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Recent advances have shed light on the interactions that occur between pathogens and endocytic pathway components. With the aim of generating suitable replication niches, microorganisms use existing cellular pathways and have developed selective and manipulative behaviour to avoid lysosome-mediated killing.
Different chromatin remodellers affect the nucleosome structure in different ways. However, a model that is based on the fact that all remodellers have a catalytic ATPase subunit that resembles known DNA-translocating motor proteins indicates that remodellers function as directional DNA translocases.
Cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR), a Cl−-ion channel, assembles into dynamic macromolecular complexes. Understanding how these complexes regulate the intracellular trafficking and activity of CFTR provides a unique insight into the aetiology of cystic fibrosis and other diseases.
Polymerizing actin seems to provide the force for deforming and moving membranes at different steps of the endocytic pathway. Live-cell imaging is shedding light on the order and timing of the molecular events and mechanisms of actin function during endocytosis.
The nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD) pathway ensures that mRNAs that harbour premature termination, or nonsense, codons are targeted for rapid degradation. New insights into the process of NMD have provided unexpected glimpses of the complexity of translation termination.
Protein-chip technology is a powerful tool for high-throughput assays of protein profiling, protein–DNA interactions and enzyme activity. Improvements in the technology, such as the construction of whole-proteome arrays in yeast, could lead to the description of comprehensive interaction maps in many organisms.
Several non-coding RNAs that regulate eukaryotic mRNA transcription have recently been discovered. Their mechanisms of action and biological roles are extremely diverse, which indicates that, so far, we have only had a glimpse of this new class of regulatory factor.
