Mosquito hemocytes are blood cells that are fundamental for combating systemic infection. A study published in BMC Genomics shows that hemocyte gene transcription in response to immune challenge is pathogen-specific and reaffirms the primary role of these cells in immunity.
A recent paper in BMC Biology reports the first large-scale insertional mutagenesis screen in a non-drosophilid insect, the red flour beetle Tribolium castaneum. This screen marks the beginning of a non-biased, 'forward genetics' approach to the study of genetic mechanisms operating in Tribolium.
The use of cultivation-independent approaches to map microbial diversity, including recent work published in BMC Biology, has now shown that protists, like bacteria/archaea, are much more diverse than had been realized. Uncovering eukaryotic diversity may now be limited not by access to samples or cost but rather by the availability of full-length reference sequence data.
Although proteins involved in determining apical-basal cell polarity have been directly linked to tumorigenesis, their precise roles in this process remain unclear. A recent report in BMC Biology clarifies the signaling pathways that control cell polarity, proliferation and apoptosis downstream of the tumor suppressor and apical-basal polarity determinant Scribble.
A recent report in BMC Biology indicates that modern humans first arrived in southern East Asia 60,000 years ago and settled the rest of East Asia from there. This early date and migration route has significant implications for our understanding of the origins of present-day human populations.
The Notch signaling pathway has multifarious functions in the organization of the developing vertebrate embryo. One of its most fundamental roles is in the emergence of the regular pattern of somites that will give rise to the musculoskeletal structures of the trunk. The parts it plays in the early operation of the segmentation clock and the later definition and differentiation of the somites are beginning to be understood.
Analyses of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) have challenged the concept that genetic diversity within populations is governed by effective population size and mutation rate. A recent study in BMC Evolutionary Biology shows that variation in the rate of mutation rather than in population size is the main explanation for variations in mtDNA diversity observed among bird species.
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