Historic nucleic acids isolated by Friedrich Miescher contain RNA besides DNA.

One hundred fifty years ago, Friedrich Miescher discovered DNA when he isolated "Nuclein"-as he named it-from nuclei of human pus cells. Miescher recognized his isolate as a new type of molecule equal in importance to proteins. He realised that it is an acid of large molecular weight and high phosphorus content.

How research institutions can foster innovation.

Carrying out research means being innovative, which requires novelty. Novelty is an important source of scientific breakthroughs and has great technological impact. Research institutions stand to benefit from fostering innovation.

Interdisciplinary Communication Needs to Become a Core Scientific Skill.

As scientific research has advanced so too has the complexity of the questions addressed. Cross-disciplinary collaborations are often the most efficient route to managing that complexity and require effective communication across boundaries. To continue driving science forward and be able to tackle global challenges, the art of good interdisciplinary communication needs to become a core skill in a scientist's portfolio.

How We Forgot Who Discovered DNA: Why It Matters How You Communicate Your Results.

One hundred and fifty years ago, a hopeful young researcher reported a recent discovery he had made. Working in the bowels of a medieval castle in the German city of Tübingen, he had isolated a then entirely new type of molecule. This was the birth of a field that would fundamentally change the course of biology, medicine, and beyond.

Living autobiographically: Concepts of aging and artistic expression in painting and modern dance.

This article discusses the ways in which artists have incorporated or failed to incorporate the aging process of their bodies into their art. Using Russian ballet dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov and the French painter Claude Monet as cases in point, we explore situations in which physical changes brought about by aging compromises artists' ability to engage with their artistic medium. Connecting Monet's oeuvre and Baryshnikov's dance performances to life writing accounts, we draw on John Paul Eakin's concept of "living autobiographically": In this vein, life writing research does not only have to take into account concepts of identity as they emerge from life writing narratives, but it also needs to explore the somatic, corporeal and material dimensions of these narratives.

Evolution of the vertebrate beaded filament protein, Bfsp2; comparing the in vitro assembly properties of a "tailed" zebrafish Bfsp2 to its "tailless" human orthologue.

In bony fishes, Bfsp2 orthologues are predicted to possess a C-terminal tail domain, which is absent from avian, amphibian and mammalian Bfsp2 sequences. These sequences, are however, not conserved between fish species and therefore questions whether they have a functional role. For other intermediate filament proteins, the C-terminal tail domain is important for both filament assembly and regulating interactions between filaments.

Homeostasis in the vertebrate lens: mechanisms of solute exchange.

The eye lens is avascular, deriving nutrients from the aqueous and vitreous humours. It is, however, unclear which mechanisms mediate the transfer of solutes between these humours and the lens' fibre cells (FCs). In this review, we integrate the published data with the previously unpublished ultrastructural, dye loading and magnetic resonance imaging results.

Investigating the genetics of visual processing, function and behaviour in zebrafish.

Over the past three decades, the zebrafish has been proven to be an excellent model to investigate the genetic control of vertebrate embryonic development, and it is now also increasingly used to study behaviour and adult physiology. Moreover, mutagenesis approaches have resulted in large collections of mutants with phenotypes that resemble human pathologies, suggesting that these lines can be used to model diseases and screen drug candidates. With the recent development of new methods for gene targeting and manipulating or monitoring gene expression, the range of genetic modifications now possible in zebrafish is increasing rapidly.

From discovering to understanding. Friedrich Miescher's attempts to uncover the function of DNA.

Friedrich Miescher, the Swiss scientist who discovered DNA in 1869, already understood a surprising amount about its function. Sadly, as Ralf Dahm explains, he fell short of grasping the role of DNA in heredity because he was held back by established theories of the time.

The zebrafish mutant bumper shows a hyperproliferation of lens epithelial cells and fibre cell degeneration leading to functional blindness.

The development of the eye lens is one of the classical paradigms of induction during embryonic development in vertebrates. But while there have been numerous studies aimed at discovering the genetic networks controlling early lens development, comparatively little is known about later stages, including the differentiation of secondary lens fibre cells. The analysis of mutant zebrafish isolated in forward genetic screens is an important way to investigate the roles of genes in embryogenesis.

Functions of the intermediate filament cytoskeleton in the eye lens.

Intermediate filaments (IFs) are a key component of the cytoskeleton in virtually all vertebrate cells, including those of the lens of the eye. IFs help integrate individual cells into their respective tissues. This Review focuses on the lens-specific IF proteins beaded filament structural proteins 1 and 2 (BFSP1 and BFSP2) and their role in lens physiology and disease.

Transfection of cultured primary neurons via nucleofection.

Despite the development of various transfection methods, the transfection of post-mitotic cells, including neurons, poses a challenging task. Nucleofection, a specialized form of electroporation described in this unit, achieves high transfection efficiencies in primary mammalian neurons, such as hippocampal neurons, while simultaneously maintaining high cell viability. Therefore, it allows for biochemical analyses that rely on large numbers of transfected cells.

Perplexing bodies: The putative roles of P-bodies in neurons.

