Pathologic ocular neovascularization commonly causes blindness. It is critical to identify the factors altered in pathologically proliferating versus normally quiescent vessels to develop effective targeted therapeutics. MicroRNAs regulate both physiological and pathological angiogenesis through modulating expression of gene targets at the posttranscriptional level. However, it is not completely understood if...

Sickle cell disease (SCD) is an inherited disorder caused by a point mutation in the β-globin gene, leading to the production of abnormally shaped red blood cells. Sickle cells are prone to hemolysis and thereby release free heme into plasma, causing oxidative stress and inflammation that in turn result in...

There is a great demand for precisely quantitating the expression of genes of interest in synthetic and systems biotechnology as new and fascinating insights into the genetics of streptomycetes have come to light. Here, we developed, for the first time to our knowledge, a quantitative method based on flow cytometry...

Whether seeing a movie, listening to a song, or feeling a breeze on the skin, we coherently experience these stimuli as continuous, seamless percepts. However, there are rare perceptual phenomena that argue against continuous perception but, instead, suggest discrete processing of sensory input. Empirical evidence supporting such a discrete mechanism,...

Use-dependent movement therapies can lead to partial recovery of motor function after neurological injury. We attempted to improve recovery by developing a neuroprosthetic intervention that enhances movement therapy by directing spike timing-dependent plasticity in spared motor pathways. Using a recurrent neural–computer interface in rats with a cervical contusion of the...

The timing of cortical neurogenesis has a major effect on the size and organization of the mature cortex. The deletion of the LIM-homeodomain transcription factor Lhx2 in cortical progenitors by Nestin-cre leads to a dramatically smaller cortex. Here we report that Lhx2 regulates the cortex size by maintaining the cortical...

We show that hard, convex, lithographic, prismatic kite platelets, each having three 72° vertices and one 144° vertex, preferentially form a disordered and arrested 2D glass when concentrated quasi-statically in a monolayer while experiencing thermal Brownian fluctuations. By contrast with 2D systems of other hard convex shapes, such as squares,...

Endoplasmic reticulum (ER)-associated degradation (ERAD) is an essential part of an ER-localized protein quality-control system for eliminating terminally misfolded proteins. Recent studies have demonstrated that the ERAD machinery is conserved among yeast, animals, and plants; however, it remains unknown if the plant ERAD system involves plant-specific components. Here we report...

Growing plant cells need to rigorously coordinate external signals with internal processes. For instance, the maintenance of cell wall (CW) integrity requires the coordination of CW sensing with CW remodeling and biosynthesis to avoid growth arrest or integrity loss. Despite the involvement of receptor-like kinases (RLKs) of the Catharanthus roseus...

The conditional lifetime expectancy function (LEF) is the expected lifetime of a subject given survival past a certain time point and the values of a set of explanatory variables. This function is attractive to researchers because it summarizes the entire residual life distribution and has an easy interpretation compared with...

Over many decades our understanding of the impacts of intermittent drought in water-limited environments like the West African Sahel has been influenced by a narrative of overgrazing and human-induced desertification. The desertification narrative has persisted in both scientific and popular conception, such that recent regional-scale recovery (“regreening”) and local success...

Synthetic dosage lethality (SDL) denotes a genetic interaction between two genes whereby the underexpression of gene A combined with the overexpression of gene B is lethal. SDLs offer a promising way to kill cancer cells by inhibiting the activity of SDL partners of activated oncogenes in tumors, which are often...

PSYCHOLOGICAL AND COGNITIVE SCIENCES Correction for “Large-scale evidence of dependency length minimization in 37 languages,” by Richard Futrell, Kyle Mahowald, and Edward Gibson, which appeared in issue 33, August 18, 2015, of Proc Natl Acad Sci USA (112:10336–10341; first published August 3, 2015; 10.1073/pnas.1502134112). The authors note that Figs. 2...

MICROBIOLOGY Correction for “The opportunistic marine pathogen Vibrio parahaemolyticus becomes virulent by acquiring a plasmid that expresses a deadly toxin,” by Chung-Te Lee, I-Tung Chen, Yi-Ting Yang, Tzu-Ping Ko, Yun-Tzu Huang, Jiun-Yan Huang, Ming-Fen Huang, Shin-Jen Lin, Chien-Yu Chen, Shih-Shuen Lin, Donald V. Lightner, Han-Ching Wang, Andrew H.-J. Wang, Hao-Ching...

PLANT BIOLOGY Correction for “Activation of Big Grain1 significantly improves grain size by regulating auxin transport in rice,” by Linchuan Liu, Hongning Tong, Yunhua Xiao, Ronghui Che, Fan Xu, Bin Hu, Chengzhen Liang, Jinfang Chu, Jiayang Li, and Chengcai Chu, which appeared in issue 35, September 1, 2015, of Proc...

PLANT BIOLOGY Correction for “SUMOylation of phytochrome-B negatively regulates light-induced signaling in Arabidopsis thaliana,” by Ari Sadanandom, Éva Ádám, Beatriz Orosa, András Viczián, Cornelia Klose, Cunjin Zhang, Eve-Marie Josse, László Kozma-Bognár, and Ferenc Nagy, which appeared in issue 35, September 1, 2015, of Proc Natl Acad Sci USA (112:11108–11113; first...

Mercury and marine mammals Northern elephant seals accumulate MeHg from their prey in the North Pacific. Image courtesy of James Harvey (Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, Moss Landing, CA). Methylmercury (MeHg) is a neurotoxin that accumulates in marine food chains, posing a threat to environmental and human health. High Hg concentrations...

Bacteria, fungi, and plants produce an arsenal of complex biomolecules through which they interact and compete with neighbor organisms (1). The machinery that builds these molecules is replete with iron(II)- and 2-(oxo)glutarate-dependent (Fe/2OG) oxygenases, enzymes that catalyze hydroxylation, halogenation, desaturation, ring-closure, ring-expansion, and stereoinversion reactions on pathways to important natural-product...

Diverse seasonal flowering behaviors drive global adaption of bread wheat (Triticum aestivum), the major crop grown in temperate zones worldwide. Many wheats are sown in autumn and flower only after experiencing the prolonged cold of winter (vernalization). By delaying flowering until spring, the requirement for vernalization minimizes the risk that...

The herpesviruses are characterized by their ability to undergo a productive infection upon infection of the host organism and then spread to establish a latent infection where they persist in the host. Later, under conditions of stress or other environmental stimuli, they reactivate to undergo a productive infection and spread...