Journal Club

Highlighting recent, timely papers selected by Academy member labs

Author Archives: Jessica P. Johnson

By separating life stages, metamorphosis may circumvent harmful evolutionary tradeoffs

Posted on July 30, 2019 by Jessica P. Johnson

There’s no guarantee evolution will bestow the best version of every trait. The benefits of one trait may impose a cost when an unfavorable trait, correlated genetically, comes along for the ride. In a recent study on wood frogs (Rana sylvatica) … Continue reading →

Journal Club: Tumors create an acidic environment that helps them invade surrounding tissues

Posted on March 29, 2019 by Jessica P. Johnson

Cancer cells tend to turn their extracellular environment acidic, thus helping these rogue cells thrive while creating a hostile environment for normal ones. Acidosis promotes tumor growth, metastasis and drug resistance, while helping tumor cells evade the immune system. But … Continue reading →

Journal Club: Amoeba have long-distance preference for certain bacteria, pointing to other cell-sensing insights

Posted on January 29, 2019 by Jessica P. Johnson

How does the microscopic amoeba track down prey in the vastness of the forest floor? Ample research on the soil amoeba Dicytostelium discoideum, affectionately called “Dicty” by researchers, has provided some clues. But the mechanisms behind long-distance sensing of bacterial … Continue reading →

Journal Club: Newly solved structure of a GABA receptor could offer drug design insights

Posted on January 14, 2019 by Jessica P. Johnson

Neurons message each other with the help of excitatory or inhibitory neurotransmitters. But to actually deliver those messages, the neurotransmitters must dock with protein receptors embedded in the cell membranes of adjacent neurons. Of particular interest in the human brain … Continue reading →

Categories: Journal Club | Neuroscience | Pharmacology | Tagged cryo-EM, depression, epilepsy, GABA receptor, ligand, neurotransmitter, X-ray crystallography | Leave a comment

Journal Club: Single gene mutation may boost recombination and help produce better crops

Posted on December 7, 2018 by Jessica P. Johnson

As climate change and population growth threaten to destabilize global food security, plant breeders are ramping up efforts to create better, more productive crops. But in order to introduce new traits, breeding techniques typically rely on rare genetic recombination events … Continue reading →

Journal Club: Simple model reproduces patterns of toxic protein buildup across multiple neurodegenerative diseases

Posted on October 26, 2018 by Jessica P. Johnson

Fatal neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) begin as tiny pockets of misfolded proteins that evade the body’s normal detritus-removal systems. They spread throughout the brain and clog neural pathways. But exactly how these proteins propagate … Continue reading →

Journal Club: Proprioceptive neurons offer new insights into a “sixth sense”

Posted on June 25, 2018 by Jessica P. Johnson

Proprioception allows people to know the position of parts of the body without seeing them, enabling us to touch type, walk in the dark without falling over, or drive a car while looking at the road. Defects in this sensory … Continue reading →

Journal Club: Horizontal gene transfer can boost fitness quickly, but the conditions matter

Posted on April 27, 2018 by Jessica P. Johnson

Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) is rampant in the bacterial community, as well as in some other members of the tree of life. Researchers have long known that HGT events can improve an organism’s ability to adapt to changing environments. What’s … Continue reading →

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Journal Club: New clues in the mystery of the mechanism of general anesthetics

Posted on January 26, 2018 by Jessica P. Johnson

Anesthetics have been used in surgery since the mid-1800s, but their exact mechanisms of action continue to be the subject of intense investigation. Past studies have suggested they block neurotransmitter receptors postsynaptically. Now a new study, published January 9 in … Continue reading →

Journal Club: Engineered enzyme could streamline synthesis of nitrogen containing compounds

Posted on June 15, 2017 by Jessica P. Johnson

Researchers have re-engineered a bacterial enzyme to transform abundant alkanes into industrially important nitrogen-containing compounds that can be used to synthesize pharmaceuticals. In principle, the enzyme, now called P411CHA, could help streamline some methods for creating synthetic molecules, which often … Continue reading →

Journal Club: Analysis of bony fishes suggests convergent evolution is more prevalent than previously thought

Posted on May 23, 2017 by Jessica P. Johnson

Habitats and environmental pressures shape a variety of animal morphologies and behaviors over vast evolutionary time scales. These environmental pressures can sometimes produce nearly identical traits, even in completely unrelated lineages. This phenomenon, called convergent evolution, results in modern species that appear very similar despite … Continue reading →