August 2013

Sequencing of the genomes and transcriptomes of a garter snake, a rattlesnake, and a boa leads to the first high-resolution analysis of snake sex-chromosome evolution. See Vicoso et al. (e1001643) in this issue.

Image Credit: Steve Jurvetson

Synopses

Slithering Toward Clarity: Snakes Shed New Light on the Evolution and Function of Sex Chromosomes

Mary Hoff

PLOS Biology: published August 27, 2013 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001644

New Insights into Unusual Genetic Disorder Pave the Way for Promising Treatments

Janelle Weaver

PLOS Biology: published August 13, 2013 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001628

Myelination Borrows a Trick from Phage

Roland G. Roberts

PLOS Biology: published August 13, 2013 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001626

Bursting with Randomness: A Simple Model for Stochastic Control of Gene Expression

Richard Robinson

PLOS Biology: published August 6, 2013 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001622

Essay

Mom Knows Best: The Universality of Maternal Microbial Transmission

Lisa J. Funkhouser, Seth R. Bordenstein

PLOS Biology: published August 20, 2013 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001631

Primers

The Mongoose, the Pheasant, the Pox, and the Retrovirus

Lucie Etienne, Michael Emerman

PLOS Biology: published August 27, 2013 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001641

Hybrid T-Helper Cells: Stabilizing the Moderate Center in a Polarized System

Sui Huang

PLOS Biology: published August 20, 2013 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001632

Integrated Electron Microscopy: Super-Duper Resolution

Jacomine Krijnse Locker, Sandra L. Schmid

PLOS Biology: published August 27, 2013 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001639

Community Page

The COMBREX Project: Design, Methodology, and Initial Results

Brian P. Anton, Yi-Chien Chang, Peter Brown, Han-Pil Choi, Lina L. Faller, Jyotsna Guleria, Zhenjun Hu, Niels Klitgord, Ami Levy-Moonshine, Almaz Maksad, Varun Mazumdar, Mark McGettrick, Lais Osmani, Revonda Pokrzywa, John Rachlin, Rajeswari Swaminathan, Benjamin Allen, Genevieve Housman, Caitlin Monahan, Krista Rochussen, Kevin Tao, Ashok S. Bhagwat, Steven E. Brenner, Linda Columbus, Valérie de Crécy-Lagard, Donald Ferguson, Alexey Fomenkov, Giovanni Gadda, Richard D. Morgan, Andrei L. Osterman, Dmitry A. Rodionov, Irina A. Rodionova, Kenneth E. Rudd, Dieter Söll, James Spain, Shuang-yong Xu, Alex Bateman, Robert M. Blumenthal, J. Martin Bollinger, Woo-Suk Chang, Manuel Ferrer, Iddo Friedberg, Michael Y. Galperin, Julien Gobeill, Daniel Haft, John Hunt, Peter Karp, William Klimke, Carsten Krebs, Dana Macelis, Ramana Madupu, Maria J. Martin, Jeffrey H. Miller, Claire O'Donovan, Bernhard Palsson, Patrick Ruch, Aaron Setterdahl, Granger Sutton, John Tate, Alexander Yakunin, Dmitri Tchigvintsev, Germán Plata, Jie Hu, Russell Greiner, David Horn, Kimmen Sjölander, Steven L. Salzberg, Dennis Vitkup, Stanley Letovsky, Daniel Segrè, Charles DeLisi, Richard J. Roberts, Martin Steffen, Simon Kasif

PLOS Biology: published August 27, 2013 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001638

Research Articles

Effects of Diet on Resource Utilization by a Model Human Gut Microbiota Containing Bacteroides cellulosilyticus WH2, a Symbiont with an Extensive Glycobiome

Nathan P. McNulty, Meng Wu, Alison R. Erickson, Chongle Pan, Brian K. Erickson, Eric C. Martens, Nicholas A. Pudlo, Brian D. Muegge, Bernard Henrissat, Robert L. Hettich, Jeffrey I. Gordon

PLOS Biology: published August 20, 2013 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001637

The Extraordinary Evolutionary History of the Reticuloendotheliosis Viruses

Anna Maria Niewiadomska, Robert J. Gifford

PLOS Biology: published August 27, 2013 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001642

Comparative Sex Chromosome Genomics in Snakes: Differentiation, Evolutionary Strata, and Lack of Global Dosage Compensation

Beatriz Vicoso, J. J. Emerson, Yulia Zektser, Shivani Mahajan, Doris Bachtrog

PLOS Biology: published August 27, 2013 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001643

Developmental Changes in the in Vitro Activated Regenerative Activity of Primitive Mammary Epithelial Cells

Maisam Makarem, Nagarajan Kannan, Long V. Nguyen, David J. H. F. Knapp, Sneha Balani, Michael D. Prater, John Stingl, Afshin Raouf, Oksana Nemirovsky, Peter Eirew, Connie J. Eaves

PLOS Biology: published August 13, 2013 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001630

Reduced Juvenile Long-Term Depression in Tuberous Sclerosis Complex Is Mitigated in Adults by Compensatory Recruitment of mGluR5 and Erk Signaling

Wyatt B. Potter, Trina Basu, Kenneth J. O'Riordan, Allison Kirchner, Paul Rutecki, Corinna Burger, Avtar Roopra

PLOS Biology: published August 13, 2013 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001627

The CK2 Kinase Stabilizes CLOCK and Represses Its Activity in the Drosophila Circadian Oscillator

Áron Szabó, Christian Papin, Daniela Zorn, Prishila Ponien, Frank Weber, Thomas Raabe, François Rouyer

PLOS Biology: published August 27, 2013 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001645

Stable T-bet⁺GATA-3⁺ Th1/Th2 Hybrid Cells Arise In Vivo, Can Develop Directly from Naive Precursors, and Limit Immunopathologic Inflammation

Michael Peine, Sebastian Rausch, Caroline Helmstetter, Anja Fröhlich, Ahmed N. Hegazy, Anja A. Kühl, Christoph G. Grevelding, Thomas Höfer, Susanne Hartmann, Max Löhning

PLOS Biology: published August 20, 2013 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001633

Par-1 Regulates Tissue Growth by Influencing Hippo Phosphorylation Status and Hippo-Salvador Association

Hong-Ling Huang, Shimin Wang, Meng-Xin Yin, Liang Dong, Chao Wang, Wei Wu, Yi Lu, Miao Feng, Chuanyang Dai, Xiaocan Guo, Li Li, Bin Zhao, Zhaocai Zhou, Hongbin Ji, Jin Jiang, Yun Zhao, Xin-Yuan Liu, Lei Zhang

PLOS Biology: published August 6, 2013 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001620

Sonic Hedgehog Promotes Tumor Cell Survival by Inhibiting CDON Pro-Apoptotic Activity

Céline Delloye-Bourgeois, Benjamin Gibert, Nicolas Rama, Jean-Guy Delcros, Nicolas Gadot, Jean-Yves Scoazec, Robert Krauss, Agnès Bernet, Patrick Mehlen

PLOS Biology: published August 6, 2013 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001623