Nearly 9 million Americans live in extreme-poverty neighborhoods, places that also tend to be racially segregated and dangerous. Yet the effects on the well-being of residents of moving out of such communities into less-distressed areas remain uncertain. Using data from Moving to Opportunity, a unique randomized housing mobility experiment, we find that moving from a high-poverty to lower-poverty neighborhood leads to long-term (10 to 15 year) improvements in adult physical and mental health and subjective well-being, despite not affecting economic self-sufficiency. A 1 standard deviation decline in neighborhood poverty (13 percentage points) increases subjective well-being by an amount equal to the gap in subjective well-being between people whose annual incomes differ by $13,000, a large amount given that the average control group income is $20,000. Subjective well-being is more strongly affected by changes in neighborhood economic disadvantage than racial segregation, which is important because racial segregation has been declining since 1970 but income segregation has been increasing.

Elucidating the biogeography of bacterial communities on the human body is critical for establishing healthy baselines from which to detect differences associated with diseases. To obtain an integrated view of the spatial and temporal distribution of the human microbiota, we surveyed bacteria from up to 27 sites in 7–9 healthy adults on four occasions. We found that community composition was determined primarily by body habitat. Within habitats, interpersonal variability was high, while individuals exhibited minimal temporal variability. Several skin locations harbored more diverse communities than the gut and mouth, and skin locations differed in their community assembly patterns. These results indicate that our microbiota, although personalized, varies systematically across body habitats and time: such trends may ultimately reveal how microbiome changes cause or prevent disease.

T cell receptor (TCR) and costimulatory receptor (CD28) signals cooperate in activating T cells, although understanding of how these pathways are themselves regulated is incomplete. We found that Homer2 and Homer3, members of the Homer family of cytoplasmic scaffolding proteins, are negative regulators of T cell activation. This is achieved through binding of nuclear factor of activated T cells (NFAT) and by competing with calcineurin. Homer-NFAT binding was also antagonized by active serine-threonine kinase AKT, thereby enhancing TCR signaling via calcineurin-dependent dephosphorylation of NFAT. This corresponded with changes in cytokine expression and an increase in effector-memory T cell populations in Homer-deficient mice, which also developed autoimmune-like pathology. These results demonstrate a further means by which costimulatory signals are regulated to control self-reactivity.

Tail-anchored (TA) proteins are involved in cellular processes including trafficking, degradation, and apoptosis. They contain a C-terminal membrane anchor and are posttranslationally delivered to the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) membrane by the Get3 adenosine triphosphatase interacting with the hetero-oligomeric Get1/2 receptor. We have determined crystal structures of Get3 in complex with the cytosolic domains of Get1 and Get2 in different functional states at 3.0, 3.2, and 4.6 angstrom resolution. The structural data, together with biochemical experiments, show that Get1 and Get2 use adjacent, partially overlapping binding sites and that both can bind simultaneously to Get3. Docking to the Get1/2 complex allows for conformational changes in Get3 that are required for TA protein insertion. These data suggest a molecular mechanism for nucleotide-regulated delivery of TA proteins.

Calcium signals, pivotal in controlling cell function, can be generated by calcium entry channels activated by plasma membrane depolarization or depletion of internal calcium stores. We reveal a regulatory link between these two channel subtypes mediated by the ubiquitous calcium-sensing STIM proteins. STIM1 activation by store depletion or mutational modification strongly suppresses voltage-operated calcium (CaV1.2) channels while activating store-operated Orai channels. Both actions are mediated by the short STIM-Orai activating region (SOAR) of STIM1. STIM1 interacts with CaV1.2 channels and localizes within discrete endoplasmic reticulum/plasma membrane junctions containing both CaV1.2 and Orai1 channels. Hence, STIM1 interacts with and reciprocally controls two major calcium channels hitherto thought to operate independently. Such coordinated control of the widely expressed CaV1.2 and Orai channels has major implications for Ca2+ signal generation in excitable and nonexcitable cells.

Both subjective and electroencephalographic arousal diminish as a function of the duration of prior wakefulness. Data reported here suggest that the major criteria for a neural sleep factor mediating the somnogenic effects of prolonged wakefulness are satisfied by adenosine, a neuromodulator whose extracellular concentration increases with brain metabolism and which, in vitro, inhibits basal forebrain cholinergic neurons. In vivo microdialysis measurements in freely behaving cats showed that adenosine extracellular concentrations in the basal forebrain cholinergic region increased during spontaneous wakefulness as contrasted with slow wave sleep; exhibited progressive increases during sustained, prolonged wakefulness; and declined slowly during recovery sleep. Furthermore, the sleep-wakefulness profile occurring after prolonged wakefulness was mimicked by increased extracellular adenosine induced by microdialysis perfusion of an adenosine transport inhibitor in the cholinergic basal forebrain but not by perfusion in a control noncholinergic region.