Processing bodies (P-bodies) have recently come to the fore as important cellular sites of mRNA degradation and translational silencing. Despite these central functions in the control of gene expression, the roles of P-bodies have only been characterized in a limited number of cell types and physiological contexts. Neurons are highly plastic cells that undergo dynamic changes as new connections are made or existing ones modified.

High-efficiency transfection of short hairpin RNAs-encoding plasmids into primary hippocampal neurons.

The transfection of expression constructs encoding a variety of transgenes is a widely used method to study gene function in cultured cells. Especially when the efficiency of the knock-down of target proteins via small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) is to be determined by quantitative Western blotting, large proportions of untransfected cells compromise the analysis. Achieving high transfection efficiencies in postmitotic cells, such as neurons, poses a particular problem in that these cells cannot be selected for the expression of the transgene following transfection.

Dynamic interaction between P-bodies and transport ribonucleoprotein particles in dendrites of mature hippocampal neurons.

The dendritic localization of mRNAs and their subsequent translation at stimulated synapses contributes to the experience-dependent remodeling of synapses and thereby to the establishment of long-term memory. Localized mRNAs are transported in a translationally silent manner to distal dendrites in specific ribonucleoprotein particles (RNPs), termed transport RNPs. A recent study suggested that processing bodies (P-bodies), which have recently been identified as sites of RNA degradation and translational control in eukaryotic cells, may participate in the translational control of dendritically localized mRNAs in Drosophila neurons.

Subfunctionalization of duplicated zebrafish pax6 genes by cis-regulatory divergence.

Gene duplication is a major driver of evolutionary divergence. In most vertebrates a single PAX6 gene encodes a transcription factor required for eye, brain, olfactory system, and pancreas development. In zebrafish, following a postulated whole-genome duplication event in an ancestral teleost, duplicates pax6a and pax6b jointly fulfill these roles.

Formation of stromal collagen fibrils and proteoglycans in the developing zebrafish cornea.

Purpose: Collagen fibrils and proteoglycans are the main components of the corneal extracellular matrix and corneal transparency depends crucially on their proper arrangement. In the present study, we investigated the formation of collagen fibrils and proteoglycans in the developing cornea of the zebrafish, a model organism used to study vertebrate embryonic development and genetic disease.

Methods: We employed thin-section electron microscopy to investigate the ultrastructure of the zebrafish cornea at different developmental stages.

Visualizing mRNA localization and local protein translation in neurons.

Fluorescent proteins (FPs) have been successfully used to study the localization and interactions of proteins in living cells. They have also been instrumental in analyzing the proteins involved in the localization of RNAs in different cell types, including neurons. With the development of methods that also tag RNAs via fluorescent proteins, researchers now have a powerful tool to covisualize RNAs and associated proteins in living neurons.

The zebrafish mutant lbk/vam6 resembles human multisystemic disorders caused by aberrant trafficking of endosomal vesicles.

The trafficking of intracellular vesicles is essential for a number of cellular processes and defects in this process have been implicated in a wide range of human diseases. We identify the zebrafish mutant lbk as a novel model for such disorders. lbk displays hypopigmentation of skin melanocytes and the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE), an absence of iridophore reflections, defects in internal organs (liver, intestine) as well as functional defects in vision and the innate immune system (macrophages).

Human pathologies associated with defective RNA transport and localization in the nervous system.

RNA localization is emerging as an important process to restrict certain proteins to specific subcellular domains and thus spatially control the expression of genes within cells. It is used, for instance, to compartmentalize the developing embryo during early embryogenesis. The localization of RNA also plays important roles later during development, such as in asymmetric cell divisions, cell migration and the outgrowth and pathfinding of axons and dendrites.

The GTP-binding protein Septin 7 is critical for dendrite branching and dendritic-spine morphology.

Septins, a highly conserved family of GTP-binding proteins, were originally identified in a genetic screen for S. cerevisiae mutants defective in cytokinesis [1, 2]. In yeast, septins maintain the compartmentalization of the yeast plasma membrane during cell division by forming rings at the cortex of the bud neck, and these rings establish a lateral diffusion barrier.

Discovering DNA: Friedrich Miescher and the early years of nucleic acid research.

In the winter of 1868/9 the young Swiss doctor Friedrich Miescher, working in the laboratory of Felix Hoppe-Seyler at the University of Tübingen, performed experiments on the chemical composition of leukocytes that lead to the discovery of DNA. In his experiments, Miescher noticed a precipitate of an unknown substance, which he characterised further. Its properties during the isolation procedure and its resistance to protease digestion indicated that the novel substance was not a protein or lipid.

Transition from enhanced T cell infiltration to inflammation in the myelin-degenerative central nervous system.

Myelin degeneration in the central nervous system (CNS) is often associated with elevated numbers of T cells in brain and spinal cord (SC). In some degenerative diseases, this T cell immigration has no clinical relevance, in others, it may precede severe inflammation and tissue damage. We studied T cells in the myelin-degenerative SC of transgenic (tg) Lewis rats overexpressing the proteolipid protein (PLP).