Papers to watch

Courtesy of The International Union of Crystallography

The authors leverage knockout mice lacking BH3-only ?activators? to examine how the Bcl2 protein family controls apoptosis. The work argues against direct activation of Bax/Bak by certain activating BH3-only proteins. Instead, BH3-only proteins appear to control apoptosis by neutralizing pro-survival Bcl2 family members.

John Abrams,
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas

When grown in a dual-species consortium using benzyl alcohol as the sole carbon source, Pseudomonas putida, (Pp) uses benzoate produced by Acinetobacter strain C6; here, it is shown that mutations arise and are selected for in Pp to generate a closer spatial association between the two bacteria.

Robert Palmer,
National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, USA

This paper shows how transcriptome analysis can lead to testable hypothesis generation and uncover important developmental mechanisms: In this case, a GFP knockin of the cardiac transcription factor Nkx2-5 provided evidence that the progenitor state of the cardiac precursor cells was maintained in the absence of the protein.

Peter Scambler,
Institute of Child Health, UK

These papers were selected from multiple disciplines from the Faculty of 1000, a web-based literature awareness tool (www.f1000biology.com).