Showing papers in "Current Biology in 1996"

TL;DR: The results demonstrate that the production of more and better GFP variants is possible and worthwhile, and facilitates multicolor imaging of differential gene expression, protein localization or cell fate.

TL;DR: It is reported that an extensively modified GFP is a versatile and sensitive reporter in a variety of living plant cells and in transgenic plants, and the codon usage effect might be universal, allowing the design of recombinant proteins with high expression efficiency in evolutionarily distant species such as humans and maize.

TL;DR: Li+ acts as a specific inhibitor of the GSK-3 family of protein kinases in vitro and in intact cells, and mimics Wingless signalling, revealing a possible molecular mechanism of Li+ action on development and differentiation.

TL;DR: Examination of the developing testis in different genetic backgrounds suggests that Dhh regulates both early and late stages of spermatogenesis, and loss of Patched expression in Dhh mutants suggests a conservation in the Hedgehog signaling pathway between flies and mice, and indicates that Leydig cells may be the direct target of Dhh signaling.

TL;DR: It is reported that selective codon usage appears to account for a substantial fraction of the inefficiency of viral protein synthesis, independent of any effect on improved nuclear export.

TL;DR: O2 stimulates a rapid influx of Ca2+ into soybean cells, which activates a physiological cell death program resulting in the generation of large DNA fragments and cell corpse morphology--including cell shrinkage, plasma membrane blebbing and nuclear condensation--characteristic of apoptosis.

TL;DR: It is concluded that sister Chromatid separation in budding yeast can occur in the absence of microtubule-dependent forces, and that protein complexes that can bind two different DNA molecules are capable of holding sister chromatids together.

TL;DR: It is proposed that primitive endoderm is responsible for the initial induction of rostral identity in the embryo, and in particular for the correct definition of the future prosencephalic neurectoderm.

TL;DR: The thermotolerant mutants of GFP greatly improve the sensitivity of the protein as a visible reporter molecule in bacterial, yeast and mammalian cells and produces a thermostable folding mutant (GFP5) that can be efficiently excited using either long-wavelength ultraviolet or blue light.

TL;DR: The results demonstrate that a vertebrate frizzled homolog is involved in Wnt signaling in a manner which discriminates between functionally distinct Wnts, which involves translocation of the dishevelled protein to the plasma membrane, and which works in a synergistic manner with WNTs to induce gene expression.

TL;DR: It is discovered that leptin and its cognate receptor constitute a novel hematopoietic pathway that is required for normal lymphopoiesis, and may well also impact upon erythropoiedis, particularly in anemic states that may require output from the spleen.

TL;DR: This work states that there have recently been substantial advances in the knowledge of the molecular biology and genetics of sex chromosomes and dosage compensation, and in the understanding of the population genetic processes which are involved in their evolution.

TL;DR: Experimentalally induced stable blockade of SAPK activation in cells with normal thermosensitivity is sufficient to confer resistance to cell death induced by diverse stimuli including heat and the chemotherapeutic agent cis-platinum.

TL;DR: The existence of a DNA glycosylase superfamily, members of which possess a common fold yet act upon remarkably diverse lesions, ranging from UV photoadducts to mismatches to alkylated or oxidized bases is proposed.

TL;DR: The observation that WAS is the result of defects in signal transduction pathways regulated by Cdc42/Rac and Nck is suggested to suggest that the protein is defective in patients suffering from the disease.

TL;DR: A vertebrate homologue of Dsh is a necessary component of Wnt signal transduction and functions upstream of beta-catenin, and these findings also establish a requirement for the PDZ domain in signalTransduction by XdSh, and suggest that endogenous Xdsh controls morphogenetic movements in the embryo.

TL;DR: Activation of Ras during mid-G1 phase appears to differ in many respects from its rapid activation by growth factors, suggesting a novel mechanism of regulation that may be intrinsic to cell-cycle progression.

TL;DR: Adenine nucleotides are now good candidates for metabolic signals which indicate the lack of glucose in the medium, triggering activation of SNF1 and derepression of glucose-repressed genes.

TL;DR: Several genes have recently been identified that are involved in apoptosis: some are believed to encode death effectors, whereas others encode positive or negative regulators of the cell-death machine.

TL;DR: HMSH2 can also heterodimerize with a third human MSH family member, hMSH3, and that this complex, hMutSbeta, binds loops of one to four extrahelical bases, suggesting that loop repair can be GTBP-independent.

TL;DR: In ECM-attached cells, microtubule disruption activates the integrin-dependent signaling cascade, which leads to the assembly of matrix adhesions and the induction of DNA synthesis, an indispensable intermediate step in this signaling process.

TL;DR: It is found that neural crest cells need RA for normal development and survival, and the neural tube fails to extend any neurites into the periphery, and segmentation in the myelencephalon is disrupted.

TL;DR: All known active plant retrotransposons are largely quiescent during development but activated by stresses, including wounding, pathogen attack and cell culture, and could be the stress-induced generators of genomic diversity proposed by McClintock.

TL;DR: By comparing proteins encoded by the two bacterial genomes, it is shown that extensive gene shuffling and variation in the extent of gene paralogy are major trends in bacterial evolution; this comparison has also allowed us to deduce crucial aspects of the largely uncharacterized metabolism of H. influenzae.

TL;DR: Molecular connections are now being made along the signalling pathways activated by members of the Rho family, including the activation of kinase cascades and transcription factors and the control of endocytosis and secretion.

TL;DR: Crystallographic studies demonstrate the structural basis for these interactions, which contribute to the ability of PDZ domains to create networks associated with the plasma membrane.

TL;DR: Apo-3 is identified as a third member of the TNFR family that activates apoptosis, and it is suggested that Apo-3, TNFR1 and CD95 engage a common apoptotic cell-death machinery.

TL;DR: It is demonstrated that PI 3-kinase induces a selective subset of cellular responses, but is not sufficient to stimulate the full repertoire of Rac- or Rho-mediated responses.

TL;DR: It is reported that constructs containing an inactive basic cluster downstream of the bipartite signal of nucleoplasmin can be directed to the nucleus by flanking them with specific neutral and acidic residues taken from the signal reported for c-Myc.

TL;DR: It is demonstrated that hPAK1 is a GTPase effector controlling a downstream MAP kinase pathway in mammalian cells, as Ste20 does in yeast, and plays key parts in linking extracellular signals from membrane components, such as receptor-associated G proteins and Rho-related GTPases, to nuclear responses,such as transcriptional activation.