User recommended papers

User-recommended papers allows you to suggest a paper you would like to see on Nature China. When these papers appear on our site, users may comment and vote on them. To recommend a paper please use this form. Please note that you cannot recommend a paper you have authored. The editors will reject any self-recommendations. All comments and recommendation are checked by the editors and may be edited prior to publication on the site.

  • Cell & Molecular Biology

    • Impediment of E. coli UvrD by DNA-destabilizing force reveals a strained-inchworm mechanism of DNA unwinding


      • Original article citation: EMBO J doi:10.1038/emboj.2008.240 (2008)

      • Categories: Cell & Molecular Biology and Genetics
      • Recommended by : Alison Wrigley on 11/21/2008 11:05AM GMT

        Escherichia coli UvrD is a non-ring-shaped model helicase, displaying a 3'–5' polarity in DNA unwinding. Using a transverse magnetic tweezer and DNA hairpins, we measured the unwinding kinetics of UvrD at various DNA-destabilizing forces. The multiform patterns of unwinding bursts and the distributions of the off-times favour the mechanism that UvrD unwinds DNA as a dimer. The two subunits of the dimer coordinate to unwind DNA processively. They can jointly switch strands and translocate backwards on the other strand to allow slow (approx40 bp/s) rewinding, or unbind simultaneously to allow quick rehybridization. Partial dissociation of the dimer results in pauses in the middle of the unwinding or increases the translocation rate from approx40 to approx150 nt/s in the middle of the rewinding. Moreover, the unwinding rate was surprisingly found to decrease from approx45 to approx10 bp/s when the force is increased from 2 to 12 pN. The results lead to a strained-inchworm mechanism in which a conformational change that bends and tenses the ssDNA is required to activate the dimer.
      • Comment on this subject: 0 comments made

    • An uncultivated crenarchaeota contains functional bacteriochlorophyll a synthase


      • Original article citation: ISME J doi:10.1038/ismej.2008.85 (2008)

      • Categories: Ecology & Evolution, Cell & Molecular Biology, and Earth & Environment
      • Recommended by : Alison Wrigley on 11/06/2008 02:52PM GMT

        A fosmid clone 37F10 containing an archaeal 16S rRNA gene was screened out from a metagenomic library of Pearl River sediment, southern China. Sequence analysis of the 35 kb inserted fragment of 37F10 found that it contains a single 16S rRNA gene belonging to Miscellaneous Crenarchaeotal Group (MCG) and 36 open reading frames (ORFs). One ORF (orf11) encodes putative bacteriochlorophyll a synthase (bchG) gene. Bacteriochlorophyll a synthase gene has never been reported in a member of the domain Archaea, in accordance with the fact that no (bacterio)-chlorophyll has ever been detected in any cultivated archaea. The putative archaeal bchG (named as ar-bchG) was cloned and heterologously expressed in Escherichia coli. The protein was found to be capable of synthesizing bacteriochlorophyll a by esterification of bacteriochlorophyllide a with phytyl diphosphate or geranylgeranyl diphosphate. Furthermore, phylogenetic analysis clearly indicates that the ar-bchG diverges before the bacterial bchGs. Our results for the first time demonstrate that a key and functional enzyme for bacteriochlorophyll a biosynthesis does exist in Archaea.
      • Comment on this subject: 0 comments made

    • Chloroplast phylogeography of Dipentodon (Dipentodontaceae) in southwest China and northern Vietnam

      • QING-JUN YUAN, ZHI-YONG ZHANG, HUA PENG, SONG GE
        Original article citation: Mol Ecol 17," 1054 - 1065, (2008).

      • Categories: Ecology & Evolution, Genetics, and Cell & Molecular Biology
      • Recommended by : zhang xuemei on 04/12/2008 02:13AM GMT

        This is an excellent and meaningful papar involving the conceivably most complicated evolutionary history in the southeast Tibetan Plateau,where the topography and climate are extremely complex. The incumbent target is also an attractive monotypic genus Dipentodon sinicus. By using chloroplast sequences, important results were obtained providing new insights to the evolution of biodiversity on the Tibetan Plateau and adiacent areas. Also, a historical framework for the conservation of biodiversity in this area was given. In summary, it is an informative and helpful paper for understanding the Dipentodon and Tibetan Plateau.
      • Comment on this subject: 0 comments made

    • Different effects of mild and severe seizures on hippocampal neurogenesis in adult rats

      • Fang Yang, Jin-Cun Wang, Jun-Liang Han, Gang Zhao, Wen Jiang
        Original article citation: Hippocampus doi:10.1002/hipo.20409

      • Categories: Neuroscience, Cell & Molecular Biology, and Developmental Biology
      • Recommended by : Jie Huang on 02/21/2008 03:47PM GMT

        Hippocampus is known to be one site of continuing neurogenesis into adulthood for humans and other mammals, which provides possible compensatory and rehabilitative mechanisms for some brain injuries. Based on previous knowledge about epileptic seizures effect on neurogenesis in dentate gyrus (DG), researchers in this study examined seizure severity's influence in this process on rats. It appeared though both mild and severe seizures promoted mitotic activity in DG, difference in severity were driving neuron proliferation and migration into two distinctive directions. On the other hand, it hints at limitations of hippocampus' postnatal neurogenesis.
      • Comment on this subject: 0 comments made

    • Differences in soil bacterial diversity: driven by contemporary disturbances or historical contingencies?

