No Rest for Fatigue Researchers

No rest for fatigue researchers.

F atigue is the most important side effect of cancer and cancer treatment, according to a recent study of patients and professionals in major cancer centers across the United States. Led by David Cella, Ph.D., at Evanston Northwestern Healthcare and Northwestern University's cancer center in Chicago, the study confirms not only that cancer-related fatigue is common but also that it affects pati...

No REST for fibroids.

G ood news: A long-awaited model for uterine fibroid tumor research is upon us (1). Historically, there has been a paucity of in vivo models for the study of fibroid tumors (i.e., leiomyomas), benign female pelvic organ tumors characterized by clonal proliferation of smooth muscle cells and expression of genes involved in fibrosis and extracellular matrix (ECM) production. This is staggering, c...

No Rest for REST: REST/NRSF Regulation of Neurogenesis

Epigenetic strategies control the orderly acquisition and maintenance of neuronal traits. A complex network of transcriptional repressors and co-repressors mediates gene specificity for these strategies. In this issue of Cell, a study by Ballas and coworkers (Ballas et al., 2005) provides insight into the early lineage commitment events during neurogenesis. This study demonstrates that regulati...

No time to rest.

NO more muscle fatigue.

NOS is a key enzyme in the production of NO, a molecule that directly regulates vasorelaxation and blood supply. Diverse forms of muscle disease have been clinically associated with unusual fatigue after exercise. The localization of neuronal NOS (nNOS) at the plasma membrane of muscle has recently been shown to prevent muscle fatigue after exercise. In this issue of the JCI, Lai et al. show th...