EDITORIALS
- From bench to patient: model systems in drug discovery
Drug Discovery Collection: This Editorial introduces the new DMM Special Collection entitled ‘From bench to patient: model systems in drug discovery’, providing a summary of its contents and highlighting the impact of multiple model systems in moving new discoveries from bench to patient.
- Improving translational studies: lessons from rare neuromuscular diseases
Drug Discovery Collection: This Editorial reviews problems and some solutions to the translational use of animal models in the rare neuromuscular diseases context. This can serve as a model for other disease fields.
A MODEL FOR LIFE
REVIEW
- GEMMs as preclinical models for testing pancreatic cancer therapies
Drug Discovery Collection: This Review discusses GEMMs of human pancreatic cancer, particularly focusing on the KPC model, its use in preclinical research, advantages and disadvantages, and its potential for predicting clinical outcomes.
RESEARCH ARTICLES
- A rapid in vivo screen for pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma therapeutics
Editor's choice - Drug Discovery Collection: The study describes a rapid in vivo screen for novel strategies to treat pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDA).
- Treatment with a novel oleic-acid–dihydroxyamphetamine conjugation ameliorates non-alcoholic fatty liver disease in obese Zucker rats
Drug Discovery Collection: OLHHA is a safe drug with hepatoprotective and anti-steatotic effects on non-alcoholic fatty liver disease in obese rats.
- Precision-cut kidney slices (PCKS) to study development of renal fibrosis and efficacy of drug targeting ex vivo
Drug Discovery Collection: TGFβ induces renal fibrosis in ex vivo cultured precision-cut kidney slices, which can be attenuated by IFNγ.
- A calixpyrrole derivative acts as an antagonist to GPER, a G-protein coupled receptor: mechanisms and models
Drug Discovery Collection: This paper highlights mechanisms through which a calixpyrrole derivative acts as a newly identified selective antagonist of GPER in different model systems.
- Glycolytic inhibitor 2-deoxyglucose simultaneously targets cancer and endothelial cells to suppress neuroblastoma growth in mice
Drug Discovery Collection: Neuroblastomas are sensitive to treatment with the glycolytic inhibitor 2-deoxyglucose, which can simultaneously target cancer and endothelial cells to suppress tumor growth.
RESOURCE ARTICLE
- From drug response profiling to target addiction scoring in cancer cell models
Drug Discovery Collection: The authors take a pan-cancer approach that provides functional insights into molecular vulnerabilities across various cancer subtypes and patient-specific target addiction patterns that could lead to actionable treatment strategies.
RESEARCH ARTICLES
- Impaired APP activity and altered Tau splicing in embryonic stem cell-derived astrocytes obtained from an APPsw transgenic minipig
Summary: Insight into astrocyte and radial glia pathology in an in vitro culture system derived from the APPsw pig.
- Interplay among Drosophila transcription factors Ets21c, Fos and Ftz-F1 drives JNK-mediated tumor malignancy
Summary: This study provides genetic evidence that malignancy driven by oncogenic Ras and loss of polarity requires transcription factors of three distinct protein families, acting in synergy downstream of JNK signaling.
- OTX2 exhibits cell-context-dependent effects on cellular and molecular properties of human embryonic neural precursors and medulloblastoma cells
Summary: Human embryonic stem cell neural derivatives can be used to model the molecular and cellular properties of medulloblastoma.
- Albumin stimulates renal tubular inflammation through an HSP70-TLR4 axis in mice with early diabetic nephropathy
Summary: Activation of the HSP70-TLR4 axis by albumin in the tubular cell induces tubular inflammation and injury.
- Transient alteration of the vestibular calyceal junction and synapse in response to chronic ototoxic insult in rats
Summary: New forms of damage and repair have been identified in the vestibular sensory epithelium using a rat model of chronic ototoxicity and recovery that causes reversible vestibular dysfunction.
This issue
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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.