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is the most common and aggressive malignant primary brain tumor in humans. Here, we show that gliomas can originate from differentiated cells in the central nervous system (CNS), including cortical neurons. Transduction by oncogenic lentiviral vectors of neural stem cells (NSCs), astrocytes, or even mature neurons in the brain of mice can give rise to malignant gliomas. All the tumors, irrespective of the site of injection (initiating population), share common features of high expression of stem or progenitor markers and low expression of differentiation markers. Microarray analysis revealed that tumors of astrocytic and neuronal origin match the mesenchymal GBM subtype. We propose that most differentiated cells in the CNS upon defined genetic alterations undergo dedifferentiation to generate a NSC or progenitor state to initiate and maintain the tumor progression, as well as to give rise to the heterogeneous populations observed in malignant gliomas.

The Escherichia coli DNA replication machinery must frequently overcome template lesions under normal growth conditions. Yet, the outcome of a collision between the replisome and a leading-strand template lesion remains poorly understood. Here we demonstrate that a single, site-specific, cyclobutane pyrimidine dimer leading-strand template lesion provides only a transient block to fork progression in vitro. The replisome remains stably associated with the fork following collision with the lesion. Leading-strand synthesis is then reinitiated downstream of the damage in a reaction that is dependent on the primase, DnaG, but independent of any of the known replication-restart proteins. These observations reveal that the replisome can tolerate leading-strand template lesions without dissociating by synthesizing the leading strand discontinuously.

There have been substantial advances in cancer diagnostics and therapies in the past decade. Besides chemotherapeutic agents and radiation therapy, approaches now include targeting cancer cell–intrinsic mediators linked to genetic aberrations in cancer cells, in addition to cancer cell–extrinsic pathways, especially those regulating vascular programming of solid tumors. More recently, immunotherapeutics have entered the clinic largely on the basis of the recognition that several immune cell subsets, when chronically activated, foster tumor development. Here, we discuss clinical and experimental studies delineating protumorigenic roles for immune cell subsets that are players in cancer-associated inflammation. Some of these cells can be targeted to reprogram their function, leading to resolution, or at least neutralization, of cancer-promoting chronic inflammation, thereby facilitating cancer rejection.

Impairment of the circadian clock has been associated with numerous disorders, including metabolic disease. Although small molecules that modulate clock function might offer therapeutic approaches to such diseases, only a few compound have been identified that selectively target core clock proteins. From an unbiased cell-based circadian screen, we identified KL001, a small molecule that specifically interacts with cryptochrome (CRY). KL001 prevented ubiquitin-dependent degradation of CRY, resulting in lengthening of the circadian period. In combination with mathematical modeling, KL001 revealed that CRY1 and CRY2 share a similar functional role in the period regulation. Furthermore, KL001- mediated CRY stabilization inhibited glucagon-induced gluconeogenesis in primary hepatocytes. KL001 thus provides a tool to study the regulation of CRY-dependent physiology and aid development of clock-based therapeutics of diabetes.

TAL (transcription activator–like) effectors, secreted by phytopathogenic bacteria, recognize host DNA sequences through a central domain of tandem repeats. Each repeat comprises 33 to 35 conserved amino acids and targets a specific base pair by using two hypervariable residues [known as repeat variable diresidues (RVDs)] at positions 12 and 13. Here, we report the crystal structures of an 11.5-repeat TAL effector in both DNA-free and DNA-bound states. Each TAL repeat comprises two helices connected by a short RVD-containing loop. The 11.5 repeats form a right-handed, superhelical structure that tracks along the sense strand of DNA duplex, with RVDs contacting the major groove. The 12th residue stabilizes the RVD loop, whereas the 13th residue makes a base-specific contact. Understanding DNA recognition by TAL effectors may facilitate rational design of DNA-binding proteins with biotechnological applications.

