Issues
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Cover image
Cover Image
Cover: Immunostained nerves of the pharyngeal region of a mouse embryo at embryonic day 11.5. Motor nerves, including the hypoglossal nerve and cervical nerve 1 (C1) – which serve the tongue and pharyngeal musculature – emanate from the ventral neural tube (image center). Routing of these motor nerves is disrupted when vitamin A metabolism is deficient. Mis-routing of the pharyngeal motor nerves impairs movement of the fetal mouth in utero, contributing to formation of cleft palate. See article by Friedl et al. (dmm039073). Cover image is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.
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FIRST PERSON
AT A GLANCE
Disease modelling in human organoids
Summary: Human organoids are important tools for modelling disease. This At a Glance article summarises the current organoid models of several human diseases, and discusses future prospects for these technologies.
REVIEW
Photoacoustic imaging as a tool to probe the tumour microenvironment
Summary: This Review details the potential of photoacoustic imaging to visualise features of the tumour microenvironment such as blood vessels, hypoxia, fibrosis and immune infiltrate to provide unprecedented insight into tumour biology.
RESEARCH ARTICLES
Deterioration of mitochondrial bioenergetics and ultrastructure impairment in skeletal muscle of a transgenic minipig model in the early stages of Huntington's disease
Summary: Specific mitochondrial parameters in muscle of a minipig model of Huntington's disease can be used as potential biomarkers of disease progression and suggest that similar pathogenic mechanisms underlie disease progression in TgHD minipigs and HD patients.
Modelling the MYC-driven normal-to-tumour switch in breast cancer
Summary: We present a MYC-driven transformation model of breast cancer that recapitulates the disease in vivo and which can be used to identify MYC-dependent cancer vulnerabilities.
Active receptor tyrosine kinases, but not Brachyury, are sufficient to trigger chordoma in zebrafish
Summary: An injection-based chordoma model in zebrafish shows that the hypothesized chordoma oncogene brachyury is insufficient, whereas EGFR and VEGFR2 are sufficient, to trigger notochord hyperplasia in our model.
Insulin receptor substrate 2 (IRS2) deficiency delays liver fibrosis associated with cholestatic injury
Summary: IRS2 is a key mediator of IGF1R signalling in hepatic stellate cell activation in cholestatic liver injury.
Morphological and functional correlates of vestibular synaptic deafferentation and repair in a mouse model of acute-onset vertigo
Summary: The molecular rearrangements of the synaptic proteins that accompany the deafferentation and subsequent reafferentation of the inner ear sensors following an excitotoxic insult are demonstrated for the first time.
Conserved properties of genetic architecture of renal and fat transcriptomes in rat models of insulin resistance
Summary: Kidney and fat expression QTL mapping in rat models of spontaneously occurring insulin resistance associated with either diabetes or hypertension reveals conserved gene expression regulation, suggesting shared aetiology of disease phenotypes.
Development of mouse models of angiosarcoma driven by p53
Editor's choice: Deletion of p53, rather than mutation, in endothelial cells leads to reliable angiosarcoma generation, which, along with establishment of a transplantation model, provides a novel approach for testing potential new therapeutics.
Genetic variation in GNB5 causes bradycardia by augmenting the cholinergic response via increased acetylcholine-activated potassium current (IK,ACh)
Summary: The authors show hiPSC-cardiomyocyte-based modeling of a mutation in a G-protein β-subunit that affects the electrophysiological response of cardiomyocytes to the cholinergic regulation of the heart rate, uncovering a potential therapy for severe bradycardia in humans carrying these mutations.
The MMTV-Wnt1 murine model produces two phenotypically distinct subtypes of mammary tumors with unique therapeutic responses to an EGFR inhibitor
Summary: The MMTV-Wnt1 mouse model produces two phenotypically distinct subtypes of mammary tumors. Importantly, these subtypes differ in their therapeutic response to erlotinib, an EGFR inhibitor.
RDH10 function is necessary for spontaneous fetal mouth movement that facilitates palate shelf elevation
Summary: Fetal mouth immobility and defects in pharyngeal patterning underlie cleft palate in retinoid-deficient Rdh10 mutant mouse embryos.
RESOURCE ARTICLES
Genome-wide analysis of androgen receptor binding and transcriptomic analysis in mesenchymal subsets during prostate development
Summary: A study of how androgens lead to sexually dimorphic development of the prostate using transcription factor genome binding and transcriptome analysis in mesenchymal subsets.
Standardised imaging pipeline for phenotyping mouse laterality defects and associated heart malformations, at multiple scales and multiple stages
Summary: Laterality defects, which combine anomalies in several visceral organs, are challenging to phenotype. We have developed here a standardised approach for multimodality 3D imaging in mice, generating quantifiable phenotypes.
PREPRINT HIGHLIGHTS
Sex matters in preclinical research
DMM calls for improved inclusion, analysis and reporting of sex as a biological variable in preclinical animal modelling research. Read the full Editorial by Monica J. Justice.
Subject collection: Building advocacy into research
DMM’s new series - Building advocacy into research - features interviews, ‘The Patient’s Voice’, with patients and advocates for a range of disease types, with the aim of supporting the highest quality research for the benefit of all patients affected by disease.
Travelling Fellowships for early-career researchers
DMM and its sister journals offer Travelling Fellowships of up to £3,000 to graduate students and post-doctoral researchers wishing to make collaborative visits to other laboratories. Find out more about our Travelling Fellowships and read stories from previous grant recipients.
Read & Publish Open Access publishing: what authors say
We have had great feedback from authors who have benefitted from our Read & Publish agreement with their institution and have been able to publish Open Access with us without paying an APC. Read what they had to say.
The Forest of Biologists
Our Publisher Claire Moulton recently visited the two Woodland Trust UK sites where we are planting new native trees for published Research and Review papers and protecting ancient woodland on behalf of our peer reviewers.