Ultimately, by understanding fundamental aspects of RNA modification biology we will be able to develop selective and specific small-molecule Copanlisib cell line inhibitors to modulate RNA methylation levels. Such discoveries may well lead to the identification of novel

therapeutic strategies to treat complex diseases including developmental and neurological disorders, obesity or cancer. Papers of particular interest, published within the period of review, have been highlighted as: • of special interest We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Cambridge Stem Cell Initiative and Stephen Evans-Freke. We thank our funders Cancer Research UK (CR-UK)

(C10701/A15181), the Medical Research Council (MRC) (G0801904), the European Research Council (ERC) (310360), and EMBO (Grant no. ALTF 424-2008). “
“Current Opinion in Cell Biology 2014, 31:16–22 This review comes from a themed issue on Cell cycle, differentiation and disease Edited by Stefano Piccolo and Eduard Batlle For a complete overview see the Issue and the Editorial Available online 12th July 2014 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ceb.2014.06.011 0955-0674/© 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/). selleck compound Darwin’s theory of natural selection has revolutionized our understanding of how organisms evolve. Often, the essence of his theory is formulated with ‘the fittest survive’, a term first coined by Herbert Spencer, to summarize the ideas of Darwin Thalidomide that better adapted organisms will live to have more offspring. In 1881, zoologist

Wilhelm Roux argued that Darwinian competition and selection had not been considered for the development of tissues and organs. In his view, cells within our bodies were also likely to compete for space and limited resources. Such ‘fights’ among slightly varying ‘parts of our bodies’ would result in the ‘selective breeding’ of the most durable and the elimination of less durable parts (cells). Along similar lines, Santiago Ramon y Cajal proposed a few years later that developing neurons may be engaged in a competitive struggle for space and nutrition, an idea which gained support in the framework of the neurotrophic theory and the discovery of nerve growth factor by Rita-Levi Montalcini and its isolation by Stanley Cohen in 1960 [1]. During nervous system development, large proportions of neurons die in almost every region of the nervous system. The normal death of these neurons occurs during a limited time window coinciding with target innervation [2].