News & Comment

Roney et al. show that neuronal loss in Niemann-Pick disease type C is associated with the impairment of lysosome trafficking by cholesterol that accumulates on lysosome membranes.

Samira Musah highlights work by Puelles et al. investigating multi-organ affinity of SARS-CoV-2 and its high infectivity of the kidneys.

Roukos and Longo recount the findings of two 1982 papers, which proved that chromosomes and spaghetti are not alike.

Sunil Laxman highlights the 1987 discovery of cyclic-di-GMP, which prompted scientists to rethink the concept of ‘unicellular’ and the impact of cell signalling.

Michele Vendruscolo and colleagues propose that polyglutamine repeat expansion diseases could be caused by glutaminyl-tRNA depletion, leading to ribosome frameshifting and mistranslation of transcripts with specific characteristics.

Nicolas Papon highlights the work by Kakimoto and colleagues that led to the identification of the cytokinin receptor in plants — 20 years ago.

Unexpected high levels of recurrent DNA single-strand break repair were detected in enhancer regions of post-mitotic neurons.

Lancaster and colleagues describe a morphological change in early primate brain stem cells, the timing of which could underlie the differences in brain size between human and apes.

Moore et al. show the role of actin assemblies in regulating the balanced distribution of a healthy mitochondrial network between daughter cells in mitosis.

Johnstone and Galloway contend that, to support complex patterning within engineered tissues, synthetic biology should be able to manage transcriptional noise.

Cancer cells with supernumerary centrosomes have disrupted lysosomes, which enhances the secretion of exosomes that promote malignancy.

Juan Tosar recalls how two papers published in 2011 changed his perception of RNA fragility.

Aberrant activation of the innate immunity enzyme cGAS during mitosis is suppressed by hyper-phosphorylation and by chromatin tethering.

Hoijman et al. show that in early vertebrate development, engulfment of apoptotic cells is mediated by epithelial cells covering the embryo, which use specialized protrusions to distribute apoptotic bodies and support their efficient clearance.

Guillaume Tcherkez recounts the hard choices of RuBisCo, the most abundant enzyme on Earth.

Sara Wickström draws attention to the pioneering work of Watt, Jordan and O’Neill on the role of cell shape in the regulation of stem cells.

An Hendrix reminisces on the early work demonstrating the prevalence and heterogeneity of extracellular vesicles.

Constance Ciaudo tells us about two articles that changed her perception of microRNA biogenesis proteins.

Gadadhar et al. report that tubulin glycylation enables sustained motion of sperm by regulating the beating of sperm flagella.

Mehta and Vanderschuren advocate for more stringent standards in reporting agricultural biotechnology research.