Cell biology articles within Nature

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  • News & Views |

    The conversion of dietary sugar to the molecule lactate is a hallmark of many cancers. The discovery of a new binding partner of lactate provides insight into how cells link nutrient metabolism to the decision to divide.

    • Minervo Perez
    •  & Jordan L. Meier

  • Research Briefing |

    Intracellular machines called ribosomes use messenger-RNA sequences to synthesize proteins. Investigations using single-molecule imaging and cryo-electron microscopy techniques reveal structural and kinetic differences in how human ribosomes function compared with those of bacteria. These differences explain why ribosomes in cell-nucleus-bearing species are slower and more accurate than their bacterial counterparts.

  • News & Views |

    An injection system from bacteria has been re-engineered in an effort to develop a programmable system for protein delivery into cells. Its customizability opens the door to a multitude of biomedical applications.

    • Charles F. Ericson
    •  & Martin Pilhofer

  • Article |

    Functional mutations identified in patients with androgen insensitivity syndrome, in the formin and actin nucleator DAAM2, uncover signal-regulated nuclear actin assembly at a steroid hormone receptor necessary for transcription.

    • Julian Knerr
    • , Ralf Werner
    •  & Nadine C. Hornig

  • Research Briefing |

    Cells in which the whole genome has been doubled do not upscale protein synthesis to cope with the increase in DNA. Instead, a shortage of proteins that regulate the packing of DNA in the nucleus leads to poor segregation of DNA structures, which eventually contributes to the development of cancer.

  • Research Briefing |

    The structure and function of mitochondrial networks were analysed using a combination of approaches to generate detailed maps of these cellular organelles. This analysis revealed that the mitochondria in different subtypes of lung cancer show distinct functional and structural signatures.

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A study describing an approach that combines imaging and profiling techniques to structurally and functionally analyse lung cancer in vivo, revealing heterogeneous mitochondrial networks and an association between bioenergetic phenotypes and mitochondrial organization and function.

    • Mingqi Han
    • , Eric A. Bushong
    •  & David B. Shackelford

  • News & Views |

    Cellular organelles called mitochondria contain their own DNA and RNA. The molecule fumarate has now been found to trigger the release of these nucleic acids into the cytosol, aberrantly activating inflammation.

    • Taylor A. Poor
    •  & Navdeep S. Chandel

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Fumarate metabolism regulates the innate immune response through a mechanism in which high levels of fumarate result in the generation of mitochondrial-derived vesicles and the release of mitochondrial DNA into the cytosol, which activates inflammatory pathways.

    • Vincent Zecchini
    • , Vincent Paupe
    •  & Christian Frezza

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Biochemical and molecular dynamics studies show that the third intracellular loop of G protein-coupled receptors autoregulates the receptor activity and tunes the signalling specificity by controlling access to the G protein-binding site.

    • Fredrik Sadler
    • , Ning Ma
    •  & Sivaraj Sivaramakrishnan

  • Article |

    Logic gating is used to develop a CAR T cell platform that is highly specific and allows the activity of T cells to be restricted to the encounter of two antigens, thus reducing on-target, off-tumour toxicity.

    • Aidan M. Tousley
    • , Maria Caterina Rotiroti
    •  & Robbie G. Majzner

  • Article |

    A technique to detect the release of N-terminal fragments of Drosophila adhesion G-protein-coupled receptors (aGPCRs) provides insight into the dissociation of aGPCRs, and shows that receptor autoproteolysis enables non-cell-autonomous activity of aGPCRs in the brain.

    • Nicole Scholz
    • , Anne-Kristin Dahse
    •  & Tobias Langenhan

  • News & Views |

    Processes that regulate cell death can rid the body of cancer cells. However, some of these cells have ways to thwart such processes, and one such death-defying mechanism has been found to rely on cellular protrusions called blebs.

    • Michal Reichman-Fried
    •  & Erez Raz

  • News & Views |

    Structures of the machinery for importing proteins into chloroplast organelles of algae, determined using cryo-electron microscopy, have opened a new chapter in efforts to understand how chloroplasts are built.

    • Takashi Hirashima
    •  & Toshiya Endo

  • Research Briefing |

    The sodium–chloride cotransporter (NCC) is a protein dimer central to sodium handling by the kidney and is the target of an important class of drug for high blood pressure called thiazide diuretics. Structures of human NCC with and without a bound thiazide diuretic provide insights into NCC transport function and drug inhibition.

  • Obituary |

    Biologist who revolutionized the chromatin and gene-expression field.

