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Although caused by vastly different pathogens, the world's three most serious infectious diseases, tuberculosis, malaria, and HIV-1 infection, share the common problem of drug resistance. The pace of drug development has been very slow for tuberculosis and malaria and rapid for HIV-1. But for each disease, resistance to most drugs has appeared quickly after the introduction of the drug. Learning how...
During the past decade, cancer drug development has shifted from a focus on cytotoxic chemotherapies to drugs that target specific molecular alterations in tumors. Although these drugs dramatically shrink tumors, the responses are temporary. Research is now focused on overcoming drug resistance, a frequent cause of treatment failure. Here we reflect on analogous challenges faced by researchers in...
Disease is often the result of an aberrant or inadequate response to physiologic and pathophysiologic stress. Studies over the last 10 years have uncovered a recurring paradigm in which microRNAs (miRNAs) regulate cellular behavior under these conditions, suggesting an especially significant role for these small RNAs in pathologic settings. Here, we review emerging principles of miRNA regulation of...
Analyses of the human genome have proven extremely successful in identifying changes that contribute to human disease. Genetically engineered mice provide a powerful tool to analyze these changes, although they are slow and costly and do not always recapitulate human biology. Recent advances in genomic technologies, rodent-modeling approaches, and the production of patient-derived reprogrammed cell...
An understanding of metabolic pathways based solely on biochemistry textbooks would underestimate the pervasive role of metabolism in essentially every aspect of biology. It is evident from recent work that many human diseases involve abnormal metabolic states—often genetically programmed—that perturb normal physiology and lead to severe tissue dysfunction. Understanding these metabolic outliers is...
Cardiovascular disease encompasses a range of conditions extending from myocardial infarction to congenital heart disease, most of which are heritable. Enormous effort has been invested in understanding the genes and specific DNA sequence variants that are responsible for this heritability. Here, we review the lessons learned for monogenic and common, complex forms of cardiovascular disease. We also...
Diabetes is a major global problem. During the past decade, the genetic basis of various monogenic forms of the disease, and their underlying molecular mechanisms, have been elucidated. Many genes that increase type 2 diabetes (T2DM) risk have also been identified, but how they do so remains enigmatic. Nevertheless, defective insulin secretion emerges as the main culprit in both monogenic and polygenic...
Although development leads unidirectionally toward more restricted cell fates, recent work in cellular reprogramming has proven that one cellular identity can strikingly convert into another, promising countless applications in biomedical research and paving the way for modeling diseases with patient-derived stem cells. To date, there has been little discussion of which disease models are likely to...
By targeting surface antigens expressed on tumor cells, monoclonal antibodies have demonstrated efficacy as cancer therapeutics. Recent successful antibody-based strategies have focused on enhancing antitumor immune responses by targeting immune cells, irrespective of tumor antigens. We discuss these innovative strategies and propose how they will impact the future of antibody-based cancer therapy.
The human gut harbors diverse microbes that play a fundamental role in the well-being of their host. The constituents of the microbiota—bacteria, viruses, and eukaryotes—have been shown to interact with one another and with the host immune system in ways that influence the development of disease. We review these interactions and suggest that a holistic approach to studying the microbiota that goes...
Although a great public heath success, vaccines provide suboptimal protection in some patient populations and are not available to protect against many infectious diseases. Insights from innate immunity research have led to a better understanding of how existing vaccines work and have informed vaccine development. New adjuvants and delivery systems are being designed based upon their capacity to stimulate...
We are pleased to present the 2012 Special Review Issue of Cell on Human Disease. The motivation for taking on this broad and complex topic came out of a discussion of how much has changed in the decade since our last special issue on human disease back in 2001, and how this deeper and richer understanding of biological basis of disease lays the groundwork for developing new treatments.Technical breakthroughs,...
There are still no effective treatments to prevent, halt, or reverse Alzheimer's disease, but research advances over the past three decades could change this gloomy picture. Genetic studies demonstrate that the disease has multiple causes. Interdisciplinary approaches combining biochemistry, molecular and cell biology, and transgenic modeling have revealed some of its molecular mechanisms. Progress...
Despite the small sample size that often complicates research into diseases that affect children, recent genome sequencing efforts have made astounding progress in discovering the underlying genetic causes of pediatric diseases, many of which were previously unpredicted. This Select highlights recent genetic findings that provide clear insights into disease mechanisms and therapeutic targets that...
Bromodomains (BRDs) are protein interaction modules that specifically recognize ε-N-lysine acetylation motifs, a key event in the reading process of epigenetic marks. The 61 BRDs in the human genome cluster into eight families based on structure/sequence similarity. Here, we present 29 high-resolution crystal structures, covering all BRD families. Comprehensive crossfamily structural analysis identifies...
Shallow hydrophobic insertions and crescent-shaped BAR scaffolds promote membrane curvature. Here, we investigate membrane fission by shallow hydrophobic insertions quantitatively and mechanistically. We provide evidence that membrane insertion of the ENTH domain of epsin leads to liposome vesiculation, and that epsin is required for clathrin-coated vesicle budding in cells. We also show that BAR-domain...
Eighty percent of malignant tumors that develop in the central nervous system are malignant gliomas, which are essentially incurable. Here, we discuss how recent sequencing studies are identifying unexpected drivers of gliomagenesis, including mutations in isocitrate dehydrogenase 1 and the NF-κB pathway, and how genome-wide analyses are reshaping the classification schemes for tumors and enhancing...
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