Editorials
原子力発電には低炭素というメリットがあるが、原子力発電が今後生き残るためには非常に多くの課題がある。
A safe place for nuclear energy? p.125
Rewarding existing nuclear power plants for the value of their low-carbon power makes sense, but the nuclear industry has a lot of work to do if it is survive and thrive in the twenty-first century.
doi: 10.1038/536125a
LHC(大型ハドロン衝突型加速器)で検出された、新粒子を期待させるシグナルははかなく消え去ったが、これが高エネルギー物理学の終わりを意味するわけではない。
Physicists need to make the case for high-energy experiments p.125
The disappearance of a tantalizing LHC signal is disappointing for those who want to build the next big accelerator.
doi: 10.1038/536125b
News
LHCで昨年検出され、新粒子の存在を示すと期待されたシグナルが、単なる確率的変動であることが明らかに。
Hopes for revolutionary new LHC particle dashed p.133
But the hunt continues for elementary particles beyond the standard model of physics.
doi: 10.1038/nature.2016.20376
有人航空機の高度記録を塗り替えるグライダーを利用した、成層圏の大気研究計画が。
Glider aims to break world record — and boost climate science p.134
Perlan mission will surf stratospheric waves and conduct atmospheric research.
doi: 10.1038/536134a
米国が、ヒト・動物融合胚研究への助成を解禁する方向へ。
US agency to lift ban on funding human–animal hybrids p.135
Researchers in the United States will soon be able to resume creating chimaera-based projects.
doi: 10.1038/nature.2016.20379
CRISPR技術の代替法として報告されたNgAgoの有効性に疑問の声が。
Replications, ridicule and a recluse: the controversy over NgAgo gene-editing intensifies p.136
As failures to replicate results using the CRISPR alternative stack up, a quiet scientist stands by his claims.
doi: 10.1038/536136a
CRISPR以外のゲノム編集法を紹介。
Beyond CRISPR: A guide to the many other ways to edit a genome p.136
The popular technique has limitations that have sparked searches for alternatives.
doi: 10.1038/536136b
カナダの湖底から得られた動植物DNAの解析で、アメリカ大陸への人類の無氷回廊移動説を否定する結果が。
Plant and animal DNA suggests first Americans took the coastal route p.138
Life came to ice-free Canadian corridor too late to sustain migrations of Clovis and pre-Clovis people.
doi: 10.1038/536138a
News Features
技術:情報処理のボトルネック
The bandwidth bottleneck that is throttling the Internet p.139
世界の情報ハイウェイが壊滅的な渋滞に陥るのを避けようと、データ通路の修復と拡張の研究が急がれている。
doi: 10.1038/536139a
News & Views
エネルギー科学:銀の出世コース
Energy science: Fast track for silver p.150
銀イオンの迅速な輸送を介して電気を通す固体複合材料が報告された。この材料での銀イオンの拡散速度は一部の液体の場合よりも速く、電荷貯蔵デバイスでの応用に有望と考えられている。
doi: 10.1038/536150a
神経科学:シナプスの大黒柱であるナノカラム
Neuroscience: Nanocolumns at the heart of the synapse p.151
ニューロン間のシナプス間隙をまたぐナノカラムが、神経伝達分子の放出領域と捕捉領域を連結していることが明らかになった。この知見は、シナプスの構造と調節の機構についての情報を与えてくれる。
doi: 10.1038/nature18917
システム神経科学:ヒト大脳皮質の最新地図
Systems neuroscience: A modern map of the human cerebral cortex p.152
ヒト大脳皮質を作り上げているモジュールを示した信頼性の高い地図が今回、明らかにされた。これは脳の機能と疾患の解明をさらに進めるための出発点となると期待される。
doi: 10.1038/nature18914
がん:内皮細胞を殺して転移を進める
Cancer: Endothelial-cell killing promotes metastasis p.154
血流中のがん細胞が肺に進入するには、肺の内皮細胞障壁を突破しなければならない。がん細胞はこの離れ業に、内皮細胞の細胞死を誘導するシグナルを送ることで成功していることが、今回明らかになった。
doi: 10.1038/nature19465
細胞生物学:タンパク質の破壊につながるTORC1経路
Cell biology: The TORC1 pathway to protein destruction p.155
タンパク質分解を行う複合体であるプロテアソームの研究から、プロテインキナーゼTORC1を介して作用し、プロテアソームの活性を細胞の必要に応じて調整する、進化上保存されてきた経路が明らかになった。
doi: 10.1038/nature18919
がん:膵臓腫瘍の運命と脂肪との関係
Cancer: Fat and the fate of pancreatic tumours p.157
肥満した膵臓がん患者では、脂肪細胞と腫瘍を取り囲む炎症性の微小環境の間に多数存在する相互作用が、予後と化学療法後の転帰が平均より悪いことの原因となっていると分かった。
doi: 10.1038/nature19419
Articles
材料科学:人工混合伝導体における相乗的な超高速の質量の貯蔵と除去
Synergistic, ultrafast mass storage and removal in artificial mixed conductors p.159
An artificial composite of the super-ionic conductor RbAg4I5 and the electronic conductor graphite exhibits extremely fast diffusion of silver ions at the interface between the two materials, generating both silver-excess and silver-deficient sites.
