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The maturation of cell surface receptors through the secretory pathway often requires chaperones that aid in protein folding and trafficking from one organelle to another. Here we describe boca, an evolutionarily conserved gene in Drosophila melanogaster, which encodes an endoplasmic reticulum protein that is specifically required for the intracellular trafficking of members of the low-density lipoprotein...
Type III pili deliver effector proteins (virulence factors) from bacterial pathogens to host cells. Plants express disease resistance (R) proteins that respond specifically to a particular type III effector by activating immune responses. We demonstrated previously that two unrelated type III effectors from Pseudomonas syringae target and modify the Arabidopsis RIN4 protein. Here, we show that AvrRpt2,...
Specification of embryonic polarity and pattern formation in multicellular organisms requires inductive signals from neighboring cells. One approach toward understanding these interactions is to study mutations that disrupt development. Here, we demonstrate that mesd, a gene identified in the mesoderm development (mesd) deletion interval on mouse chromosome 7, is essential for specification of embryonic...
Mammals can taste a wide repertoire of chemosensory stimuli. Two unrelated families of receptors (T1Rs and T2Rs) mediate responses to sweet, amino acids, and bitter compounds. Here, we demonstrate that knockouts of TRPM5, a taste TRP ion channel, or PLCβ2, a phospholipase C selectively expressed in taste tissue, abolish sweet, amino acid, and bitter taste reception, but do not impact sour or salty...
In eukaryotes, DNA damage elicits a multifaceted response that includes cell cycle arrest, transcriptional activation of DNA repair genes, and, in multicellular organisms, apoptosis. We demonstrate that in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, DNA damage leads to a 6- to 8-fold increase in dNTP levels. This increase is conferred by an unusual, relaxed dATP feedback inhibition of ribonucleotide reductase (RNR)...
A contentious issue in taste research might have come to a close. Zhang et al., in this issue of Cell, provide broad support for the notion that the recognition of sweet, umami, and bitter tastes use the same signaling molecules. Moreover, they show that individual taste cells are dedicated to the transduction of only one of these three taste qualities.
Circadian clocks in a wide range of organisms are thought to consist of two interdependent transcriptional feedback loops. In Drosophila, the first loop has been well characterized and controls rhythmic period expression. In this issue of Cell, define a role for a transcriptional activator and a repressor in the second feedback loop.
The Drosophila circadian clock consists of two interlocked transcriptional feedback loops. In one loop, dCLOCK/CYCLE activates period expression, and PERIOD protein then inhibits dCLOCK/CYCLE activity. dClock is also rhythmically transcribed, but its regulators are unknown. vrille (vri) and Par Domain Protein 1 (Pdp1) encode related transcription factors whose expression is directly activated by dCLOCK/CYCLE...
Plants have evolved a sophisticated innate immune system to recognize invading pathogens and to induce a set of host defense mechanisms resulting in disease resistance. Pathogen recognition is often mediated by plant disease resistance (R) proteins that respond specifically to one or a few pathogen-derived molecules. This specificity has led to suggestions of a receptor-ligand mode of R protein function...
Metamorphosis of the Drosophila brain involves pruning of many larval-specific dendrites and axons followed by outgrowth of adult-specific processes. From a genetic mosaic screen, we recovered two independent mutations that block neuronal remodeling in the mushroom bodies (MBs). These phenotypically indistinguishable mutations affect Baboon function, a Drosophila TGF-β/activin type I receptor, and...
In this issue of Cell, report on new aspects of the regulation of yeast ribonucleotide reductase, the mechanism by which dNTP levels are increased following DNA damage, and the consequences of the metabolic changes.
Low-density-lipoprotein (LDL) receptor family members control diverse developmental and physiological pathways. In this issue of Cell, both Culi and Mann and Hsieh et al. report on Boca/MESD, a highly conserved chaperone required for transport of LDLR family proteins to the cell surface. Together with recent insights into the atomic structure of the LDL receptor, they shed new light on the synthesis...
The Fragile X syndrome, which results from the absence of functional FMRP protein, is the most common heritable form of mental retardation. Here, we show that FMRP acts as a translational repressor of specific mRNAs at synapses. Interestingly, FMRP associates not only with these target mRNAs, but also with the dendritic, non-translatable RNA BC1. Blocking of BC1 inhibits the interaction of FMRP with...
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