July 2005

Unlike many animals, cats are indifferent to the sweet taste of sugar. Research reported by Li et al. suggests that the sweet receptor gene has become pseudogenized in the cat, rendering them "sweet-blind." The cover image is representational only, as the lynx depicted here, while a felid, was not a subject of the Li et al. study. The superimposed image shows part of the gene structure of the two genes that code for the sweet taste receptor dimer in the domestic cat, one of which contains a premature stop codon, rendering it nonfunctional.

Image Credit: Photograph by Erwin and Peggy Bauer, USFWS; line graphic by Felice Macera.

Editorial

Introducing PLoS Genetics

Wayne N Frankel

PLOS Genetics: published July 25, 2005 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.0010021

Interview

The Whole Side of It—An Interview with Neil Risch

Jane Gitschier

PLOS Genetics: published July 25, 2005 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.0010014

Research Articles

A Human-Curated Annotation of the Candida albicans Genome

Burkhard R Braun, Marco van het Hoog, Christophe d'Enfert, Mikhail Martchenko, Jan Dungan, Alan Kuo, Diane O Inglis, M. Andrew Uhl, Hervé Hogues, Matthew Berriman, Michael Lorenz, Anastasia Levitin, Ursula Oberholzer, Catherine Bachewich, Doreen Harcus, Anne Marcil, Daniel Dignard, Tatiana Iouk, Rosa Zito, Lionel Frangeul, Fredj Tekaia, Kim Rutherford, Edwin Wang, Carol A Munro, Steve Bates, Neil A Gow, Lois L Hoyer, Gerwald Köhler, Joachim Morschhäuser, George Newport, Sadri Znaidi, Martine Raymond, Bernard Turcotte, Gavin Sherlock, Maria Costanzo, Jan Ihmels, Judith Berman, Dominique Sanglard, Nina Agabian, Aaron P Mitchell, Alexander D Johnson, Malcolm Whiteway, André Nantel

PLOS Genetics: published June 17, 2005 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.0010001

Using Microarrays to Facilitate Positional Cloning: Identification of Tomosyn as an Inhibitor of Neurosecretion

Michael Dybbs, John Ngai, Joshua M Kaplan

PLOS Genetics: published July 25, 2005 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.0010002

Pseudogenization of a Sweet-Receptor Gene Accounts for Cats' Indifference toward Sugar

Xia Li, Weihua Li, Hong Wang, Jie Cao, Kenji Maehashi, Liquan Huang, Alexander A Bachmanov, Danielle R Reed, Véronique Legrand-Defretin, Gary K Beauchamp, Joseph G Brand

PLOS Genetics: published July 25, 2005 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.0010003

Susceptibility to Neurodegeneration in a Glaucoma Is Modified by Bax Gene Dosage

Richard T Libby, Yan Li, Olga V Savinova, Joseph Barter, Richard S Smith, Robert W Nickells, Simon W.M John

PLOS Genetics: published July 25, 2005 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.0010004

Evidence for Domesticated and Wild Populations of Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Justin C Fay, Joseph A Benavides

PLOS Genetics: published July 25, 2005 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.0010005

Diversity of Flowering Responses in Wild Arabidopsis thaliana Strains

Janne Lempe, Sureshkumar Balasubramanian, Sridevi Sureshkumar, Anandita Singh, Markus Schmid, Detlef Weigel

PLOS Genetics: published July 25, 2005 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.0010006

Cell-Autonomous Death of Cerebellar Purkinje Neurons with Autophagy in Niemann-Pick Type C Disease

Dennis C Ko, Ljiljana Milenkovic, Steven M Beier, Hermogenes Manuel, JoAnn Buchanan, Matthew P Scott

PLOS Genetics: published July 25, 2005 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.0010007

A HIF1α Regulatory Loop Links Hypoxia and Mitochondrial Signals in Pheochromocytomas

Patricia L. M Dahia, Ken N Ross, Matthew E Wright, César Y Hayashida, Sandro Santagata, Marta Barontini, Andrew L Kung, Gabriela Sanso, James F Powers, Arthur S Tischler, Richard Hodin, Shannon Heitritter, Francis Moore Jr., Robert Dluhy, Julie Ann Sosa, I. Tolgay Ocal, Diana E Benn, Deborah J Marsh, Bruce G Robinson, Katherine Schneider, Judy Garber, Seth M Arum, Márta Korbonits, Ashley Grossman, Pascal Pigny, Sérgio P. A Toledo, Vania Nosé, Cheng Li, Charles D Stiles

PLOS Genetics: published July 25, 2005 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.0010008

Positive Selection Drives the Evolution of rhino, a Member of the Heterochromatin Protein 1 Family in Drosophila

Danielle Vermaak, Steven Henikoff, Harmit S Malik

PLOS Genetics: published July 25, 2005 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.0010009

Fog2 Is Required for Normal Diaphragm and Lung Development in Mice and Humans

Kate G Ackerman, Bruce J Herron, Sara O Vargas, Hailu Huang, Sergei G Tevosian, Lazaros Kochilas, Cherie Rao, Barbara R Pober, Randal P Babiuk, Jonathan A Epstein, John J Greer, David R Beier

PLOS Genetics: published June 17, 2005 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.0010010

New Genes Tied to Endocrine, Metabolic, and Dietary Regulation of Lifespan from a Caenorhabditis elegans Genomic RNAi Screen

Malene Hansen, Ao-Lin Hsu, Andrew Dillin, Cynthia Kenyon

PLOS Genetics: published July 25, 2005 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.0010017

Cover

Pseudogenization of a sweet-receptor gene