Papers to Watch

This paper presents a broad molecular phylogeny of the fungi and highlights the basal nature of the chytrids. This six-gene phylogeny is a major advance for understanding the evolution of fungal traits.

Joe Heitman
Duke University Medical Center, USA

We all thought that phosphatidylinositol-(3,4,5)-trisphosphate (PIP3) gradients in a cell were necessary for chemotaxis, but this paper disproves that. The authors knocked out all the phosphoinositide 3-kinases plus the PTEN phosphatase in the Dictyostelium genome, and the cells still chemotax!

Richard Gomer
Howard Hughes Medical Institute, USA

Crystallographic analyses reveal that the plant hormone auxin acts by non-covalently stabilizing the interaction between a transcriptional regulator and a complex targeting the regulator for proteasomal degradation. This work on the mode of action of auxin (indole-3-acetic acid), analogues of which are herbicides, is the most detailed on any plant hormone.

Christopher Schofield
University of Oxford, United Kingdom

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