Cell biology articles within Nature

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    An atlas of the substrate specificities for the human tyrosine kinome reveals diversity of motif specificities and enables identification of kinase–substrate relationships and kinase regulation in phosphoproteomics experiments.

    • Tomer M. Yaron-Barir
    • , Brian A. Joughin
    •  & Jared L. Johnson

  • News & Views |

    Organelles called mitochondria are transferred to blood-vessel-forming cells by support cells. Unexpectedly, these mitochondria are degraded, kick-starting the production of new ones and boosting vessel formation.

    • Chantell S. Evans

  • Article |

    Using micropipette aspiration on donated human embryos, cell surface tensions during compaction were mapped, indicating a role for defective cell contractility in poor quality embryos.

    • Julie Firmin
    • , Nicolas Ecker
    •  & Jean-Léon Maître

  • Article |

    Under stressful conditions, mesenchymal stromal cells transfer mitochondria to endothelial cells through tunnelling nanotubes, and artificially transplanting mitochondria into endothelial cells improves the ability of these cells to engraft and to revascularize ischaemic tissues.

    • Ruei-Zeng Lin
    • , Gwang-Bum Im
    •  & Juan M. Melero-Martin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The Human Muscle Ageing Cell Atlas provides a series of integrated cellular and molecular explanations for sarcopenia and frailty development in advanced ages.

    • Yiwei Lai
    • , Ignacio Ramírez-Pardo
    •  & Miguel A. Esteban

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Signalling by the developmental morphogen BMP2 through the transcription factor SMAD1 has a key role in controlling the glutamatergic innervation of parvalbumin-expressing interneurons and maintaining the balance between excitation and inhibition in the mammalian cortex.

    • Zeynep Okur
    • , Nadia Schlauri
    •  & Peter Scheiffele

  • Article |

    Glucocorticoids reprogram the mitochondrial metabolism of macrophages, resulting in increased and sustained production of the anti-inflammatory metabolite itaconate and, as a consequence, inhibition of the inflammatory response.

    • Jean-Philippe Auger
    • , Max Zimmermann
    •  & Gerhard Krönke

  • Article |

    The molecular basis of OSCA/TMEM63 channel mechanosensitivity was investigated by determining 44 cryogenic electron microscopy structures of channels in different environments, expanding understanding of channel-mediated mechanotransduction and pore formation, with implications for two protein families.

    • Yaoyao Han
    • , Zijing Zhou
    •  & Yixiao Zhang

  • News & Views |

    Organelles called lysosomes fuse with cargo-carrying vesicles and degrade the cargo molecules. How lysosomes maintain their size despite constant vesicle fusion was unclear, but now factors that aid organelle fission have been found.

    • Shilpa Gopan
    •  & Thomas J. Pucadyil

  • Article |

    The conserved HEAT repeat protein HPO-27 is identified as a lysosome scission factor in Caenorhabditis elegans, and the human homologue MROH1 also serves the same function to maintain lysosomal homeostasis.

    • Letao Li
    • , Xilu Liu
    •  & Xiaochen Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Binding of the substrates NAD+ and ATP to the plant Toll/interleukin-1 receptor (TIR) domain proteins induces phase separation and, thereby, activation of TIR enzymatic and immune signalling activity.

    • Wen Song
    • , Li Liu
    •  & Jijie Chai

  • Article |

    Time-resolved cryo-EM is used to capture structural transitions during G-protein activation stimulated by a G-protein-coupled receptor.

    • Makaía M. Papasergi-Scott
    • , Guillermo Pérez-Hernández
    •  & Georgios Skiniotis

  • News & Views |

    Direct interactions between cells in tissue are incompletely understood because the advanced technologies required to examine them are still in their infancy. A new method can decipher cell–cell interactions on a large scale.

    • Michael A. Wheeler

  • Technology Feature |

    Imaging and molecular manipulation reveal how biomolecular condensates form and offer clues to the role of phase separation in health and disease.

    • Elie Dolgin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The demethylase KDM5C, mutations in which often lead to intellectual disability, is identified as a crucial player in regulating the precise timing of neurodevelopment together with the WNT signalling pathway.

    • Violetta Karwacki-Neisius
    • , Ahram Jang
    •  & Yang Shi

  • Article |

    Circular RNAs are exported from the nucleus by Ran-GTP, exportin-2 and IGF2BP1 in a mechanism analogous to protein export rather than mRNA export.

    • Linh H. Ngo
    • , Andrew G. Bert
    •  & Vihandha O. Wickramasinghe

  • Article |

    Variant-to-gene-to-program is a new approach to building maps of genome function to link risk variants to disease genes and to convergent signalling pathways in an unbiased manner; its strength is demonstrated in coronary artery disease.

