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[
Dev Cell,
2014]
Reactive oxygen species (ROS) are generated as a response to cellular stress and regulate processes including cellular signaling and wound healing. In this issue of Developmental Cell, Xu and Chisholm (2014) demonstrate that mitochondrial ROS are required for proper wound healing in Caenorhabditis elegans through controlling the redox state of actin regulators.
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[
Science,
1997]
In many situations-both normal and pathological-cells die as a result of an orderly, stereotyped cascade of cellular events. On pages 1122, 1126, 1129, and 1132 of this issue, four reports describe the molecular basis of crucial steps in this cascade. The importance of understanding the basis of this programmed cell death was spectacularly demonstrated recently through the rescue with cell death inhibitors of mice undergoing acute liver destruction.
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[
Cell,
2004]
Ubiquitylation provides a means of targeting substrate proteins for degradation by the proteasome. Novel findings in C. elegans (Hoppe et al., 2004, this issue of Cell) establish that two ubiquitin-ligases team up to multiubiquitylate the myosin chaperone UNC-45, suggesting a novel link between regulated protein degradation and myosin assembly.
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[
Nature,
1992]
Supporters of large DNA sequencing projects will take heart (and find much to learn) from the report by J. Sulston and colleagues that appears on page 37 of this issue. Sulston et al. describe the first results of the Caenorhabditis elegans genome sequencing project, and have come up with not only hitherto unknown genes but also with fresh and biologically relevant information.
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Dev Cell,
2002]
Presenilins mediate they-secretase cleavage of Notch transmembrane receptors as well as the transmembrane P-amyloid precursor protein (PAPP), but they are not thought to accomplish this alone. Recent genetic screens in C. elegans, presented in this issue of Developmental Cell, identify two genes that are essential to gamma-secretase activity and may interact with presenilins.
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[
J Cell Biol,
2007]
Cells must break symmetry to acquire polarity. Microtubules have been implicated in the induction of asymmetry in several cell types, but their role in the Caenorhabditis elegans zygote, a classic polarity model, has remained uncertain. One study (see Tsai and Ahringer on p. 397 of this issue) brings new light to this problem by demonstrating that severe loss of microtubules impairs polarity onset in C. elegans.
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[
Nature,
2002]
The genomes of animals, plants and fungi seem to be relatively disorganized. Genes appear to be randomly distributed, with only a few exceptions: repeats of similar sequences caused by gene duplications, for example, and a limited number of ancient gene clusters containing functionally related genes (such as the Hox genes that are involved in control of animal development). Apart from these, the average gene is generally assumed to be independent of its neighbours, and genomes are constantly rearranged and shuffled. However, in one group of animals the nematodes (small, unsegmented worms) neighboring genes are occasionally assembled into regulatory units called operons. On page 851 of this issue, Blumenthal et al. now report the first whole-genome characterization of such operons in a mulicellular organism, an raise intriguing questions as to how (and why) they have evolved.
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[
Cell Metab,
2014]
One of the biggest challenges in biology is to understand how mitochondria influence aging and age-related diseases. Chin et al. (2014) reveal how a mitochondrial metabolite (mitobolite) inhibits mitochondrial ATPase and extends lifespan by mimicking dietary restriction in worms.