Contents
17 June 2015
Vol 7, Issue 292
Vol 7, Issue 292
Contents
Focus
- Cardiac aging: Send in the vinculin reinforcements
Integration of multiple analytical approaches across three species—fly, rat, and nonhuman primate—reveals additional roles for vinculin in cytoskeletal aging and cardiovascular disease (Kaushik et al., this issue).
Research Articles
- Phenotypic assays identify azoramide as a small-molecule modulator of the unfolded protein response with antidiabetic activity
New assays that measure endoplasmic reticulum (ER) function and protein folding identify a small molecule, azoramide, that exerts antidiabetic effects.
- Vinculin network–mediated cytoskeletal remodeling regulates contractile function in the aging heart
Cardiac vinculin overexpression is a conserved aging response that is associated with enhanced myocardial performance and extended organismal life span.
- Detection of human brain cancer infiltration ex vivo and in vivo using quantitative optical coherence tomography
Optical coherence tomography (OCT) can distinguish cancer from noncancer tissue in vivo in rodent models of human brain cancer and ex vivo in fresh human brain cancer specimens with high sensitivity and specificity.
- Transglutaminase 4 as a prostate autoantigen in male subfertility
TGM4 is a male-specific autoantigen for prostatitis associated with autoimmune polyendocrine syndrome type 1.
Editors' Choice
- When instability is a good thing
Mismatch repair–deficient tumors have a high rate of somatic mutations, have higher neoantigen formation, and are more sensitive to immune checkpoint blockade.
- Monitoring blood pressure with your bathroom scale
Imperceptible motions of the body can be measured with ballistocardiography and could help track cardiovascular variables and disease.
- MIF: A harbinger of evil
Macrophage migration inhibitory factor in pancreatic cancer exosomes initiates a premetastatic niche in the liver.
About The Cover
ONLINE COVER Young at Heart. As we age, the heart figures out ways to keep healthy and beat normally, despite minimal regenerative capabilities. To uncover how the heart does this, Kaushik et al. characterized the proteomes of young and old rhesus monkeys and rats, and found that such age-associated remodeling is linked to the cardiomyocyte cytoskeleton; specifically, the protein vinculin. Vinculin overexpression in flies further revealed its beneficial effects on the heart, as well as its ability to prolong life span. See the related Focus by DeLeon-Pennell and Lindsey. [CREDIT: P. SVARC/CORBIS]