Research articles

Nutrients and growth factors initiate endocytotic processes in the embryonic endoderm that control embryonic patterning. Here, Kawamuraet al.show that the small GTP-binding protein rab7 controls a unique microautophagy-like process that is involved in endocytosis in the endoderm of mouse embryos.

Human embryonic stem cell cultures are morphologically heterogeneous. Here, differences in Wnt signalling are shown to contribute to this heterogeneity, cells containing high levels of Wnt form endodermal and cardiac cells, whereas cells with low Wnt form neuroectodermal cells, when differentiation is induced.

The lysosomal storage disease mucopolysaccharidosis I is treated with recombinant α-L-iduronidase but production of the enzyme is expensive. In this study, α-L-iduronidase is compartmentalized within the endosperm of maize via a unique mRNA strategy yielding the active, correctly glycosylated protein.

The IKK complex activates the NF-κB pathway and can culminate in inflammation, which needs to be tightly controlled. NEMO is part of the IKK complex and, in this study, is shown to associate with the golgi-reassembly protein p47, resulting in the lysosomal degradation of NEMO and inhibition of NF-κB activation.

HSP70 is a molecular chaperone that aids protein folding. In this study, HSP70 is shown to be methylated and this post-translationally modified protein is elevated in expression in human cancers and promotes the activity of Aurora kinase B.

Insulators can be classified according to the kind of electronic interactions they are dominated by. Hellmannet al. used time- and angle-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy to determine the dominant interactions in a series of transition metal dichalcogenides.

The coil-globule transition undergone by polymers in solution delineates a transition from expanded coils to collapsed globules, depending on the polarity of the solvent. This study examines the influence of vibrational entropy on the transition, and finds it can induce a crossover from a second-order to a first-order transition.

The evolution of venom toxins is an area of intense study but has been hampered by the lack of non-toxin protein homologues. Here, phylogenetic analyses of non-toxin genes sourced from transcriptomic studies are found placed within groups of venom toxins, revealing dynamic changes in the sites of toxin expression.

Quantum metrology employs the properties of quantum states to further enhance the accuracy of some of the most precise measurement schemes to date. Here, a method for estimating the upper bounds to achievable precision in quantum-enhanced metrology protocols in the presence of decoherence is presented.

Recent observations have uncovered a cloud of ionized gas falling into the supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy. Murray-Clay and Loeb present a model that may explain these observations, in which the cloud is produced from the proto-planetary disc around a low-mass star orbiting the black hole.

Ultrathin inorganic materials hold promise for a variety of applications, including flexible electronics. This work presents a fabrication method that permits the synthesis of large and flexible freestanding layers of zinc selenide that display a high-photocurrent density.

The mechanical properties of structural ceramics are characterized by a high degree of fragility and brittleness. This study demonstrates that, contrary to expectation, their brittleness can be reduced substantially by introducing nanopores together with weak grain boundary phases.

The spin Hall effect and its inverse allow conversion between charge and spin currents in both magnetic and nonmagnetic materials. Weiet al.observe an anomaly in the temperature dependence of the inverse spin Hall effect, which suggests that it can also be used as a sensor for very small magnetic moments.

Inducing superconductivity in topological insulators by proximity to superconductors is a promising strategy for quantum computing. Here the authors induce high-temperature superconductivity in the topological insulators Bi₂Se₃ and Bi₂Te₃by placing them in contact with a cuprate superconductor.

The pulvinar nucleus is involved in modulating visual information. Fischer and Whitney use brain imaging to study the pulvinar during visual attention, and find that the positions and orientations of attended objects are precisely encoded in the pulvinar, while information about ignored objects is gated out.

Seizure activity in the brain is characterized by the recruitment of cortical neuronal activity. Schevon and colleagues study seizure activity in human subjects and find that the recruitment of neurons is hypersynchronous and that there is an intrinsic restraint on the propagation of this activity.

Microscopic imaging techniques have a high spatio-temporal resolution but, in living animals, are hampered by cardiac and respiratory motion. This paper describes a microscopic setup that allows fluorescent confocal imaging of the beating mouse heart over a period of several hours.

Environmental factors can influence one's susceptibility to cancer, but it is not clear whether such an influence extends beyond the directly exposed generations. Here, feeding pregnant rats with a high-fat diet or a hormone derivative, the authors observe increased breast cancer risk in up to three subsequent generations.

Cyclin B–Cdk1 is thought to be synonymous with the promoting factor that drives entry into M-phase of the cell cycle. Here, Greatwall kinase is shown to be required for the breakdown of the nuclear envelope and the assembly of the spindle on entry into M-phase, suggesting that it too is a part of the M-phase-promoting factor.

TGF-β signalling suppresses tumorigenesis in breast cancer cells but its effects on breast cancer initiating cells have not been reported. Using cells in culture, Brunaet al. show that TGF-β increases breast cancer initiating cell numbers in cells that have low levels of the tight junction protein claudin.