To Attract or to Inform: What Are Titles For?

This paper critiques some titles in journal articles for being misleading and it argues that titles need to be informative. Examples are given of work on measuring the effectiveness of titles in two areas-sentence structure and reader comprehension - and the paper concludes with brief comments on the effectiveness of book titles.……     

Anodic dissolution of metals in ionic liquids

The anodic dissolution of metals is an important topic for battery design, material finishing and metal digestion. Ionic liquids are being used in all of these areas but the research on the anodic dissolution is relatively few in these media. This study investigates the behaviour of 9 metals in an ionic liquid [C4mim][Cl] and a deep eutectic solvent, Ethaline, which is a 1:2 mol ratio mixture of choline chloride and ethylene glycol. It is shown that for the majority of metals studied a quasi-passivation of the metal surface occurs, primarily due to the formation of insoluble films on the electrode surface. The behaviour of most metals is different in [C4mim][Cl] to that in Ethaline due in part to the differences in viscosity. The formation of passivating salt films can be decreased with stirring or by increasing the electrolyte temperature, thereby increasing ligand transport to the electrode surface.     

C. elegans ORFeome version 1.1: experimental verification of the genome annotation and resource for proteome-scale protein expression

To verify the genome annotation and to create a resource to functionally characterize the proteome, we attempted to Gateway-clone all predicted protein-encoding open reading frames (ORFs), or the 'ORFeome,' of Caenorhabditis elegans. We successfully cloned approximately 12,000 ORFs (ORFeome 1.1), of which roughly 4,000 correspond to genes that are untouched by any cDNA or expressed-sequence tag (EST). More than 50% of predicted genes needed corrections in their intron-exon structures. Notably, approximately 11,000 C. elegans proteins can now be expressed under many conditions and characterized using various high-throughput strategies, including large-scale interactome mapping. We suggest that similar ORFeome projects will be valuable for other organisms, including humans.     

Minocycline inhibits cytochrome c release and delays progression of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in mice

Minocycline mediates neuroprotection in experimental models of neurodegeneration. It inhibits the activity of caspase-1, caspase-3, inducible form of nitric oxide synthetase (iNOS) and p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK). Although minocycline does not directly inhibit these enzymes, the effects may result from interference with upstream mechanisms resulting in their secondary activation. Because the above-mentioned factors are important in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), we tested minocycline in mice with ALS. Here we report that minocycline delays disease onset and extends survival in ALS mice. Given the broad efficacy of minocycline, understanding its mechanisms of action is of great importance. We find that minocycline inhibits mitochondrial permeability-transition-mediated cytochrome c release. Minocycline-mediated inhibition of cytochrome c release is demonstrated in vivo, in cells, and in isolated mitochondria. Understanding the mechanism of action of minocycline will assist in the development and testing of more powerful and effective analogues. Because of the safety record of minocycline, and its ability to penetrate the blood-brain barrier, this drug may be a novel therapy for ALS.     

Stimulation and recording from single cells in whole animal preparations ofAplysia

Résumé Nous avons introduit des microélectrodes dans les neurones des ganglions pédieux et pleural de l'Aplysie suspendue d'une manière qui permettait des mouvements limités. Les stimulations physiologiques agissant sur des neurones pédieux sont plus simples que celles qui excitent les neurones pleuraux. La stimulation intracellulaire montre que certains neurones pédieux opèrent comme des «motor-neurones», tandis que les neurones pleuraux (la cellule géante de gauche (LGC) comprise) présentent un comportement complexe.     

TTC21B contributes both causal and modifying alleles across the ciliopathy spectrum

Ciliary dysfunction leads to a broad range of overlapping phenotypes, collectively termed ciliopathies. This grouping is underscored by genetic overlap, where causal genes can also contribute modifier alleles to clinically distinct disorders. Here we show that mutations in TTC21B, which encodes the retrograde intraflagellar transport protein IFT139, cause both isolated nephronophthisis and syndromic Jeune asphyxiating thoracic dystrophy. Moreover, although resequencing of TTC21B in a large, clinically diverse ciliopathy cohort and matched controls showed a similar frequency of rare changes, in vivo and in vitro evaluations showed a significant enrichment of pathogenic alleles in cases (P < 0.003), suggesting that TTC21B contributes pathogenic alleles to ～5% of ciliopathy cases. Our data illustrate how genetic lesions can be both causally associated with diverse ciliopathies and interact in trans with other disease-causing genes and highlight how saturated resequencing followed by functional analysis of all variants informs the genetic architecture of inherited disorders.