Volume 14 Issue 9, September 2018

Establishment of the germ cell lineage requires post-transcriptional regulation of mRNAs, yet the underlying molecular mechanisms are not fully understood in vertebrates. A small-molecule inhibitor of germ cell formation reveals a noncanonical translation system used in zebrafish embryos.

The design of spiraling cross-α amyloid-like structures reveals fascinating supermolecular fibrils of diverse compactness and stability. The small sequence variations governing cross-α self-assembly properties concur with amyloids being basic building blocks of life and natural targets for microbial structural mimicry.

A computational design approach was used to develop a genetically encoded FRET-based optical sensor that is aimed at monitoring extracellular glycine levels in brain tissue with the sensitivity and resolution to discern differences in dendritic spine and shaft environment and concentration dynamics upon afferent stimulation.

Histone H3 serine 10 is found to be the major chromatin acceptor residue for DNA damage–induced ADP-ribosylation and is blocked by specific acetylation sites on PARP1 and/or H3.

Plant-associated rhizosphere bacteria produce gramibactin, a cyclic lipodepsipeptide siderophore that tightly binds iron via an unexpected functional group, the N-nitrosohydroxylamine (diazeniumdiolate) moieties of the amino acid graminine.

Primordazine inhibits poly(A)-tail-independent noncanonical translation (PAINT) in early zebrafish embryos and in mammalian cells under select conditions, an effect mediated by deadenylated 3ʹ UTRs that results in ablation of primordial germ cells.

Engineered variants of cysteine dioxygenase containing a halogen-substituted tyrosine analog provide insights into the process of Cys–Tyr cross-link formation and indicate that the enzyme can catalyze oxidative cleavage of a carbon–fluorine bond.

A genetically encoded FRET-based optical sensor generated from a computational design approach can monitor hippocampal glycine levels in brain tissue to determine differences between spines and shafts and changes induced by high- and low-frequency stimulation.

Structural analysis reveals how certain designed peptides adopt unusual spiraling cross-α amyloid-like structures and also rearrange to helical polymers upon mutation of small nonpolar residues that are critical for packing and stabilization.

NMR and in vitro reconstitution indicate that GPCRs signal through SH3-containing proteins downstream of β-arrestin 1 proline regions and that arrestin allosterically activates downstream kinases by disrupting their autoinhibitory conformation.

Structural analysis of PRPP and ppGpp riboswitches reveals that they employ a helical element to create a tunnel for the ligand, whose specificity is determined by the conserved nucleotides forming the tunnel and long-distance contacts.

The development of a selective and potent monobody to WDR5, a component of the mixed linear leukemia methyltransferase complex, as genetically encoded inhibitor enables suppression of leukemogenesis and confers survival in a mouse leukemia model.