapitulates the disease in vivo and which can be used to identify MYC-dependent cancer vulnerabilities.

Summary: An injection-based chordoma model in zebrafish shows that the hypothesized chordoma oncogene brachyury is insufficient, whereas EGFR and VEGFR2 are sufficient, to trigger notochord hyperplasia in our model.

Summary: IRS2 is a key mediator of IGF1R signalling in hepatic stellate cell activation in cholestatic liver injury.

Summary: The molecular rearrangements of the synaptic proteins that accompany the deafferentation and subsequent reafferentation of the inner ear sensors following an excitotoxic insult are demonstrated for the first time.

Summary: Kidney and fat expression QTL mapping in rat models of spontaneously occurring insulin resistance associated with either diabetes or hypertension reveals conserved gene expression regulation, suggesting shared aetiology of disease phenotypes.

Editor's choice: Deletion of p53, rather than mutation, in endothelial cells leads to reliable angiosarcoma generation, which, along with establishment of a transplantation model, provides a novel approach for testing potential new therapeutics.

Summary: The authors show hiPSC-cardiomyocyte-based modeling of a mutation in a G-protein β-subunit that affects the electrophysiological response of cardiomyocytes to the cholinergic regulation of the heart rate, uncovering a potential therapy for severe bradycardia in humans carrying these mutations.

Summary: The MMTV-Wnt1 mouse model produces two phenotypically distinct subtypes of mammary tumors. Importantly, these subtypes differ in their therapeutic response to erlotinib, an EGFR inhibitor.

Summary: Fetal mouth immobility and defects in pharyngeal patterning underlie cleft palate in retinoid-deficient Rdh10 mutant mouse embryos.

Summary: A study of how androgens lead to sexually dimorphic development of the prostate using transcription factor genome binding and transcriptome analysis in mesenchymal subsets.

Summary: Laterality defects, which combine anomalies in several visceral organs, are challenging to phenotype. We have developed here a standardised approach for multimodality 3D imaging in mice, generating quantifiable phenotypes.