Electrically coupled inhibitory interneurons dynamically control network excitability, yet little is known about how chemical and electrical synapses regulate their activity. Using two-photon glutamate uncaging and dendritic patch-clamp recordings, we found that the dendrites of cerebellar Golgi interneurons acted as passive cables. They conferred distance-dependent sublinear synaptic integration and weakened distal excitatory inputs. Gap junctions were present at a higher density on distal dendrites and contributed substantially to membrane conductance. Depolarization of one Golgi cell increased firing in its neighbors, and inclusion of dendritic gap junctions in interneuron network models enabled distal excitatory synapses to drive network activity more effectively. Our results suggest that dendritic gap junctions counteract sublinear dendritic integration by enabling excitatory synaptic charge to spread into the dendrites of neighboring inhibitory interneurons.

Human populations have experienced recent explosive growth, expanding by at least three orders of magnitude over the past 400 generations. This departure from equilibrium skews patterns of genetic variation and distorts basic principles of population genetics. We characterized the empirical signatures of explosive growth on the site frequency spectrum and found that the discrepancy in rare variant abundance across demographic modeling studies is mostly due to differences in sample size. Rapid recent growth increases the load of rare variants and is likely to play a role in the individual genetic burden of complex disease risk. Hence, the extreme recent human population growth needs to be taken into consideration in studying the genetics of complex diseases and traits.

Extracellular ligand binding to G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) modulates G-protein and β-arrestin signaling by changing the conformational states of the cytoplasmic region of the receptor. Using site-specific 19F-NMR labels in the β2-adrenergic receptor (β2AR) in complexes with various ligands, we observed that the cytoplasmic ends of helices VI and VII adopt two major conformational states. Changes in the NMR signals reveal that agonist binding primarily shifts the equilibrium towards the G protein specific active state of helix VI. In contrast, β-arrestin-biased ligands predominantly impact the conformational states of helix VII. The selective effects of different ligands on the conformational equilibria involving helices VI and VII provide insights into the long-range structural plasticity of β2AR in partial and biased agonist signaling.

Relative to the atmosphere, much of the aerobic ocean is supersaturated with methane; however, the source of this important greenhouse gas remains enigmatic. Catabolism of methylphosphonic acid by phosphorus-starved marine microbes, with concomitant release of methane, has been suggested to explain this phenomenon, yet methylphosphonate is not a known natural product, nor has it been detected in natural systems. Further, its synthesis from known natural products would require unknown biochemistry. Here we show that the marine archaeon Nitrosopumilus maritimus encodes a pathway for methylphosphonate biosynthesis and that it produces cell-associated methylphosphonate esters. The abundance of a key gene in this pathway in metagenomic datasets suggests that methylphosphonate biosynthesis is relatively common in marine microbes, providing a plausible explanation for the methane paradox.

Diseases of esophageal epithelium (EE) such as reflux esophagitis and cancer are rising in incidence. Despite this, the cellular behaviors underlying EE homeostasis and repair remain controversial. Here we show that in mice, EE is maintained by a single population of cells that divide stochastically to generate proliferating and differentiating daughters with equal probability. In response to challenge with all-trans Retinoic Acid (atRA) the balance of daughter cell fate is unaltered but the rate of cell division increases. However, following wounding, cells reversibly switch to producing an excess of proliferating daughters until the wound has closed. Such fate switching enables a single progenitor population to both maintain and repair tissue without the need for a “reserve” slow-cycling stem cell pool.

Enzymes are thought to have evolved highly specific catalytic activities from promiscuous ancestral proteins. By analyzing a genome-scale model of Escherichia coli metabolism, we found that 37% of its enzymes act on a variety of substrates and catalyze 65% of the known metabolic reactions. However, it is not apparent why these generalist enzymes remain. Here, we show that there are marked differences between generalist enzymes and specialist enzymes, known to catalyze a single chemical reaction on one particular substrate in vivo. Specialist enzymes (i) are frequently essential, (ii) maintain higher metabolic flux, and (iii) require more regulation of enzyme activity to control metabolic flux in dynamic environments than do generalist enzymes. Furthermore, these properties are conserved in Archaea and Eukarya. Thus, the metabolic network context and environmental conditions influence enzyme evolution toward high specificity.

The classical view of DNA posits that DNA must be stiff below the persistence length (<150 bp) but recent studies addressing this have yielded contradictory results. We developed a fluorescence-based, protein-free assay for studying the cyclization of single DNA molecules in real time. The assay samples the equilibrium population of a sharply bent, transient species which is entirely suppressed in single molecule mechanical measurements and is biologically more relevant than the ligated species sampled in the traditional ligase-based assay. The looping rate has a remarkably weak length dependence between 67 and 106 bp that can not be described by the worm-like chain model. Many biologically significant protein-DNA interactions that involve looping and bending of DNA below 100 bp likely use this intrinsic bendability of DNA.

