In Nature this week, a team of UK researchers reports on the identification of new factors that regulate the production of human eggs during meiosis. To overcome technical challenges that have limited previous attempts to screen for mammalian meiotic genes, the investigators developed a new RNAi-based method that allows the assessment of the effects of blocking protein expression in nearly 800 preselected genes mediating the cell division process. With the approach, they found a number of genes with essential roles in meiosis, including ones that regulate chromosome segregation.
And in Nature Methods, a group from the University of Zurich presents details of a technique for single-molecule spectroscopy of protein conformational dynamics in live eukaryotic cells. By addressing key limitations to the in vivo application of single-molecule spectroscopy, the researchers were able to use in the live cells "a surprisingly broad spectrum" of confocal single-molecule FRET and nanosecond fluorescence correlation spectroscopy methods that previously had been limited to in vitro experimentation.