Second thoughts p.291
Revisting the past can help to inform ideas of the present.
doi: 10.1038/533291b
Volume 533 Number 7603
今週のハイライト
Cover Story: 尾にある仕掛け：T4バクテリオファージのゲノム注入機械の構造
がんゲノミクス: がん細胞株の再評価
抗生物質: 新規マクロライド系抗生物質に向けて
構造生物学: 遺伝子転写開始の構造基盤
宇宙物理学: 降着を受けている白色矮星連星系
生物地理学: 深海の生物多様性を捉える
神経科学: 報酬探索行動の選択と調節
再生生物学: サンショウウオの肢の前方–後方シグナル
内分泌学: ニューロテンシンは肥満の要因である
生物工学: 二本鎖切断をしないDNA編集
ウイルス学: ジカウイルスが手ごわい理由
目次
Editorials
Zika must remain a high priority p.291
Although the evidence suggests that the Olympic Games are safe to proceed, the global health community must not let the Zika virus fade from the research agenda until the threat is wiped out.
doi: 10.1038/533291a
Open medicine p.292
Governments need to tighten regulation if the sharing of clinical-trial data is to succeed.
doi: 10.1038/533292a
News
Gridlock over Italy’s olive tree deaths starts to ease p.299
A court ruling paves the way for disease-containment measures, but the risk of spread to other regions and nations remains.
doi: 10.1038/533299a
Demotion of science ministry angers beleaguered Brazilian researchers p.301
New President Michel Temer ’ who replaces impeached Dilma Rousseff ’ is fusing the science and telecommunications ministries.
doi: 10.1038/nature.2016.19910
Boaty McBoatfleet: British ship joins wave of rugged polar vessels p.302
Ice-going vessels like Britain’s RRS Sir David Attenborough ’ named Boaty McBoatface by the Internet ’ are being built across the world.
doi: 10.1038/533302a
Mirror-image enzyme copies looking-glass DNA p.303
Synthetic polymerase is a small step along the way to mirrored life forms.
doi: 10.1038/nature.2016.19918
Bankruptcy filing worries developers of nanoparticle cancer drugs p.304
Financial woes of leading biotech firm highlight challenges of developing innovative therapies.
doi: 10.1038/533304a
News Features
Mixed-up metals make for stronger, tougher, stretchier alloys p.306
Materials scientists are creating next-generation mixtures with remarkable properties.
doi: 10.1038/533306a
The race to create super-crops p.308
Old-fashioned breeding techniques are bearing more fruit than genetic engineering in developing hyper-efficient plants.
doi: 10.1038/533308a
News & Views
Neuroscience: Virtual reality explored p.324
Neuroscientists are increasingly using virtual reality to facilitate studies of animal behaviour, but whether behaviour in the virtual world mimics that in real life is a matter for debate. Here, scientists discuss the strengths and limitations of the approach.
doi: 10.1038/nature17899
Drug discovery: Fighting evolution with chemical synthesis p.326
A synthetic strategy has been developed that provides easy access to structurally diverse analogues of naturally occurring antibiotics, providing a fresh means of attack in the war against drug-resistant bacteria. See Article p.338
doi: 10.1038/533326a
Neutrino physics: A deliberate mix-up in flavour p.327
Neutrinos come in three 'flavours', as do antineutrinos, and they all change flavour as they travel. New measurements of the mixing of different neutrinos may help to explain why our Universe is made of matter and not antimatter.
doi: 10.1038/533327a
Regeneration: Limb regrowth takes two p.328
Salamanders can regenerate several of their organs, including amputated limbs. Analysis of a Mexican salamander shows that crosstalk between two signalling molecules regulates limb regeneration. See Letter p.407
doi: 10.1038/nature17889
Astrophysics: Illuminating brown dwarfs p.330
Objects known as brown dwarfs are midway between stars and planets in mass. Observations of a hot brown dwarf irradiated by a nearby star will help to fill a gap in our knowledge of the atmospheres of fluid planetary objects. See Letter p.366
doi: 10.1038/533330a
Structural biology: Snapshots of transcription initiation p.331
The enzyme RNA polymerase II, along with several transcription factors, initiates DNA transcription. Analyses reveal the structures involved in this process in human and yeast cells at high-resolution. See Articles p.353 & p.359
doi: 10.1038/nature18437
Analysis
Reproducible pharmacogenomic profiling of cancer cell line panels p.333
Large-scale analyses of the drug sensitivity of cancer cell lines have been previously reported to yield conflicting conclusions; this Analysis uses independently generated data to demonstrate that consistency can be achieved if key laboratory and data analysis practices are considered when future studies are undertaken.
doi: 10.1038/nature17987
Articles
A platform for the discovery of new macrolide antibiotics p.338
A practical, fully synthetic route to macrolide antibiotics via the convergent assembly of simple chemical building blocks is described; more than 300 new macrolide antibiotic candidates have been synthesized using this approach, a number of which are active against bacterial strains that are resistant to currently used antibiotics.
doi: 10.1038/nature17967
Structure of the T4 baseplate and its function in triggering sheath contraction p.346
A tour-de-force of structural biology solves the structure of the macromolecular injection machinery used to deliver a phage genome into a bacterium.
doi: 10.1038/nature17971
Transcription initiation complex structures elucidate DNA opening p.353
The cryo-electron microscopy structures of yeast initiation complexes containing the transcription factors TBP, TFIIA, TFIIB, TFIIE, and TFIIF and containing either closed or open promoter DNA are reported, providing mechanistic insights into DNA opening and template-strand loading.
