Journal Clubs

Nicolas Papon highlights the work by Kakimoto and colleagues that led to the identification of the cytokinin receptor in plants — 20 years ago.

Juan Tosar recalls how two papers published in 2011 changed his perception of RNA fragility.

Guillaume Tcherkez recounts the hard choices of RuBisCo, the most abundant enzyme on Earth.

Sara Wickström draws attention to the pioneering work of Watt, Jordan and O’Neill on the role of cell shape in the regulation of stem cells.

An Hendrix reminisces on the early work demonstrating the prevalence and heterogeneity of extracellular vesicles.

Constance Ciaudo tells us about two articles that changed her perception of microRNA biogenesis proteins.

Tatjana Trcek recounts the discovery of RNA phase separation, going back more than half a century.

Monika Fuxreiter discusses recent studies indicating that generic interactions that determine the biophysical properties of condensates are important for condensate function.

Alex Holehouse describes the contributions of Nott et al. to the understanding of the mechanisms of liquid–liquid phase separation.

Ahmet Yildiz draws our attention to work on understanding the regulation of microtubule-based motors.

Giancarlo Abis recounts his inspiration for becoming a structural biologist — the publication of the HIV-1 RT structure, which enabled a therapeutic breakthrough.

Sheng-Cai Lin discusses discoveries implicating glycolytic enzyme, aldolase, in glucose sensing.

A 2017 paper showed that phase separation and formation of elastin in the extracellular matrix does not require protein secondary structures, but cross-linked disordered chains.

Gavin Kelsey discusses the first reports of genomic imprinting in mammals and how they raised the profile of epigenetics in the study of mammalian development.

Sally Lowell discusses the concept of ‘community effect’ when cells commit to a certain differentiation path, which was proposed by John Gurdon in 1988 and recently suggested to enable cancer cells to gain control.

Twenty years ago it was reported that epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT), a key developmental process, occurs in cancer; many studies have since, and still are, studying EMT heterogeneity and its functional implications.

Although the organization of cell membranes into lipid rafts has become a key concept in cell biology, how partitioning of membrane components into subdomains is achieved remains an important question.

Light from a lab’s windows and lamps illuminated the path to the discovery of DNA repair.

Spotlight on Beth Levine’s contributions to autophagy research and its clinical translation.

Two studies in nematodes revolutionized our understanding of gene regulation by identifying and functionally characterizing the first microRNA, lin-4.