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An optogenetic strategy allowing light-mediated recruitment of distinct cytoskeletal motor proteins to specific organelles is established; this technique enabled rapid and reversible activation or inhibition of the transport of organelles such as peroxisomes, recycling endosomes and mitochondria with high spatiotemporal accuracy, and the approach was also applied to primary neurons to demonstrate optical control of axonal growth by recycling endosome repositioning.
From a new species of β-proteobacteria, an antibiotic called teixobactin that does not generate resistance has been characterized; the antibiotic has two different lipid targets in different bacterial cell wall synthesis components, which may explain why resistance was not observed.
The mTORC1 protein kinase complex integrates nutrient and growth stimuli to modulate signalling pathways that regulate cellular metabolism and physiology, but the molecular nature of the amino acid sensing mechanism at the lysosome is unknown; here, an orphan member of the human solute carrier group of proteins, SLC38A9, is shown to be an integral component of the lysosomal machinery that can directly sense amino acids and activate mTORC1.
Mannan, a component of yeast cell walls, is shown to be a viable food source for Bacteroides thetaiotamicron, a dominant member of the gut microbiota, which catabolizes the mannan ‘selfishly’—countering the general assumption that multiple members of the gut microbiota take a role in, and benefit from, polysaccharide catabolism.
Spectrographically obtained zirconium, niobium and technetium abundances in a sample of low-mass stars of type S are used to determine that, in these stars, heavy elements are synthesized by the slow-neutron-capture process at a temperature of less than about 250 million kelvin, and that the process began one million to three million years ago.
Inorganic–organic lead halide perovskite could be efficient when used as the light-harvesting component of solar cells; here incorporation of methylammonium lead bromide into formamidinium lead iodide stabilizes the perovskite and improves the power conversion efficiency of the solar cell up to 17.9 per cent.
Unlike the limited post-injury neuronal regeneration in humans, severed axons in C. elegans can regenerate through a cellular fusion mechanism; this study identifies the molecular basis for this process which includes phosphatidylserine recognition and a role for specific molecules that also act in apoptosis.
This study shows that glutathione, a ubiquitous antioxidant, is also a critical signalling molecule that allosterically activates the master virulence regulator in the intracellular pathogen Listeria monocytogenes.
A search of a data set of light curves for 247,000 known, spectroscopically confirmed quasars with a temporal baseline of about 9 years reveals a strong, smooth periodic signal in the optical variability of quasar PG 1302−102 with a mean observed period of 1,884 ± 88 days, indicating a possible supermassive black-hole binary.
Traditionally, the vertebral column of snakes was thought to have lost regionalization; Hox regionalization is now shown to be maintained in snakes, suggesting that gradational vertebral column regionalization is primitive to amniotes.
Meiotic recombination is initiated by a fairly uniform distribution of hundreds of DNA double-strand breaks catalysed by the Spo11 protein; here, Tel1 (orthologue of human ATM) is shown to be required for the localized inhibition that prevents double-strand breaks from forming close to one another.
Defined skin commensal bacteria elicit a dermal dendritic-cell-dependent, long-lasting, commensal-specific CD8+ T-cell response that promotes protection against pathogens while preserving tissue homeostasis.
The measurement of the rotational periods of 30 cool stars in the 2.5-billion-year-old cluster NGC 6819 allows the calibration of gyrochronology — the determination of a star’s age on the basis of its rotation period — over a much broader age range than hitherto, meaning that it might be possible to determine the ages of many cool stars in the Galactic field with a precision of roughly 10 per cent.
