Showing papers in "Current Opinion in Genetics & Development in 1998"

TL;DR: Hypoxia-inducible factor 1 is a transcription factor that mediates essential homeostatic responses to reduced O2 availability in mammals and the effects of HIF-1 deficiency on cellular physiology and embryonic development are provided.

TL;DR: The past year has seen significant advances in understanding of how protein kinase B is activated and of the central role it plays in insulin signalling and in mediating the protective effects of survival factors against apoptosis.

TL;DR: β-catenin is a pivotal player in the signaling pathway initiated by Wnt proteins, mediators of several developmental processes and able to participate in such varying processes as gene expression and cell adhesion.

TL;DR: Gene arrangement comparisons are a powerful tool for phylogenetic studies, especially those focused on ancient relationships, and recent reports using metazoan mitochondrial genomes address evolutionary relationships as well as rates and mechanisms of rearrangement.

TL;DR: Ras has been shown to be able to protect cells from apoptosis either through activation of PKB/Akt via PI3-kinase, or throughactivation of NF-kappa B.

TL;DR: The high-resolution X-ray structure of the nucleosome core particle, as well as earlier evidence, suggests that the histone tails are largely responsible for the assembly of nucleosomes into chromatin fibers and implies that the physiological effects of histone acetylation may be achieved by modulation of a dynamic inter-conversion between the fiber and a less condensed nucleofilament structure.

TL;DR: The recent discovery of antagonistic SMADs and regulatory crosstalk with Ras/MAP-kinase pathways add to the rapidly expanding understanding of this major regulatory network.

TL;DR: Experimental data generated in the past year have further emphasized the essential role for the E2F transcription factors in the regulation of cell proliferation and novel target genes have been identified that link the E 2Fs directly to the initiation of DNA replication.

TL;DR: The identification of a specific class of oxidized derivatives of cholesterol as ligands for the LXRs has been crucial to helping understand the function of these receptors in vivo and first suggested their role in the regulation of lipid metabolism.

TL;DR: Two opposing enzymatic reactions control the activity of the retinoblastoma tumour suppressor protein, pRB, and it is suspected that members of the cyclin/cyclin-dependent kinase (cyclin/cdk) family mediate pRB inactivation.

TL;DR: The Hox genes are clustered sets of homeobox-containing genes that play a central role in animal development and suggest that Hox proteins interact with pre-existing homeodomain protein complexes to regulate Hox activity and Hox specificity.

TL;DR: Novel genes have been discovered that modulate myogenesis and the activity of myogenic basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) proteins in positive or negative ways, and the molecular mechanisms of these interactions and cooperativity are being elucidated.

TL;DR: Well characterized and cultivated archaea are prokaryotic specialists that thrive in habitats of elevated temperature, low pH, high salinity, or strict anoxia.

TL;DR: This work has shown that species branching deep in molecular trees are often fast-evolving ones, misplaced because of the long-branch artefact, and that the detection of genuinely deep-branchesing organisms remains an elusive task.

TL;DR: Future resolution of the order of emergence of eukaryotes will depend upon a more critical phylogenetic analysis of new and existing data than hitherto, and hypotheses of branching order should preferably be based upon congruence between independent data sets, rather than on single gene trees.

TL;DR: A substantial fraction of mammalian genomes is composed of mobile elements and their remnants, and a number of mammalian non-LTR retrotransposons of the L1 type are capable of autonomous retrotransposition.

TL;DR: Two important developments, more detailed studies of members of the Cyanobacteria and the availability of complete plastid genome sequences from a wide variety of plant and algal lineages, have allowed a more accurate reconstruction of plastids evolution.

TL;DR: An interplay among experimental studies of protein synthesis, evolutionary theory, and comparisons of DNA sequence data has shed light on the roles of natural selection and genetic drift in 'silent' DNA evolution.

TL;DR: Interactions between some of these proteins have been demonstrated, suggesting a complicated picture of heterogeneous silencing complexes that are counteracted by protein-modifying machinery.

TL;DR: Transcription factors loaded onto regulatory DNA elements may recruit either coactivators with histone acetyltransferase activity or corepressors associated with hist one deacetylases.

TL;DR: Though progress in checkpoint controls has indeed been rapid, several observations identify puzzling aspects of checkpoint controls with few plausible explanations.

TL;DR: Does the intron/exon structure of eukaryotic genes belie their ancient assembly by exon-shuffling or have introns been inserted into preformed genes during eukARYotic evolution?

TL;DR: Regulation of Myb proteins by phosphorylation and intermolecular cooperation has recently been demonstrated, together with a new role for the proteins, in the control of apoptosis.

TL;DR: The induction of apoptosis of virus-infected cells is an important host defense mechanism against invading pathogens and viral interference with host cell apoptosis leads to enhanced viral replication and may promote cancer.

TL;DR: Recent work using transgenic mice shows that multiple cis-acting sequences are needed for correct imprinting, and the importance of imprinting centres for regional establishment or maintenance of imprints in a cluster is revealed.

TL;DR: Gene-targeting studies in mice provide new insight into the role of GR in vivo and are helping decipher the molecular mechanisms underlying its actions.

TL;DR: Several eukaryotes, including maize, yeast and Xenopus, are degenerate polyploids formed by relatively recent whole-genome duplications, suggesting that more ancient genome duplications occurred in an ancestor of vertebrates.

TL;DR: It is proposed that hematopoietic transcription factors acquire new functions during blood cell differentiation through successive changes in composition - much as discussion topics of groups at a cocktail party take new directions as new people join and others leave.

TL;DR: The relationship between the clustered organization of vertebrate Hox genes and their coordinate transcription in space and time is still lacking a convincing mechanistic explanation, and these results add novel important input to the debate.

TL;DR: The establishment of branched tubular epithelial structures is critical for the viability of multicellular organisms: the tracheal system in Drosophila and the vertebrate lung being two such structures.