      • Yuan Ge, Ji-zheng He, Yong-guan Zhu, Jia-bao Zhang, Zhihong Xu, Li-mei Zhang, Yuan-ming Zheng
        Original article citation: ISME J doi:10.1038/ismej.2008.2 (2008)

      • Categories: Ecology & Evolution, Earth & Environment, and Cell & Molecular Biology
      • Recommended by : James Moir on 02/14/2008 09:54PM GMT

        It is an open debate in microbial ecology that if there is any distribution pattern for soil microbial diversity. Professor Ji-Zheng He and colleagues from the Chinese Academy of Sciences provided strong evidence that the bacterial diversity variation is mainly controlled by the soil historical contingencies across a regional scale (1000 km), while contemporary disturbances contribute much less variations of the bacterial diversity, according to their paper published in The ISME Journal by the Nature Publishing Group (published online 31 January 2008). They used a large set of manipulated field-based molecular data and advanced statistical analyses to elucidate quantitatively the contributions of the historical contingencies and the contemporary disturbances to the variations of soil bacterial diversity. This study is the first quantitative examination of the relative importance of contemporary disturbances (~20%) and historical contingencies (~60%) in influencing large-scale soil bacterial diversity. Moreover, this paper showed an important approach for accessing soil microbial biogeography by using latest molecular techniques, advanced statistical analyses and ecological theories. The findings of this study indicated that there are some aspects of biogeography that might be common to all life, which would extend our understanding of the biogeography of organisms.
      • Comment on this subject: 5 comments made

    • Quantitative analyses of the abundance and composition of ammonia-oxidizing bacteria and ammonia-oxidizing archaea of a Chinese upland red soil under long-term fertilization practices

      • Ji-zheng He, Ju-pei Shen, Li-mei Zhang, Yong-guan Zhu, Yuan-ming Zheng, Ming-gang Xu, Hongjie Di
        Original article citation: Environ Microbiol 9," 2364 - 2374, (2007).

      • Categories: Ecology & Evolution, Earth & Environment, and Cell & Molecular Biology
      • Recommended by : James Moir on 01/18/2008 03:59AM GMT

        Nitrification, the process of conversion of ammonium to nitrate in the soil is a microbial process which is fundamentally important for nitrogen cycling in the terrestrial ecosystem. It also has environmental and economic implications as the process produces nitrate which can be leached and contaminate groundwater and surface waters. The leaching of nitrate also reduces the efficiency of nitrogen for plant growth. However, the microbes involved in performing the nitrification process are poorly understood mainly because of difficulties of studying them using conventional techniques. The latest advances in molecular techniques and real-time PCR have provided new approaches to studying the abundance and diversity of these microbes. To this end, the publication of the paper by Jizheng He et al., titled, Quantitative analyses of the abundance and composition of ammonia-oxidizing bacteria and ammonia-oxidizing archaea of a Chinese upland red soil under long-term fertilization practices Published in Environmental Microbiology (2007) 9(9): 2364-2374 represents a major milestone in this area using the latest molecular techniques to study these ammonium oxidizing microbes. This work makes major advances in this subject area by providing quantitative information on the relative abundance and diversity of the ammonium oxidizing bacteria and archaea in soils that had been under long-term fertilizer applications. These research findings provide important insights into the role that these different microbes play in nitrification and the impact of human activities on the population abundance and diversity of these microbes. These findings have implications on the sustainable management of terrestrial ecosystems. I therefore would strongly recommend the paper for the website of Nature China as I am confident that many researchers around China and the world would find it an interesting and important paper.
      • Comment on this subject: 4 comments made

    • Bid is not required for Bax translocation during UV-induced apoptosis

      • Y WU, D XING, W CHEN, X WANG
        Original article citation: Cellular Signalling 19," 2468 - 2478, (2007).

      • Categories: Cell & Molecular Biology
      • Recommended by : Mike X. Chen on 01/14/2008 09:19PM GMT

        Multiple signaling pathways are involved in UV-induced apoptosis, among which Bax activation has been proposed as an important factor. However, the regulation of Bax activation remains elusive. In this paper, Wu et al employed FRET (fluorescence resonance energy transfer) technique to visualize the real-time intracellular events at a single-cell level. A novel mechanism has been revealed that Bax activation is a Bid-independent event in UV irradiation-induced apoptosis.
      • Comment on this subject: 0 comments made
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