    • Sharon Dent
    •  & Shiv Grewal

  • Article |

    A cryo-electron microscopy analysis of the Chlamydomonas reinhardtii TOC–TIC supercomplex reveals that Tic214 traverses the chloroplast inner membrane, the intermembrane space and the outer membrane, connecting the TOC complex with the TIC proteins.

    • Hao Liu
    • , Anjie Li
    •  & Zhenfeng Liu

  • Research Briefing |

    Mitochondria are intracellular organelles that contain a large set of proteins to help them produce energy, among other functions. A systematic analysis reveals how mitochondrial proteins are organized into complexes and assemblies, facilitating the identification of the molecular mechanisms and pathways that underlie the organelle’s many functions.

  • Research Briefing |

    Whether to self-degrade is a crucial cellular decision. When nutrients are abundant, degradation of cell components is reduced through inactivation of a protein called TFEB by the enzyme complex mTORC1. The structure of a megacomplex consisting of 36 polypeptide chains, which presents TFEB to mTORC1, has been resolved.

  • Article
    | Open Access

    An analysis of MitCOM—a comprehensive resource for the identification, organization and interaction of mitochondrial machineries and pathways in yeast—identifies a constitutive pathway for the removal of preproteins.

    • Uwe Schulte
    • , Fabian den Brave
    •  & Thomas Becker

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Cryogenic-electron microscopy is used to determine the structure of TFEB as presented to mTORC1 for phosphorylation and an explanation is found for the strong dependence of TFEB phosphorylation on FLCN and the RagC GDP state.

    • Zhicheng Cui
    • , Gennaro Napolitano
    •  & James H. Hurley

  • Research Briefing |

    Immune cells called T cells were activated in mice and transferred to new mice; the process was repeated several times. The T-cell population derived from the original mice continued to respond to the same immune trigger after ten years — which is about four times the lifespan of a mouse.

  • Article |

    Through iterative cycles of viral challenge and rechallenge over ten years, mouse T cells are demonstrated to have essentially infinite potential for population expansion and longevity without malignant transformation or loss of functional competence.

    • Andrew G. Soerens
    • , Marco Künzli
    •  & David Masopust

  • News & Views |

    A computational resource can identify candidate protein targets for almost all members of a major class of kinase enzyme in humans, with implications for understanding cell signalling in health and disease.

    • Sean J. Humphrey
    •  & Elise J. Needham

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Analysis of the kinase activity of 300 protein Ser/Thr kinases reveals that the substrate specificity of the kinome is substantially more diverse than expected and is driven extensively by negative selectivity

    • Jared L. Johnson
    • , Tomer M. Yaron
    •  & Lewis C. Cantley

  • Research Briefing |

    More than 200,000 human stem cells were imaged at high resolution and in 3D to make a reference data set that was used to create a generalizable computational framework. This enables cell shapes and the locations of internal structures to be measured and compared using rigorous statistical methods.

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Single-molecule calibrated live microscopy and computational modelling have revealed that human nuclear pore complex assembly takes different pathways during the exit from mitosis and during nuclear growth in interphase.

    • Shotaro Otsuka
    • , Jeremy O. B. Tempkin
    •  & Jan Ellenberg

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A proteogenomic profiling analysis of single cells from the blood and lymph nodes of individuals living with HIV-1 reveals that CD4+ memory T cells harbouring intact provirus show signatures associated with resistance to immune-mediated killing and cell survival.

    • Weiwei Sun
    • , Ce Gao
    •  & Mathias Lichterfeld

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A lifetime cartography of in vivo senescent cells shows that they are heterogeneous. Senescent cells create an aged-like inflamed niche that mirrors inflammation associated with ageing and arrests stem cell proliferation and tissue regeneration.

    • Victoria Moiseeva
    • , Andrés Cisneros
    •  & Pura Muñoz-Cánoves

  • News & Views |

    How do environmental cues steer the branching of plant roots? Insights into how water availability shapes root growth reveal an unexpected mechanism behind the hormone-mediated regulation of this process.

    • Christa Testerink
    •  & Jasper Lamers

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Synthetic cell adhesion molecules yield customized cell–cell interactions with adhesion properties that are similar to native interactions, and offer abilities for cell and tissue engineering and for systematically studying multicellular organization.

    • Adam J. Stevens
    • , Andrew R. Harris
    •  & Wendell A. Lim

  • Article |

    An adipocyte-selective product of the Clstn3 locus (CLSTN3β) facilitates the use of stored triglyceride by limiting lipid droplet (LD) expansion, defining a molecular mechanism that regulates LD form and function to facilitate lipid utilization in thermogenic adipocytes.

    • Kevin Qian
    • , Marcus J. Tol
    •  & Peter Tontonoz

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