EDITORIAL
- Rethinking cancer: current challenges and opportunities in cancer research
Summary: Pablo Meyer and Ross Cagan discuss the main themes emerging from a recent workshop ‘Rethinking Cancer’, highlighting the key challenges faced by the research community and outlining potential strategies to promote translation of basic findings.
A MODEL FOR LIFE
- Waging war against pancreatic cancer: an interview with David Tuveson
Summary: David Tuveson describes some of the key moments and breakthroughs in his remarkable career, and the path that he's followed in his quest for a cure for pancreatic cancer.
REVIEWS
- In vivo models in breast cancer research: progress, challenges and future directions
Summary: This Review provides a summary of the many varied uses of mouse models in breast cancer research focusing on their strengths, challenges and future directions.
- Identifying genes for neurobehavioural traits in rodents: progress and pitfalls
Summary: This Review discusses the rodent resources that exist to map neurobehavioural traits at high resolution and identify causal variants and genes.
RESEARCH ARTICLES
- MAPK signaling pathways and HDAC3 activity are disrupted during differentiation of emerin-null myogenic progenitor cells
Editors' choice: HDAC3, p38 MAPK and ERK signaling are altered during differentiation of myogenic progenitors lacking emerin; pharmacological activation or inhibition of these signaling proteins rescues specific stages of myogenic differentiation.
- A Drosophila model of myeloproliferative neoplasm reveals a feed-forward loop in the JAK pathway mediated by p38 MAPK signalling
Summary: Pro-tumourigenic crosstalk occurs between the p38 MAPK pathway and JAK signalling in a Drosophila model of myeloproliferative neoplasm.
- Heterozygous Vangl2Looptail mice reveal novel roles for the planar cell polarity pathway in adult lung homeostasis and repair
Summary: Manipulating the PCP pathway may provide new approaches to treat damaged lung tissue.
- Gene expression profiles among murine strains segregate with distinct differences in the progression of radiation-induced lung disease
Summary: Rational mouse model selection is crucial for identifying new therapeutic targets and screening medical interventions in acute pneumonitis and/or late fibrosis following thoracic irradiation.
- Overexpression of mitochondrial oxodicarboxylate carrier (ODC1) preserves oxidative phosphorylation in a yeast model of Barth syndrome
Summary: Transport of oxodicarboxylic acid (ODC1) across the mitochondrial inner membrane is a potential target for the treatment of BTHS patients and other diseases caused by mitochondrial dysfunction.
- Towards trans-diagnostic mechanisms in psychiatry: neurobehavioral profile of rats with a loss-of-function point mutation in the dopamine transporter gene
Summary: The first systematic RDoc study of a disease mechanism proposes dopamine transporter DAT mutant rats as a model for drug development, targeting a hyperdopaminergic state.
- New insights into the regulatory function of CYFIP1 in the context of WAVE- and FMRP-containing complexes
Summary: CYFIP1 and FMRP interact antagonistically during neuromuscular junction growth in the fly and during new neuron differentiation in the olfactory bulb of the adult mouse.
- Genetic dissection of anterior segment dysgenesis caused by a Col4a1 mutation in mouse
Summary: Key pathogenic events in anterior segment dysgenesis, a congenital ocular disease with complex etiology, are recapitulated in a mouse model of Col4a1-related ASD.
RESOURCE ARTICLE
- Immortalized human myotonic dystrophy muscle cell lines to assess therapeutic compounds
Summary: Myotonic dystrophy muscle cell models displaying characteristic disease-associated molecular features can be used to investigate molecular pathophysiological mechanisms and evaluate therapeutic approaches.
This issue
Other journals from The Company of Biologists
First person – Zhaoyang, Omkara, Christine and Yong
Catch up with our first authors in the latest interviews. Zhaoyang Liu, Omkara Lakshmi Veeranki, Christine Lehner and Yong Chen discuss the implications of their research, life as an early-career researcher and their next steps.
A new resource article by Dipen Maru's group describes a patient-derived orthotopic xenograft model of gastroesphageal cancer that maintains the morphological and molecular characteristics of the source tumour.
There are still funded places available for early-career researchers at July’s Workshop on inflammaging and regeneration! The deadline for applications is 14 February. We’re also interested to hear your ideas for Workshops – find out more about how we can provide support.
The first preLight of 2020 and the first time we’ve highlighted a medRxiv preprint! Zhang-He Goh discusses a new preprint by Witte et al. assessing the correlation between ovarian cancer patient-derived organoids and patients’ clinical response to chemotherapeutics.
Cover article – Regulation of terminal hypertrophic chondrocyte differentiation in Prmt5 mutant mice modeling infantile idiopathic scoliosis
On the cover, research by Liu et al. demonstrates that the loss of Prmt5 osteochondral progenitors impairs terminal hypertrophic chondrocyte differentiation, leading to defects in endochondral bone formation and models infantile idiopathic scoliosis in mouse.