Volume 26 Issue 1, January 2024

As cell biologists, we aim to better our communities, but basic research is costly: instruments require energy, experiments consume copious single-use materials. Though governments, international bodies and universities must work to reduce this carbon footprint, we find sustainable research can also be shaped by individual actions in the lab.

Climate change affects us all, and tackling it requires a concerted effort, but it isn’t always evident how cell biologists’ work can impact climate change. Here, I share my experience addressing climate change as a molecular cell biologist and educator.

Advances in technology dramatically accelerate biology research, with computation being a standout example. Typically, adapting a new technology follows stages from method creation, via proof-of-concept application to biology, to the development of usable tools. Creating user-friendly software to bridge computer science and biology is a crucial step, yielding high returns on investment and driving biological discoveries. However, we need dedicated resources and a shift in the academic reward system to harness the full potential of computer science in biology.

Intellectual freedom for scientists, unconstrained by commercial interests and direct application, fuels unexpected discoveries. Curiosity-driven, basic science has yielded a deeper understanding of how life forms develop and function in their environment and has had wide implications for health and our planet. Investing in this is vital for scientific progress and is worth protecting in a democracy.

Women and gender minorities make defining contributions to science. Despite increased representation of women across the scientific career ladder, institutions routinely fail to support their career advancement or value their input. For an equitable and intersectional future faculty, definitions of excellence must evolve to better value women’s contributions.

With biomedical sciences quickly outgrowing many other application areas in terms of data generation, there is a unique opportunity for life sciences to become one of the greatest beneficiaries of research in machine learning and AI, and also inspire foundational developments in it.

As Nature Cell Biology turns 25 years old, we asked cell biologists across the globe to share their thoughts on what a productive mentor–mentee relationship looks like and their views on training the next generation of cell biologists.

Totipotency is the absence of any developmental restriction, a feature naturally found in the early embryo right after fertilization. Generating an in vitro totipotent stem cell model is not a trivial task. For this reason, a set of stringent criteria for the identification of bona fide totipotent stem cells have been proposed.

Extracellular vesicles carry proteins and lipids between cells. In a giant step forward for the field, a 2007 study published in Nature Cell Biology showed that secreted vesicles contain genetic material that is active within acceptor cells, reviving interest in extracellular vesicle-based communication in plant and animal biology.

The interplay between DNA and its associated proteins has a crucial role in regulating gene expression and determining cellular identity. Here we revisit an earlier Nature Cell Biology study that established the chromatin signature associated with pluripotency.

Cell–cell adhesions are inevitably exposed to mechanical forces. A landmark paper by Yonemura et al. identified how tension alters molecular function of the cadherin adhesion apparatus. Its legacy lies in the many on-going efforts to understand how mechanical force is used in cell–cell communication.

Epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT) is crucial in embryogenesis and can be exploited by cancer cells to gain metastatic abilities. A hallmark of EMT is E-cadherin loss. In 2000, Snail was reported as the first E-cadherin repressor identified in the context of EMT, advancing our understanding of embryonic development and cancer progression.

The structures and functions of organelles are highly interdependent. Using paired 3D electron microscopy and multi-omics, a study now shows how other organelles affect mitochondrial structure and function: peroxisome-derived lipids reverse mitochondrial stress, highlighting the importance of organelle interconnectivity.

The transcriptional coactivators TAZ and YAP pair with transcriptional enhanced associate domains (TEADs) to regulate transcription. TAZ and YAP nuclear condensates ensure optimal transcription. A new study reports that FUS regulates TAZ condensates by maintaining them in a fluid state to drive transcription of target genes.

tRNA transcriptome composition and regulation are poorly understood. A study reports tRNA transcriptome reprogramming during human cell differentiation, where the abundance of individual tRNA gene transcripts is drastically changed, but each pool of tRNAs containing the same anticodon remains stable.

β-adrenergic signalling induces thermogenesis in mature brown adipocytes through a well-known cAMP–protein kinase A (PKA) pathway and also promotes the growth and differentiation of new thermogenic adipocytes. A study now demonstrates that β-adrenergic agonists drive this pathway through a PKA-independent mechanism involving cAMP–EPAC1.

Different gut microbial metabolites have the potential to promote and protect against colorectal cancer (CRC). A study now links trans-3-indoleacrylic acid (IDA), a metabolite derived from Peptostreptococcus anaerobius, with colorectal carcinogenesis through a distinct ferroptosis pathway AHR–ALDH1A3–FSP1–CoQ₁₀.

The different compartments of the mammary stem cell hierarchy develop into distinct breast cancer subtypes as a result of specific genetic lesions. A recent study identifies aberrant ERBB3^low luminal progenitors with altered proteostasis and translation as the cell of origin of BRCA2-mutant breast cancer.

Sissoko et al. show that CENP-T local concentration regulates its ability to recruit the outer kinetochore, which may restrict complete kinetochore formation to regions with higher-order inner kinetochore assemblies.

Lee et al. use three-dimensional cell reconstruction of focused ion beam scanning electron microscopy data and multi-omics to show that ether-lipid metabolism regulates inter-organelle biogenesis and dynamics.

Kang et al. find that vitamin B₁₂ from gut bacteria modulates host neural function and behaviour in Caenorhabditis elegans: vitamin B₁₂ rewires the methionine/S-adenosylmethionine cycle and choline metabolism, impacting free choline levels for neuronal acetylcholine synthesis.

Shao et al. report that FUS interacts with the transcriptional coactivator TAZ, maintaining liquid-like properties of TAZ biomolecular condensates and enhancing TAZ transcriptional activity.

Using modification-induced misincorporation tRNA sequencing, Gao and Behrens find that on differentiation, reduced mTORC1 signalling activates MAF1, which restricts RNA polymerase III to human tRNA housekeeping genes, to ensure that tRNA anticodon pools remain stable.

Reverte-Salisa et al. show that, in preadipocytes, EPAC1 enhances brown adipose tissue growth and increases the function of thermogenic fat in obesogenic conditions. Activation of EPAC1 induces human brown adipocyte proliferation and differentiation.

Cui, Guo, Liu et al. identify a bacterial species, Peptostreptococcus anaerobius, in the gut that produces a tryptophan metabolite and engages intracellular pathways to modulate ferroptosis-suppressor protein 1 activity, thereby suppressing ferroptosis and promoting colorectal cancer development.

Joyce, Pascual et al. identify luminal progenitors as likely cells-of-origin in BRCA2-mutant breast cancer, exhibiting dysregulated proteostasis and translation, which may be therapeutically targeted via mTORC1 inhibition.

Bravo González-Blas et al. uncover enhancer-gene regulatory networks underlying hepatocyte identity and their zonation state by combining single-cell and spatial multiomics with massively parallel reporter assays and deep learning.