In a paper published online in advance in PLoS Genetics this week, investigators at the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders and elsewhere show that "a non-coding point mutation of Zeb1 causes multiple developmental malformations and obesity in twirler mice." The team says this mutation "acts via a gain-of-function to disrupt regulation of Zeb1^Tw expression, epithelial-mesenchymal cell fate or interactions, and structural development of the inner ear in Twirler mice." The authors add that "this is a novel mechanism