Issues

Summary: DMM announces the winners of the DMM Outstanding Paper Prize for Research and Resource Articles published in 2023.

Summary: The diploid frog Xenopus tropicalis is a powerful model for unravelling conserved mechanisms underlying human genetic disorders. This Review discusses best practices for using these frogs to model disease.

Summary: This Review provides an overview of pulmonary neuroendocrine cells, with a focus on their role in lung pathologies and how in vitro models can be used to study them.

Editor's choice: A zebrafish injury model demonstrates heterotopic bone formation resembling human myositis ossificans traumatica, suggesting potential osteo-induction and ectopic bone growth post mechanistically relevant injuries.

Summary: An ALS-associated mutation in TDP-43 changes the microglia-derived miRNA population, which may be the source of the miRNA dysregulation observed in the disease and potentially perturbed gene expression in neighbouring neurons.

Summary: Studies on bone marrow cell administration in animal models of hind limb ischemia demonstrate improved limb perfusion. Meta-analysis of these studies indicates that the certainty of the evidence is low, limiting applicability to clinical practice.

Summary: Muscle-specific knockout of glucocorticoid receptor (GR) in a Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) mouse model shows that physiological GR exerts a protective role in DMD, contrasting its degenerative role in other diseases.

Summary: Mutation of the ROCK1 caspase cleavage site to prevent proteolysis and hyperactivation during apoptotic cell death increased macrophage recruitment to the bone marrow and prolonged survival of Eµ-Myc lymphoma mice.

Summary: In a mouse model of cerebellar dystonia, parvalbumin interneurons were activated and the basal ganglia circuitry was altered, indicating the involvement of the cortico-basal ganglia–thalamo-cortical circuit in cerebellar dystonia.

Summary: A humanized yeast model system has been developed for investigating CaaX sequence modification by CaaX-type prenyltransferases and proteases, enabling preliminary investigations of previously uncharacterized and physiologically relevant CaaX proteins.

Summary: A zebrafish model of diabetic nephropathy (DN) shows key features of human DN, activation of the PI3K/Akt pathway and the protective role of metformin, which highlight the potential of this model for therapeutic discovery.