doi: 10.1038/nature19078
実験進化:5万世代にわたる実験でのゲノム進化の速度と様式
Tempo and mode of genome evolution in a 50,000-generation experiment p.165
Whole-genome sequencing of 264 clones sampled from 12 Escherichia coli populations evolved over 50,000 generations under identical culture conditions is used to characterize the patterns and dynamics of genome evolution over time.
doi: 10.1038/nature18959
認知神経科学:ヒト大脳皮質の多モードの区画分け
A multi-modal parcellation of human cerebral cortex p.171
A detailed parcellation (map) of the human cerebral cortex has been obtained by integrating multi-modal imaging data, including functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), and the resulting freely available resources will enable detailed comparative studies of the human brain in health, ageing and disease.
doi: 10.1038/nature18933
微生物学:海洋の酸素欠乏および窒素損失と関連付けられたSAR11細菌
SAR11 bacteria linked to ocean anoxia and nitrogen loss p.179
Bacteria of the SAR11 clade constitute up to one half of all marine microbes and are thought to require oxygen for growth; here, a subgroup of SAR11 bacteria are shown to thrive in ocean oxygen minimum zones and to encode abundant respiratory nitrate reductases.
doi: 10.1038/nature19068
細胞生物学:ある進化的に保存された経路がプロテアソームの恒常性を制御する
An evolutionarily conserved pathway controls proteasome homeostasis p.184
Proteasome abundance is crucial for cell survival, but how cells maintain adequate amounts of proteasome is unclear; an analysis in yeast identifies TORC1 and Mpk1 as central components of a pathway regulating proteasome homeostasis through the coordinated regulation of regulatory particle assembly chaperones and proteasome subunits—this pathway is evolutionarily conserved with mTOR and ERK5 regulating proteasome abundance in mammals.
doi: 10.1038/nature18943
Letters
惑星科学:大赤斑の上空の木星上層大気の加熱
Heating of Jupiter’s upper atmosphere above the Great Red Spot p.190
The upper atmosphere above Jupiter’s Great Red Spot—the largest storm in the Solar System—is hundreds of degrees hotter than anywhere else on the planet; the heating must come from below, suggesting coupling between Jupiter’s lower and upper atmospheres, probably the result of upwardly propagating acoustic or gravity waves.
doi: 10.1038/nature18940
量子光学:光共振器中の単一原子による光子–光子量子ゲート
A photon–photon quantum gate based on a single atom in an optical resonator p.193
To enable two photons to interact, a single atom in an optical resonator is used to build a universal photon–photon quantum gate; this could lead to applications in long-distance quantum communication and scalable quantum computing that require the processing of optical quantum information.
doi: 10.1038/nature18592
ナノスケールデバイス:ナノ発電体としての単層MoS2ナノ細孔
Single-layer MoS2 nanopores as nanopower generators p.197
Blue energy is a desirable renewable resource, involving the osmotic transport of ions through a membrane from seawater to fresh water; here, nanopores have been created in two-dimensional molybdenum-disulfide membranes, and shown to generate a substantial osmotic power output.
doi: 10.1038/nature18593
地球ダイナミクス:急激なプレート加速が形成する大陸のリフト縁辺
Abrupt plate accelerations shape rifted continental margins p.201
By applying a new geotectonic analysis technique to revised global plate reconstructions, rifted margins are shown to feature an initial slow rift phase followed by an abrupt increase of plate divergence prior to breakup.
