Journal Clubs in 2020

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.

Roland Wenger highlights discovery of HIFs and recent insights into their differential physiological roles.

Ana García-Sáez highlights the continued interest in BCL-2 proteins and their mechanisms.

Ilya Levental outlines maturation of the concept of lipid rafts as an organizational principle of biomembranes.

In this Journal Club, Audrey Williams and Sally Horne-Badovinac highlight the importance of studying the basal cell surface and its dynamics to understand epithelial cell behaviours and tissue rearrangements.

Lluís Ribas de Pouplana outlines the unanswered questions of mitochondrial transcription.

Xavier Trepat highlights the first approach to measurement of forces exerted by cells

Dan Mishmar recounts the first studies that used mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) to trace the origin of humanity to Africa and that connected mtDNA mutations with a human disease.

Hong Zhang highlights the emerging importance of lipid transfer proteins in autophagosome biogenesis.