Review Articles

A new review article details how new structural insight regarding modular polyketide synthases (PKSs) helps us better understand the organization of catalytic events within a PKS module. The plausible models discussed will likely influence future PKS engineering efforts.

Protein condensates are subcellular structures that enrich and confine molecules in cells. This Review details how condensates can be engineered with responsiveness and on-demand functions, thus pushing cellular and metabolic engineering to a new level.

This Review introduces molecular features of the phase-separating biomolecules and how they affect phase-separation behavior in a complex intracellular environment, highlighting a complex interplay between structure, sequence and environment in the phase-separation process.

Several venomous predators and pathogens use insulins to capture prey and to manipulate host physiology. This Review provides an overview of the discovery and potential biomedical application of these and other weaponized hormones found in nature.

This Review discusses how combining computational modeling with multiparametric profiling of small-molecule effects can accelerate and expand the search for new and unconventional antibacterial strategies.

Succinate may have evolved as a signaling modality because its concentration reflects the redox state of the mitochondrial coenzyme Q pool, thus communicating to the rest of the cell and beyond about electron supply, oxygen tension and ATP demand.

Lipid metabolism is a major regulator of T cell biology, and this Review Article highlights mechanisms by which diverse lipids modulate T cell signaling and opportunities for therapeutic intervention on targets within these immunological pathways.

The Review summarized the recent progress in chemical probes and drug candidates for epigenetic writer enzymes and discussed the implication of targeting the chromatin regulatory landscape in cancer biology and therapy.

This Review surveys how resistance mutations to small molecules and recent mutagenesis technologies have driven biological discovery across diverse fields of inquiry.

Escherichia coli are a common component of the human microbiota, producing a diverse collection of small molecules that regulate intra- and interspecies interactions, including those with other microorganisms and with the host.

This Review article explores how uncovering phenotypes linked to the human microbiome often progresses from correlative studies to studies in germ-free animals and fecal microbiota transplants and, finally, to identification of strains and molecules.

Decades of research have identified the biochemical basis of many plant specialized metabolic pathways. This Review highlights the biological context of these pathways and how recent advances have extended the new frontiers of phytochemistry.

This Review highlights the latest progress on the molecular basis of metabolite signals in regulating aging and longevity, as well as state-of-the-art technological advances in studying bioactive metabolites.

A survey of natural metabolic pathways for C1 substrates (methane, methanol, carbon dioxide, and carbon monoxide) highlights past efforts and recent progress, and informs future opportunities to create synthetic C1-utilizing microbes.

This Review summarizes the recent technical advances in probing RNA secondary structures and discusses their connection with RNA regulatory functions in various biological processes and future directions in RNA structure-probing methods.

Cell–cell interactions and resulting signaling events drive key biological processes. This Review discusses the deconvolution of this complex biology through the development of tools for visualizing, chemically tagging and functionally exploiting these interactions.

This Review summarizes recent progress in small-molecule probes used to address questions in cell division and appraises some emerging techniques that can be adapted to cell division studies.

Autophagy has been widely implicated in human health and disease. The most recent advances in developing small molecule probes for autophagy are presented, as well as the potential to use this process for targeted protein degradation.

This Review summarizes recent advances in CRISPR–Cas regulation mechanisms by natural biomolecules that enhance or inhibit CRIPSR–Cas immunity, as well as their applications in CRISPR biology and technologies.

Ion channel structures reveal mechanisms of lipid action, including how channel gating is altered by direct binding of signaling lipids and those within the membrane itself, as well as mechanical and architectural effects of membrane lipids.