Volume 24 Issue 11, November 2022

Publicly shared metabolomics data may contain key answers to central questions in cell biology, but re-use of the data is complicated by the lack of standardized experimental and computational methods in the field. This Comment provides some tips to help ensure that shared metabolomics data are re-used appropriately.

FG-nucleoporins of the nuclear pore complexes form a permeability barrier between the nucleus and the cytosol. FG-nucleoporins contain disordered regions and are prone to aggregation. Two studies identify the chaperone DNAJB6 as a key factor that prevents aggregation of FG-nucleoporins and assists in the biogenesis of nuclear pore complexes.

PTEN, a tumour suppressor, also regulates T cell activation. A new study reports that PTEN acts as a cell-intrinsic rheostat linking TCR- and IL-23-mediated signalling to regulate development of type-17 innate-like T cells in the thymus. This work may have important implications for treating autoimmune and inflammatory diseases.

In tumours, cancer cells can overcome energy stress via differential regulation of non-canonical ‘moonlighting’ functions of metabolic enzymes. A study now shows that the metabolic phosphatase fructose-1,6-bisphosphatase 1 (FBP1) can act as a nuclear protein phosphatase and reveals how this process is inhibited in cancer cells.

Several new technologies have used synthetic RNAs that leverage the cell’s RNA splicing machinery to drive the expression of gene products. A new study now reports a technique to dynamically and non-invasively monitor gene expression by embedding reporters within introns contained in the parent gene.

Kao et al. discuss the metabolic crosstalk between cancer cells and immune cells and how this impacts immune surveillance and anti-tumour immune responses.

Kuiper et al. and Prophet et al. implicate DNAJB6/HSP70 chaperone activities in the biogenesis of the nuclear pore complex permeability barrier and find that disease-linked nuclear envelope blebs are enriched in nucleoporin and chaperone condensates.

Tanaka et al. generate human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived salivary gland organoids that serve as a model for salivary gland development and SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Planelles-Herrero et al. identify a function for the Elongator complex independent of its enzymatic activity in controlling microtubule stability and generating central spindle asymmetry during asymmetric division in Drosophila.

Zhang et al. report that the long noncoding RNA KCNQ1OT1 binds to double-stranded genomic DNA and to the heterochromatin protein HP1α to induce and maintain epigenetic silencing at repetitive DNA elements and guard against genomic instability and senescence.

Kuiper et al. and Prophet et al. implicate DNAJB6/HSP70 chaperone activities in the biogenesis of the nuclear pore complex permeability barrier and find that disease-linked nuclear envelope blebs are enriched in nucleoporin and chaperone condensates.

Blanco et al. show that PTEN loss results in accumulation of type-17 innate-like T cells via altered metabolic reprogramming and mTOR, Foxo1 and IL-23–Stat3 signalling.

Wang and colleagues identify a protein phosphatase role for the metabolic enzyme fructose-1,6-bisphosphatase 1 that, upon phosphorylation by PERK, dephosphorylates histone H3 and modulates PPARα-mediated gene expression to inhibit liver cancer progression.

Truong et al. report a system to monitor RNA expression by modifying an intron within a gene of interest. This additional engineered transcript then hijacks nuclear export machinery for subsequent translation of a reporter gene.