Issues

Summary: We review the potential neural mechanisms by which light influences seasonal depression, focusing on research using diurnal rodent models.

Summary: We discuss the cellular changes that occur during haematopoietic ageing at the different molecular levels, and provide an overview of the benefits of investigating those changes with single-cell precision.

Summary: We manipulated the expression of the developmental regulator Wt1 in mesenchymal cells in a tissue-specific manner using transgenic mouse models, showing that mutant embryos can survive in utero but die shortly after birth owing to diaphragmatic hernia.

Summary: This study reveals that adult mice harboring a disease-linked Cx30 mutant exhibit morphological changes in the brain that result in behavioral abnormalities that are more pronounced in female mice.

Editor’s choice: Genome editing was carried out in C. elegans to model and characterise two pathogenic missense variants of mksr-2/B9D2, P74S and G155S, from a compound heterozygous patient with Joubert syndrome.

Summary: Morphological characterization of a model for evaluating neuritic regeneration in vitro in dorsal root ganglion primary neurons derived from type-2 diabetic mice with an advanced stage of diabetic neuropathy.

Summary: Using Drosophila larval salivary glands as a model system, we show a new role for retromer in trafficking of secretory membrane and cargo proteins during regulated exocytosis, which could be relevant in neurodegenerative diseases.

Summary: The combination of patient profiling and testing in a NOD/Scid IL2Rγ^null mouse model of ulcerative colitis (UC) validates oxelumab as a potential therapeutic in UC.

Summary: A novel Dre^Pr recombinase used for sequential lineage tracing in mouse intestinal tissue identifies clonal heterogeneity within tumours, and impaired clonal dynamics in adjacent epithelia may promote tumour growth.

Summary: Examination of copper homeostasis in enterocyte-specific and hepatocyte-specific COMMD gene-deficient mice revealed that homologs of COMMD1, which has been linked previously by genetic studies to copper regulation, also regulate copper handling in mammals.