Reviews & Analysis

This perspective proposes general strategies for phase-separation-related biological studies, including proper experimental designs to validate and characterize phase-separation phenomena, connections to biological functions and some caveats to avoid common misunderstandings.

Loss of myelin causes neurological symptoms for patients with multiple sclerosis. This Perspective details how phenotypic screening has accelerated discovery efforts toward potential ‘remyelinating therapeutics’.

Emerging evidence shows that ubiquitination can occur on nonlysine residues and nonproteinaceous substrates. This perspective summarizes the recent discoveries in noncanonical ubiquitination and advocates the development of chemical biology tools for new substrate identification and mechanistic dissection.

This Perspective discussed selective partitioning behaviors of biomolecules and small molecules and proposed that understanding the chemical properties that control their interactions within the condensates would promote drug development.

New research has revealed a wealth of small molecules that target cancer-specific metabolic vulnerabilities by targeting allosteric sites. Here, a Perspective discusses how their application has provided insights into cancer metabolism and therapy.

This Perspective discusses the genetically encoded tools for measuring and manipulating metabolism, highlighting the tools that are available, guidelines for their use and key areas for future development.

Synthetic receptor signaling systems have evolved as platforms for user-controlled programming of cellular functions. This Perspective reviews these advances and defines a metrics-based engineering workflow to support future engineering efforts.