Moving RNA moves RNA forward

Cell communication affects all aspects of cell structure and behavior, such as cell proliferation, differentiation, division, and coordination of various physiological functions. The moving RNA in plants and mammalian cells indicates that nucleic acid could be one of the various types of messengers for cell communication. The microvesicle is a critical pathway that mediates RNA moving and keeps moving RNA stable in body fluids. When moving miRNA enters the target cell, it functions by altering the gene expression profile and significantly inhibiting mRNA translation in recipient cells. Thus, moving RNA may act as a long-range modulator during development, organogenesis, and tumor metastasis.     

Meiotic genetics moves forward with SPATA22 (repro42)

This commentary provides a summary of existing meiotic mutants affecting the synaptonemal complex and meiotic recombination in order to contextualize the recent discovery of SPATA22/repro42 through ENU mutagenesis.     

The Innovative Medicine Initiative (IMI)

The Innovative Medicine Initiative (IMI) is a joint technology initiative jointly implemented by the European Commission and by the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA). The objective of IMI, officially launched on April 30th 2008, is to identify and address the bottlenecks of the drug discovery and development process. IMI will reinforce the public-private partnerships and will be focused towards critical nodes of the drug discovery such as efficacy predictivity, safety predictivity, knowledge management and education and training. This initiative will also reinforce the attractivity of Europe for biomedical science and will then lead to the discovery of novel therapeutic strategies for the patients.     

A‐type lamins and signaling: The PI 3‐kinase/Akt pathway moves forward

Lamin A/C is a nuclear lamina constituent mutated in a number of human inherited disorders collectively referred to as laminopathies. The occurrence and significance of lamin A/C interplay with signaling molecules is an old question, suggested by pioneer studies performed in vitro. However, this relevant question has remained substantially unanswered, until data obtained in cellular and organismal models of laminopathies have indicated two main aspects of lamin A function. The first aspect is that lamins establish functional interactions with different protein platforms, the second aspect is that lamin A/C activity and altered function may elicit different effects in different cells and tissue types and even in different districts of the same tissue. Both these observations strongly suggest that signaling mechanisms targeting lamin A/C or its binding partners may regulate such a plastic behavior. A number of very recent data show involvement of kinases, as Akt and Erk, or phosphatases, as PP1 and PP2, in lamin A‐linked cellular mechanisms. Moreover, altered activation of signaling in laminopathies and rescue of the pathological phenotype in animal models by inhibitors of signaling pathways, strongly suggest that signaling effectors related to lamin A/C may be implicated in the pathogenesis of laminopathies and may represent targets of therapeutic intervention. In face of such an open perspective of basic and applied research, we review current evidence of lamin A/C interplay with signaling molecules, with particular emphasis on the lamin A‐Akt interaction and on the biological significance of their relationship. J. Cell. Physiol. 220: 553–561, 2009. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.