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Type 2 diabetes is projected to afflict 300 million people worldwide by 2020. Therefore, a deeper understanding of the processes and mechanisms that lead to metabolic failure in key tissues and organ systems in patients with type 2 diabetes is urgently required.
The Rpd3/Hda1 family of protein lysine deacetylases has numerous substrates and diverse functions. Whereas class I enzymes are multiprotein histone deacetylase complexes that are crucial for chromatin modification and transcriptional regulation, some class II enzymes function as signal transducers that are regulated by nucleocytoplasmic translocation.
Our understanding of the biological functions of small non-coding RNAs has been fostered by the analysis of genetic deletions of individual microRNAs (miRNAs) in mammals. These studies show that miRNAs are key regulators of animal development and are potential human disease loci.
Cells that undergo apoptosis are demolished in a controlled manner that minimizes damage to neighbouring cells and avoids the release of immunostimulatory molecules. These events are orchestrated primarily by a family of cysteine proteases called caspases, which target hundreds of proteins for restricted proteolysis.
Ribosomes have been the focus of structural and biochemical studies for more than 50 years. Recently, high-resolution structures have provided molecular snapshots of different intermediates in ribosome-mediated translation in atomic detail, which has revolutionized our understanding of the mechanism of protein synthesis.
The idea that processes can be self-organized and self-reproducing is more than 100 years old. But self-organization principles that were first developed in chemistry and physics are only now beginning to be applied to cellular and subcellular morphogenesis.
