A beginner's guide to getting involved in science advocacy.

Every scientist in the United States likely has a story of how the federal funding crisis for biomedical research has affected him or her personally. The sharing of these powerful anecdotes will enable policy makers to fully grasp the extent to which the decline in federal funding has negatively affected the scientific community. However, many scientists do not know where to begin or are uncertain that their advocacy efforts will have an impact.

SPR-5 and MET-2 function cooperatively to reestablish an epigenetic ground state during passage through the germ line.

The Caenorhabditis elegans LSD1 H3K4me2 demethylase SPR-5 reprograms epigenetic transcriptional memory during passage through the germ line. Here we show that mutants in the H3K9me2 methyltransferase, met-2, result in transgenerational epigenetic effects that parallel spr-5 mutants. In addition, we find that spr-5;met-2 double mutants have a synergistic effect on sterility, H3K4me2, and spermatogenesis expression.

The Ca2+-activated Cl- channel ANO1/TMEM16A regulates primary ciliogenesis.

Many cells possess a single, nonmotile, primary cilium highly enriched in receptors and sensory transduction machinery that plays crucial roles in cellular morphogenesis. Although sensory transduction requires ion channels, relatively little is known about ion channels in the primary cilium (with the exception of TRPP2). Here we show that the Ca(2+)-activated Cl ((-)) channel anoctamin-1 (ANO1/TMEM16A) is located in the primary cilium and that blocking its channel function pharmacologically or knocking it down with short hairpin RNA interferes with ciliogenesis.

Restoring totipotency through epigenetic reprogramming.

Epigenetic modifications are implicated in the maintenance and regulation of transcriptional memory by marking genes that were previously transcribed to facilitate transmission of these expression patterns through cell division. During germline specification and maintenance, extensive epigenetic modifications are acquired. Yet somehow at fertilization, the fusion of the highly differentiated sperm and egg results in formation of the totipotent zygote.