Research Highlights

Hypertension can damage the heart, brain, and blood vessels. The immune system plays an important role in this process, Suphansa Sawamiphak from the Max Delbrück Center reports in Cardiovascular Research. The study, using zebrafish, found that inflammation causes macrophages to damage blood vessels instead of protecting them.

Evolutionarily young miniproteins are unique in humans, and researchers have recently discovered thousands of them. Writing in Molecular Cell, Norbert Hübner and colleagues from the BIH and other institutions describe the origins of these tiny proteins and explain that they probably influence important cellular processes.

Researchers from the Max Delbrück Center have found a region of the brain that is responsible for our perception of temperature when we touch things. The paper, which appears in “Nature”, reports the discovery of a ‘thermal cortex’ located in a posterior region of the insular cortex.

The signaling molecules of the immune system should trigger a response only where necessary. To prevent a life-threatening spread to the rest of the body, connective tissue can absorb these molecules like a sponge. A team led by Thomas Blankenstein presents this mechanism in “Nature Immunology.

Researchers suspect that neurodegenerative diseases occur when messenger RNA (mRNA) goes astray in the neuron. With a new method, Marina Chekulaeva is able to identify “zipcodes” that assign a destination to mRNAs. She has now presented her method in the journal Nature Neuroscience.

Combining single-cell data with a self-learning algorithm reveals how structural changes in chromosomes can trigger cancer. This new method could pave the way for personalized cancer treatments, writes a team led by Ashley Sanders in “Nature Biotechnology”.

A group of international researchers – among them Stephan Mathas from the ECRC – has found that changing a single segment of the genome causes a previously unknown immunodeficiency in humans. The paper, which appears in Science Immunology, reports the discovery of a point mutation in the transcription factor IRF4.

For nearly two decades, Oliver Daumke has been working to solve the mystery of how a molecular machine remodels cellular membranes. His team has now found the answer with the help of cryo-electron tomography. They report their findings in the journal “Nature Communications”.

To perform coordinated movements, we rely on special sensory neurons in our muscles and joints. Without them, the brain wouldn’t know what the rest of our body was doing. A team led by Niccolò Zampieri has studied their molecular markers to better understand how they work and describes the results in “Nature Communications”.

Cephalopods like octopuses, squids and cuttlefish are highly intelligent animals with complex nervous systems. In “Science Advances”, a team led by Nikolaus Rajewsky of the Max Delbrück Center has now shown that their evolution is linked to a dramatic expansion of their microRNA repertoire.