Do cilia put brakes on the cell cycle?

Two papers in this issue show that dynein-binding proteins may regulate the G1-S transition through an effect on cilia. Nde1, a known partner of dynein light chain LC8, controls ciliary length in vitro and in zebrafish, and influences the G1-S progression. The phosphorylation of Tctex1, a dynein light chain, modulates cilia length and accelerates G1-S, thereby regulating proliferation-differentiation decisions in the developing mouse neocortex.     

Conflicts of interest in health care: who guards the guardians?

Conflicts of interest are rife in all areas of human endeavor, including medicine. Dealing with them is often difficult, because various disclosure remedies are sometimes too weak, while explicit prohibitions against participation in certain forms of research could block the needed synergies between scientists who work in universities, government, and industry. The situation is made still more difficult, because any effort to control one set of conflicts will necessarily generate another in its stead, as is well captured in Juvenal's famous question, "Who will guard the guardians?" That problem is more acute today, because many of our social watchdogs are in fact complex organizations that are rife with their own internal conflicts of interest. The problem is acute for the FDA, for example, which so fears the release of harmful drugs that it often keeps beneficial ones off the market. The problem can also arise in connection with the review of medical research by major journals, which is well illustrated by the recent effort of the New England Journal of Medicine to attack a Vioxx study it published in order to protect its own reputation.     

Where Is the Malpractice Crisis Taking Us?

There have been several approaches taken to solve the malpractice insurance problem in this country. However, since the cost of malpractice insurance continues to climb, the changes so far have not solved the problem, and more changes seem inevitable. A major change could be the development of a patient insurance plan that would provide compensation for certain injuries related to medical care. The insurance coverage would be centered on hospital care. If certain requirements are met, the plan may not be more expensive than the current tort liability system, and would offer several advantages. In addition to the patient injury insurance, there could be federal assumption of liability for national immunization programs.     

Cell cycling? Check your brakes

If there was any pervasive theme at the Cold Spring Harbor Cell Cycle Meeting (May 15 19, 2002), it was negativity. This is clearly the age of the negative cell cycle regulator, as a large percentage of the talks focused on the critical roles of cell cycle inhibitory networks.     

What is the best approach to treating schizophrenia in developing countries?

BACKGROUND TO THE DEBATE: Schizophrenia affects an estimated 25 million people in low- and middle-income countries, with an average lifetime risk of about 1%. The illness is associated with excess mortality from a variety of causes. A 2001 Institute of Medicine report on mental illness in developing countries found that in 1990, over two-thirds of people with schizophrenia in these countries were not receiving any treatment (http://www.nap.edu/catalog/10111.html). The report found no evidence that the proportion of treated people in the developing world had increased since 1990. There is now a debate among mental health professionals in low-income countries over how best to improve patient care. In this article, three psychiatrists give their different viewpoints on the current status of treatment efforts for schizophrenia in the developing world and the measures that can be taken to increase the proportion of patients receiving treatment.     

The best of all worlds or the best possible world? Developmental constraint in the evolution of β-tubulin and the sperm tail axoneme

Through evolutionary history, some features of the phenotype show little variation. Stabilizing selection could produce this result, but the possibility also exists that a feature is conserved because it is developmentally constrained--only one or a few developmental mechanisms can produce that feature. We present experimental data documenting developmental constraint in the assembly of the motile sperm tail axoneme. The 9+2 microtubule architecture of the eukaryotic axoneme has been deeply conserved. We argue that the quality of motility supported by axonemes with this morphology explains their long conservation, rather than a developmental necessity for the 9+2 architecture. However, our functional tests in Drosophila spermatogenesis reveal considerable constraint in the coevolution of testis-specific beta-tubulin and the sperm tail axoneme. The evolution of testis beta-tubulins used in insect sperm tail axonemes is highly punctuated, indicating some pressure acting on their evolution. We provide a mechanistic explanation for their punctuated evolution by testing structure-function relationships between testis beta-tubulin and the motile axoneme in D. melanogaster. We discovered that a highly conserved sequence feature of beta-tubulins used in motile axonemes is needed to specify central pair formation. Second, our data suggest that cooperativity in the function of internal beta-tubulin amino acids is needed to support the long axonemes characteristic of Drosophila sperm tails. Thus, central pair formation constrains the evolution of the axoneme motif, and intramolecular cooperativity makes the evolution of the internal residues path dependent, which slows their evolution. Our results explain why a highly specialized beta-tubulin is needed to construct the Drosophila sperm tail axoneme. We conclude that these constraints have fixed testis-specific beta-tubulin identity in Drosophila.     

IPBES-6: the best plenary yet?

The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) held its 6th plenary session in Medellin (Colombia) during March 2018. Several assessments were due for acceptance by the plenary. We here give news from the plenary and the platform, sketch out important key messages from the regional assessments as well as of the global thematic assessment on land degradation and restoration. We further give an outlook on the work ahead and potential for contributions from the scientific community to the important work of IPBES.     

Do phytoseiid mites select the best prey species in terms of reproductive success?

Optimal foraging theory predicts that predators prefer those prey species that are most rewarding in terms of reproductive success, which is dependent on prey quality and prey availability. To investigate which selection pressures may have moulded prey preference in an acarine system consisting of two prey species and three predator species, we tested whether prey preference of the predators is matched by the associated reproductive success.The predators involved areAmblyseius finlandicus (Oudemans),Am. potentillae (Garman) andTyphlodromus pyri Scheuten. The prey species are the apple rust mite (Aculus schlechtendali (Nalepa)) and the fruit-tree red spider mite (Panonychus ulmi (Koch)).Reproductive success was assessed in terms of intrinsic rate of increase and for one predator also in terms of diapause induction. All three predator species reached highest reproductive success on the same prey species: apple rust mite. This was most pronounced for the predatorAm. finlandicus, because its larval stage suffered severe mortality when feeding onP. ulmi.An independent study on prey preference of the three predator species (Dicke et al., 1988) revealed thatAm. finlandicus prefersAc. schlechtendali toP. ulmi, whereas the other two predator species have the reverse preference.Thus, on the basis of current data, prey preference ofAm. finlandicus can be understood in terms of reproductive success. However, this is not so for prey preference ofT. pyri andAm. potentillae. Investigations needed for a better understanding of prey preference of the last-named two predator species are discussed.     

In whose interest? Policy and politics in assisted reproduction

This paper interprets the British legislative process that initiated the first comprehensive national regulation of embryo research and fertility services and examines subsequent efforts to restrain the assisted reproduction industry. After describing and evaluating British regulatory measures, I consider successive failures to control the assisted reproduction industry in the US. I discuss disparities between UK and US regulatory initiatives and their bearing on regulation in other countries. Then I turn to the political and social structures in which the assisted reproduction industry is embedded. I argue that regulatory bodies are seldom neutral arbiters. They tend to respond most readily to special interests and neglect strategies that could more effectively meet the health needs of the people they represent. Neither national nor international bodies have aggressively pursued policies to harness the industry, reduce infertility rates, or meet the needs of people whose fertility is threatened by substandard healthcare and environmental neglect. In conclusion, I consider recent initiatives by activist groups to mount an alternative response to the industry's current practices and build a transnational reproductive justice movement.