Abscisic acid (ABA) is an essential hormone for plants to survive environmental stresses. At the center of the ABA signaling network is a subfamily of type 2C protein phosphatases (PP2Cs), which form exclusive interactions with ABA receptors and subfamily 2 Snfl-related kinase (SnRK2s). Here, we report a SnRK2-PP2C complex structure, which reveals marked similarity in PP2C recognition by SnRK2 and ABA receptors. In the complex, the kinase activation loop docks into the active site of PP2C, while the conserved ABA-sensing tryptophan of PP2C inserts into the kinase catalytic cleft, thus mimicking receptor-PP2C interactions. These structural results provide a simple mechanism that directly couples ABA binding to SnRK2 kinase activation and highlight a new paradigm of kinase-phosphatase regulation through mutual packing of their catalytic sites.

Cellular iron homeostasis is maintained by the coordinate posttranscriptional regulation of genes responsible for iron uptake, release, use, and storage through the actions of the iron regulatory proteins IRP1 and IRP2. However, the manner in which iron levels are sensed to affect IRP2 activity is poorly understood. We found that an E3 ubiquitin ligase complex containing the FBXL5 protein targets IRP2 for proteasomal degradation. The stability of FBXL5 itself was regulated, accumulating under iron- and oxygen-replete conditions and degraded upon iron depletion. FBXL5 contains an iron- and oxygen-binding hemerythrin domain that acted as a ligand-dependent regulatory switch mediating FBXL5's differential stability. These observations suggest a mechanistic link between iron sensing via the FBXL5 hemerythrin domain, IRP2 regulation, and cellular responses to maintain mammalian iron homeostasis.

A20 is a cytoplasmic zinc finger protein that inhibits nuclear factor κB (NF-κB) activity and tumor necrosis factor (TNF)–mediated programmed cell death (PCD). TNF dramatically increases A20 messenger RNA expression in all tissues. Mice deficient for A20 develop severe inflammation and cachexia, are hypersensitive to both lipopolysaccharide and TNF, and die prematurely. A20-deficient cells fail to terminate TNF-induced NF-κB responses. These cells are also more susceptible than control cells to undergo TNF-mediated PCD. Thus, A20 is critical for limiting inflammation by terminating TNF-induced NF-κB responses in vivo.

The discovery in archaea of an alternative proteasome based on Cdc48 provides insights into theevolution of protein degradation machines.

Many signaling, cytoskeletal, and transport proteins have to be localized to the plasma membrane (PM) in order to carry out their function. We surveyed PM-targeting mechanisms by imaging the subcellular localization of 125 fluorescent protein–conjugated Ras, Rab, Arf, and Rho proteins. Out of 48 proteins that were PM-localized, 37 contained clusters of positively charged amino acids. To test whether these polybasic clusters bind negatively charged phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate [PI(4,5)P2] lipids, we developed a chemical phosphatase activation method to deplete PM PI(4,5)P2. Unexpectedly, proteins with polybasic clusters dissociated from the PM only when both PI(4,5)P2 and phosphatidylinositol 3,4,5-trisphosphate [PI(3,4,5)P3] were depleted, arguing that both lipid second messengers jointly regulate PM targeting.

To resolve the controversy about messengers regulating KCNQ ion channels during phospholipase C–mediated suppression of current, we designed translocatable enzymes that quickly alter the phosphoinositide composition of the plasma membrane after application of a chemical cue. The KCNQ current falls rapidly to zero when phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate [PtdIns(4,5)P2 or PI(4,5)P2] is depleted without changing Ca2+, diacylglycerol, or inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate. Current rises by 30% when PI(4,5)P2 is overproduced and does not change when phosphatidylinositol 3,4,5-trisphosphate is raised. Hence, the depletion of PI(4,5)P2 suffices to suppress current fully, and other second messengers are not needed. Our approach is ideally suited to study biological signaling networks involving membrane phosphoinositides.

Responses to tones of a basilar membrane site and of auditory nerve fibers innervating neighboring inner hair cells were recorded in the same cochleae in chinchillas. At near-threshold stimulus levels, the frequency tuning of auditory nerve fibers closely paralleled that of basilar membrane displacement modified by high-pass filtering, indicating that only relatively minor signal transformations intervene between mechanical vibration and auditory nerve excitation. This finding establishes that cochlear frequency selectivity in chinchillas (and probably in mammals in general) is fully expressed in the vibrations of the basilar membrane and renders unnecessary additional (“second”) filters, such as those present in the hair cells of the cochleae of reptiles.