Articles

The mitochondrial transcription factor A (TFAM) mediates both mitochondrial transcription and DNA compaction, but how it achieves these two functions is unknown. In this study, TFAM is shown to slide along DNA and cause local melting, suggesting a mechanism for how TFAM modulates both transcription and compaction.

Pupylation is a bacterial posttranslational modification pathway with functional analogies to ubiquitination. Here, Özceliket al.report the structures of the Pup Ligase, PafA and the Depupylase, Dop. Mutational analysis revealed residues required for catalysis and for the interaction with Pup.

The amyloid beta peptide can aggregate into insoluble plaques, which may indicate the onset of Alzheimer's disease. In a mouse model of Alzheimer's disease, Cao and colleagues report a phenotype of altered connectivity in the olfactory neuronal circuit that precedes amyloid plaque deposition.

It is assumed that budding yeast need to reach a certain size before entering the cell cycle. Here, using imaging and a mathematical model, Ferrezueloet al.show that there is variability in the size of cells entering the cell cycle and this is controlled by growth rate in G1.

Flavodoxin requires tight binding of its FMN cofactor to be active, but the residues involved are unknown. In this biophysical study, FMN binding is shown to change from nanomolar to picomolar affinity on extremely slow protein relaxation and the residues responsible for cofactor binding are identified.

Singlet fission converts single singlet excitons into pairs of triplet excitons, and it has been proposed to give additional photocurrent to solar cells. Ehrleret al. use lead selenide nanocrystals of varying sizes to measure the triplet energy in pentacene photovoltaic cells, and achieve efficiencies approaching 5%.

Mechanosensitive channels are required to sense cell swelling in response to osmotic shock. Nakayamaet al.report that Msy1 and Msy2 are the fission yeast homologues of the bacterial mechanosensitive channel MscS, and are required for regulating intracellular calcium in response to cell swelling.

The kinase PINK1 is mutated in Parkinson's disease and accumulates in defective mitochondria, where it recruits Parkin. Here, PINK1 is shown to be autophosphorylated and this is required for the localization of PINK1 to mitochondria with a reduced membrane potential, and for the recruitment of Parkin.

Hemimetabolous insects comprise many pests but introducing targeted mutations into these species has been difficult. This paper reports efficient targeted mutagenesis, and the generation of homozygous knockouts, in crickets based on zinc finger nucleases or transcription activator-like effector nucleases.

Metallic nanoantennas can be used to enhance and tailor the photoluminescence effects in small-scale devices. Huanget al.design combined nanoantenna electrodes for quantum well nanoscale light-emitting diodes, to both inject charge and control the electroluminescence properties.

Precise qubit manipulation is essential in quantum computation; however errors can occur from fluctuations in the magnetic field. Wanget al. propose a robust scheme for universal control of qubits in a semiconductor double quantum dot, cancelling leading orders of error in field gradient variation.

Chirality can be induced both by physical forces and by chemical induction processes. Here, a self-assembled system is reported in which chiral selection is controlled by the combined action of a chiral dopant and vortical stirring, which can act either constructively or destructively.

Light-emitting electrochromic cells are a promising alternative to organic light-emitting diodes, as their performance is less sensitive to fabrication conditions. Here, a roll-to-roll compatible fabrication of such devices is presented, demonstrating large-area continuous production in ambient conditions.

Generating arbitrary orientation of light polarization has been an elusive goal, yet it is important to light interactions with nano-objects. By combining azimuthally and radially polarized beams, Liet al. overcome this obstacle and demonstrate its use for polarization-based encryption with gold nanorods.

Glycoprotein hormone receptors show negative cooperativity following a single molecule of agonist binding to each receptor dimer. Here, constitutively active receptors are shown to display less cooperative allosteric regulation, suggesting a direct relationship between conformational changes in the transmembrane domain and allosteric behaviour of the receptor dimers.

The TREX complex and Nxf1 are involved in the export of mRNA from the nucleus but the precise molecular function of TREX is unclear. Here, the TREX components Aly and Thoc5 are shown to bind to Nxf1 resulting in a change in Nxf1 conformation that permits binding to mRNA and nuclear export.

Understanding ultrafast demagnetisation is key to manipulating magnetic structures on fast timescales, yet laser sources limit the attainable spatial resolution. Here, a soft X-ray high harmonic source enables a high temporal and spatial resolution study of domain demagnetisation in [Co/Pt]₃₀multilayer films.

Cancer cells form by somatic mutations and natural selection, but how these factors affect tumorigenesis is not clear. Here, somatic mutations are characterized in human cancer genomes, revealing that DNA replication timing influences the frequency of single-nucleotide variants in different genomic regions.

Resilin is a polymeric elastic protein that is important for the flight and jumping of insects. Here, the structure-function relationships ofDrosophilaresilin are investigated, and a mechanical model is proposed to account for its elasticity.

The protein ataxia-telangiectasia mutated (ATM) detects DNA damage and can trigger cellular apoptosis, but how this process is regulated at the molecular level is unclear. Here, Chunget al. show that the transcription factor FOXO3 controls the formation of ATM-containing signalling complexes at sites of DNA damage that trigger apoptosis.