p120-catenin regulates cell-cell adhesion by controlling cell surface retention of cadherin. In this issue, Ishiyama et al. (2010) present the first crystal structure of p120 in complex with cadherin, revealing molecular details of the functional interface and providing sophisticated new tools for dissecting p120's role in cell-cell adhesion.

tipped swab (Fisher Scientific) premoistened in Dey-Engley neutralizer (Becton Dickinson). The swabs were vortexed for 45 seconds in 200 piL of Dey-Engley neutralizer, plated onto prereduced C. difficile Brucella agar (CDBA), and cultured as previously described. For the fresh Clorox premoistened germicidal wipes only, an additional experiment was performed in which the inoculated site was wipe...

s for the 38th Human Genetics Society of Australasia Annual Scientific Meeting Adelaide, South Australia

Lung cancer risk has a genetic component. This study reports the discovery of a gene variant that is overexpressed in patients who have the familial, but not sporadic, type of lung cancer. This report provides new insights into a mechanism that will help to guide preventive interventions in the future.

Where do intimal smooth muscle cells (SMCs) come from? For many years, the idea that intimal SMCs originated from the underlying media went unchallenged.1 Then, reports2,3 began to appear that up to half of the SMCs in the intima of atherosclerotic plaques and injured arteries arose from circulating progenitor cells of bone marrow origin. This new view of intimal SMC formation was potentially i...

New developments in accelerating wound healing can have immense beneficial socioeconomic impact. The wound healing process is a highly orchestrated series of mechanisms where a multitude of cells and biological cascades are involved. The skin battery and current of injury mechanisms have become topics of interest for their influence in chronic wounds. Electrostimulation therapy of wounds has sh...

A new study in fission yeasts promotes the notion that transient polarity patches that wander the cell surface at the onset of mating are discrete agents of gradient sensing. This concept unexpectedly bridges the modes of gradient sensing in eukaryotes and prokaryotes.

In this issue of Blood, Malleret and colleagues show the importance of the bone marrow in Plasmodium vivax biology by proving the preferential infection of young reticulocytes (generally restricted to the bone marrow), which then experience accelerated maturation postinvasion.

Hypoxia and erythropoietin (EPO) were a couple from the very beginning. Hypoxia induces the production of EPO, which became the paradigm for oxygen-regulated gene expression [1]. Dissecting EPO gene regulation has lead to the discovery of the transcription factor complex hypoxia inducible factor-1 (HIF-1), the widespread “master regulator of O2 homeostasis” in the tissue, and the identification...

Determining the implications of the thought of the German phenomenologist Martin Heidegger (18891976) for postmodern technology is arguably as difficult a task as determining his standing in Western academic philosophy: On the one hand, Heidegger is (generally) regarded as an intellectual charlatan of consummate proportion (and extremely dubious moral standing) by members of the Anglo-American ...