doi: 10.1038/nature17990
Near-atomic resolution visualization of human transcription promoter opening p.359
Cryo-electron microscopy structural models of the human pre-initiation complex at all major steps of transcription initiation at near atomic-level resolution are presented, providing new mechanistic insights into the processes of promoter melting and transcription-bubble formation, as well as an almost complete proposed structural model of all of the pre-initiation complex components and their interactions with DNA.
doi: 10.1038/nature17970
Letters
An irradiated brown-dwarf companion to an accreting white dwarf p.366
Spectroscopic detection and characterization of an irradiated substellar donor planet in an accreting white-dwarf binary system reveals a donor mass of 0.055 ± 0.008 solar masses, an average spectral type of L1 ± 1 and an average irradiation-induced temperature difference between the dayside and nightside of 57 kelvin.
doi: 10.1038/nature17952
Self-assembly of coherently dynamic, auxetic, two-dimensional protein crystals p.369
Mutants of the C4-symmetric protein RhuA were designed to self-assemble into two-dimensional crystalline lattices with precise spatial arrangements and patterns; the lattices of one of the variants are auxetic and deform perpendicularly to an applied force in a way that is contrary to what is generally expected in typical materials.
doi: 10.1038/nature17633
Iron(III )-catalysed carbonyl–olefin metathesis p.374
The olefin metathesis reaction of two unsaturated substrates is one of the most powerful carbon–carbon-bond-forming reactions in organic chemistry; here, a catalytic carbonyl–olefin ring-closing metathesis reaction is demonstrated that uses iron, an abundant and environmentally benign metal, as a catalyst.
doi: 10.1038/nature17432
Changing atmospheric CO2 concentration was the primary driver of early Cenozoic climate p.380
A reconstruction of atmospheric CO2 concentration from boron isotopes recorded in planktonic foraminifera examines climate–carbon interactions over the past tens of millions of years and confirms a strong linkage between climate and atmospheric CO2.
doi: 10.1038/nature17423
Repeated large-scale retreat and advance of Totten Glacier indicated by inland bed erosion p.385
The stability of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet and its contribution to past sea-level rise are not well defined; in this paper, airborne geophysical data and ice-sheet models are used to show that the Totten Glacier has undergone large-scale retreats and advances, and that it could contribute several metres of sea-level rise in a fully retreated scenario.
doi: 10.1038/nature17447
Metabolic acceleration and the evolution of human brain size and life history p.390
Compared to other apes, humans live longer, reproduce faster and have larger brains; here, total energy expenditure is studied in humans and all species of great ape, and is shown to be significantly higher in humans, demonstrating that the human lineage has experienced an energy-boosting acceleration in metabolic rate.
doi: 10.1038/nature17654
Deep-sea diversity patterns are shaped by energy availability p.393
Depth-dependent patterns in ocean species diversity can be explained by latitudinal variations in energy availability, with shelf and upper-slope diversity increasing with thermal energy availability, and deep-sea diversity increasing with chemical energy availability; the discovery of these distinct patterns could help to guide the conservation and management of these remote ecosystems.
doi: 10.1038/nature17937
Local fitness landscape of the green fluorescent protein p.397
Comprehensive genotype–phenotype mapping of the green fluorescent protein shows that the local fitness peak is narrow, shaped by a high prevalence of epistatic interactions, providing for the loss of fluorescence when the joint effect of mutations exceeds a threshold.
doi: 10.1038/nature17995
Opponent and bidirectional control of movement velocity in the basal ganglia p.402
Activity in the direct and indirect basal ganglia pathways can bidirectionally control the speed of movements that underlie reward-seeking actions in mice without affecting motivation.
doi: 10.1038/nature17639
FGF8 and SHH substitute for anterior–posterior tissue interactions to induce limb regeneration p.407
The long-standing puzzle of why salamander limb regeneration requires anterior and posterior tissue interaction has been solved by the demonstration that fibroblast growth factor 8 and sonic hedgehog are key anterior and posterior cross-inductive signals that drive regeneration.
doi: 10.1038/nature17972
An obligatory role for neurotensin in high-fat-diet-induced obesity p.411
Neurotensin, a peptide expressed in the enteroendocrine cells of the small intestine that is released upon fat ingestion, is shown to increase fatty acid absorption, with neurotensin-deficient mice being protected from obesity induced by a high-fat diet.
doi: 10.1038/nature17662
Maintenance and propagation of a deleterious mitochondrial genome by the mitochondrial unfolded protein response p.416
In the context of mitochondrial genome heteroplasmy that causes defective oxidative phosphorylation in C. elegans, the ATFS-1-mediated mitochondrial unfolded protein response maintains the deleterious mitochondrial DNA in an attempt to recover oxidative phosphorylation activity and avoid cellular dysfunction.
doi: 10.1038/nature17989
Programmable editing of a target base in genomic DNA without double-stranded DNA cleavage p.420
CRISPR/Cas9 DNA editing creates a double-stranded break in the target DNA, which can frequently generate random insertion or deletion of bases (indels); a new genome editing approach combining Cas9 with a cytidine deaminase is described here, which corrects point mutations more efficiently than canonical Cas9, while avoiding double-stranded breaks and indel formation.
doi: 10.1038/nature17946
Structure of the thermally stable Zika virus p.425
The 3.7 Å cryo-electron microscopy structure of Zika virus is presented, revealing a typical flavivirus architecture; in contrast to the related flavivirus dengue virus, Zika virus is thermally stable at 40 °C, and this structural stability may be a feature that helps it to survive in semen, saliva and urine.
doi: 10.1038/nature17994
