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In cells that use alternative lengthening of telomeres (ALT), NR2C/F proteins mediate the insertion of telomeric DNA throughout the genome and hence genome instability.
This study shows that, during starvation, fatty acids are released from lipid droplets by lipolysis and taken up by fused mitochondria to support oxidative respiration.
Robert Grosse discusses how optogenetic strategies have the potential to advance our understanding of protein function and localization in individual living cells.
Replication perturbation causes replication fork reversal (remodelling). Recent studies have visualized replication forks in metazoan cells and identified fork remodelling factors, showing fork reversal to be a global and regulated process with potential effects on replication termination, genome stability and the DNA damage response.
Recent studies of mRNA distribution and translation show that, in addition to serving as the site of protein translocation into the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), ER-bound ribosomes translate a large fraction of mRNAs that encode cytosolic proteins. This, along with the discovery of many mechanisms for recruiting translation to the ER, suggests an expansive role for the ER in post-transcriptional gene expression.
Recent technical advances have shown that scaffold proteins can hold members of a signal transduction cascade in place, focus enzyme activity at a particular site of action and/or provide a structural platform for the recruitment of signal transduction and signal termination enzymes.
Genome-wide mapping of chromatin contacts reveals the structural and organizational changes that the metazoan genome undergoes during cell differentiation. These changes involve entire chromosomes, which are influenced by contacts with nuclear structures such as the lamina, and local interactions mediated by transcription factors and chromatin looping.
The year 2014 marks the 50th anniversary of the discovery of protein acetylation. In this Timeline article, Verdin and Ott discuss the identification of this modification, of its regulatory enzymes and of the roles of acetylation in transcription and other cellular processes, and provide an outlook on the future of the field.