doi: 10.1038/nature18319
進化遺伝学:ホモ・サピエンスに特異的な遺伝子ファミリーと染色体16p11.2のCNV感受性の出現
Emergence of a Homo sapiens-specific gene family and chromosome 16p11.2 CNV susceptibility p.205
Genetic differences that specify unique aspects of human evolution have typically been identified by comparative analyses between the genomes of humans and closely related primates, including more recently the genomes of archaic hominins. Not all regions of the genome, however, are equally amenable to such study. Recurrent copy number variation (CNV) at chromosome 16p11.2 accounts for approximately 1% of cases of autism and is mediated by a complex set of segmental duplications, many of which arose recently during human evolution. Here we reconstruct the evolutionary history of the locus and identify bolA family member 2 (BOLA2) as a gene duplicated exclusively in Homo sapiens. We estimate that a 95-kilobase-pair segment containing BOLA2 duplicated across the critical region approximately 282 thousand years ago (ka), one of the latest among a series of genomic changes that dramatically restructured the locus during hominid evolution. All humans examined carried one or more copies of the duplication, which nearly fixed early in the human lineage—a pattern unlikely to have arisen so rapidly in the absence of selection (P < 0.0097). We show that the duplication of BOLA2 led to a novel, human-specific in-frame fusion transcript and that BOLA2 copy number correlates with both RNA expression (r = 0.36) and protein level (r = 0.65), with the greatest expression difference between human and chimpanzee in experimentally derived stem cells. Analyses of 152 patients carrying a chromosome 16p11.2 rearrangement show that more than 96% of breakpoints occur within the H. sapiens-specific duplication. In summary, the duplicative transposition of BOLA2 at the root of the H. sapiens lineage about 282 ka simultaneously increased copy number of a gene associated with iron homeostasis and predisposed our species to recurrent rearrangements associated with disease.
doi: 10.1038/nature19075
神経科学:神経伝達物質の放出部位を受容体部位にそろえるシナプス間ナノカラム
A trans-synaptic nanocolumn aligns neurotransmitter release to receptors p.210
Synaptic vesicle fusion, as evoked by action potentials, is confined to presynaptic protein nanoclusters, which are closely aligned with concentrated postsynaptic receptors and their scaffolding proteins—an organization termed a ‘nanocolumn’.
doi: 10.1038/nature19058
がん:腫瘍細胞が誘導するdeath receptor 6を介した内皮細胞のネクロトーシスは転移を促進する
Tumour-cell-induced endothelial cell necroptosis via death receptor 6 promotes metastasis p.215
Human and murine tumour cells induce programmed necrosis (necroptosis) of endothelial cells, which promotes tumour cell extravasation and metastasis.
doi: 10.1038/nature19076
細胞生物学:SRPと新生ポリペプチドとの相互作用の包括的プロファイリング
Global profiling of SRP interaction with nascent polypeptides p.219
Here, the selection of substrates by the protein–RNA complex known as the signal recognition particle (SRP) is investigated in the bacterium Escherichia coli, revealing that the SRP has a strong preference for hydrophobic transmembrane domains of inner membrane proteins.
doi: 10.1038/nature19070
分子生物学:膜ターゲッティングに際しては、SRPが翻訳時にシグナル非依存的に先行結合する
Cotranslational signal-independent SRP preloading during membrane targeting p.224
The signal recognition particle (SRP) preferentially binds peptides destined for secretion before peptide-targeting signals are translated through recognition of elements in their mRNA, including non-coding sequences.
doi: 10.1038/nature19309
構造生物学:mTORC1の上流で起こるCASTOR1によるアルギニン検知の機構
Mechanism of arginine sensing by CASTOR1 upstream of mTORC1 p.229
Structural data on the protein CASTOR1 reveal how the mTORC1 pathway senses intracellular arginine, suggesting a repurposing of an evolutionarily pre-metazoan mechanism.
doi: 10.1038/nature19079
生物物理学:単一分子の分解能で細菌の転写共役修復を再構築する
Reconstruction of bacterial transcription-coupled repair at single-molecule resolution p.234
Single-molecule assays show that the recruitment of UvrA and UvrAB to Mfd–RNA polymerase complex formed on a DNA lesion arrests the translocating complex and causes its dissolution.
doi: 10.1038/nature19080