    • Gavin R. Schnitzler
    • , Helen Kang
    •  & Jesse M. Engreitz

  • Research Briefing |

    Rapid communication between intracellular structures such as the endoplasmic reticulum and the mitochondria is crucial for the coordinated functioning of cells. Such interactions occur mainly at sites where the compartments are in direct contact, and are mediated by specific tethering machinery. High-speed single-molecule tracking reveals a well-regulated interface at which many rapid binding and unbinding events provide highly adaptable interactions.

  • News & Views |

    The discovery that an evolutionarily conserved molecule used to make cholesterol also acts as a defence against a cell-death mechanism called ferroptosis might lead to new ways to treat cancer and other clinical conditions.

    • Donna D. Zhang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The E3 ligase SIFI is identified as a dedicated silencing factor of the integrated stress response, a finding that has implications for the development of therapeutics for neurodegenerative diseases caused by mitochondrial protein import stress.

    • Diane L. Haakonsen
    • , Michael Heider
    •  & Michael Rapé

  • Article |

    7-Dehydrocholesterol (7-DHC) is a natural anti-ferroptotic metabolite and pharmacological manipulation of 7-DHC levels shows promise as a therapeutic strategy for cancer and ischaemia–reperfusion injury.

    • Yaxu Li
    • , Qiao Ran
    •  & Ping Wang

  • Article |

    Proferroptotic activity of 7-dehydrocholesterol reductase is shown along with an unexpected prosurvival function of its substrate, 7-dehydrocholesterol, indicating a cell-intrinsic mechanism that could be used by cancer cells to protect phospholipids from oxidative damage and escape ferroptosis.

    • Florencio Porto Freitas
    • , Hamed Alborzinia
    •  & José Pedro Friedmann Angeli

  • Article
    | Open Access

    High-speed molecular tracking is integrated with three-dimensional electron microscopy to map the diffusion distribution and ultrastructure of endoplasmic reticulum-mitochondria contact sites, revealing the ability of high-speed single-molecule imaging to map contact site interface structures and corresponding diffusion landscapes.

    • Christopher J. Obara
    • , Jonathon Nixon-Abell
    •  & Jennifer Lippincott-Schwartz

  • News & Views |

    DNA in the cytoplasm can be a sign of abnormalities such as viral infections or cancer. A protein with a role in DNA-damage response was unexpectedly found to activate defences against the threats indicated by cytoplasmic DNA.

    • Silvia Monticelli
    •  & Petr Cejka

  • News & Views |

    Once a plant recognizes a pathogen, part of its defence strategy is to withhold iron. The mechanism involves suppression of root acquisition of iron by degrading a molecule that activates the iron-uptake pathway.

    • Shanice S. Webster
    •  & Mary Lou Guerinot

  • Research Briefing |

    Thin cellular protrusions called cytonemes can transport ligand–receptor complexes from a signal-producing cell to a receiving cell in the developing zebrafish embryo. Even cells lacking the receptor can be activated by this signalling system.

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In zebrafish embryos, active complexes of Wnt5b and its membrane-bound receptor Ror2 are transported between cells via cellular protrusions called cytonemes to initiate paracrine Wnt5b signalling in cells that do not endogenously express the receptor.

    • Chengting Zhang
    • , Lucy Brunt
    •  & Steffen Scholpp

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Mitochondria have a pivotal role in the transport of dietary lipids in enterocytes, a finding that might have relevance to understanding the aberrant gastrointestinal function in patients with mitochondrial disorders.

    • Chrysanthi Moschandrea
    • , Vangelis Kondylis
    •  & Manolis Pasparakis

  • News & Views |

    A suppressive type of immune cell called a regulatory T cell has a key role in helping muscles to adapt to exercise — guarding muscle mitochondrial organelles against damage mediated by proinflammatory factors generated during physical activity.

    • Gerald Coulis
    •  & S. Armando Villalta

  • News & Views |

    Modified components of messenger RNA can cause the protein-production machinery to stall during the process of translation. This might change the protein being made, a finding with implications for vaccines or therapies.

    • Nicholas J. Tursi
    •  & David B. Weiner

  • Article |

    Integration of multiomics data with functional analysis of pancreatic tissues from individuals with early-stage type 2 diabetes indicates that the genetic risk converges on RFX6, which regulates chromatin architecture at multiple risk loci.

    • John T. Walker
    • , Diane C. Saunders
    •  & Marcela Brissova

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