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A functional proteomics study reveals that nuclear pore proteins are direct substrates for mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinases, leading to a new mechanism for growth factor control of nuclear transport.
Trigger factor is a ribosome-associated chaperone that assists early folding steps of nascent proteins in bacteria. A new study presents the first crystal structure of Trigger factor in complex with a folded protein bound as substrate, challenges the current model for how Trigger factor interacts with substrates and suggests an unexpected role for Trigger factor in protein assembly and ribosome biogenesis.
An important aspect of eukaryotic gene expression is the efficient integration of transcription, pre-mRNA processing and nuclear export. A new study demonstrates that pre-mRNA transcript continuity is an essential component for maintaining productive coupling of transcription and RNA processing events.
The adequate and on-time response of cellular transcription to internal needs and external stimuli is a delicate task. Is the transcriptional regulator p53 on call to permit rapid activation of its target genes? A new study reports interplay of p53 with a previously unidentified regulator, calcineurin-binding protein 1 (Cabin1), and provides evidence for such a mechanism.
Using bioinformatics analysis of previously published global genome deep-sequencing data, two papers now show that DNA sequences associated with nucleosomes are preferentially located in exons. The correlation between nucleosome distribution and the exon-intron organization of genes may have a key role in exon recognition at the pre-mRNA level during co-transcriptional splicing, consistent with previous findings indicating chromatin-mediated regulation of alternative splicing.
Macrodomains function as binding modules for metabolites of NAD+, including poly(ADP-ribose). Three new studies explore how binding of poly(ADP-ribose) by the macrodomains of histone variant macroH2A1.1 and the ATP-dependent chromatin-remodeling protein ALC1 (also called CHD1L) leads to the modulation of chromatin structure, regulating nuclear functions such as DNA-damage detection and repair.
Bacterial antisense RNAs target translation initiation regions (TIRs) to compete with ribosome binding, thus repressing translation and—secondarily—causing degradation of the naked mRNA. A new study reports on an antisense RNA that directly accelerates mRNA decay by targeting a sequence deep within the coding region, far downstream of the TIR.
Male fruitflies upregulate transcription of nearly all genes on their single X chromosome to equalize expression with the two X chromosomes in females. A new study shows that the distribution of the histone acetylation mark associated with this upregulation is much broader than that of the MSL complex responsible for depositing this mark.
It is just as important to shut off a signaling pathway as it is to turn it on. A new study on the tandem Ras-associating (RA) and pleckstrin-homology (PH) domains of Grb10 and Grb14 provides important insight into a multicomponent assembly for downregulating insulin receptor signaling.
The Mre11 protein has well-documented functions in the repair of DNA double-strand breaks via homologous recombination. Now, several new studies reveal that Mre11 also has a role in mammalian DNA double-strand break repair by nonhomologous end joining.
Removal of the poly(A) tail is the initial step in targeting an mRNA for degradation in budding yeast as well as in metazoans. But in fission yeast a new study reveals an additional pathway that adds uridines to the poly(A) tail of mRNA to initiate the degradation pathway.
Previous structural snapshots of snurportin have provided insights into its cargo recognition and nuclear import. The structure of snurportin bound to its export factor CRM1 now reveals the molecular basis of its recycling back into the cytoplasm, illuminating general principles of nuclear export sequence recognition.
Type III secretions systems (T3SSs) are major bacterial virulence factors responsible for secretion and injection of protein effectors into host cells. New structures illuminate their ring structure and identify novel ring-mediating structural scaffolds.
Development and maintenance of an organism require the precise spatiotemporal orchestration of stem cell proliferation and differentiation. In neurogenesis, a microRNA and an orphan nuclear receptor comprise a negative feedback loop that regulates neural stem cell fate.
Many cellular fates are determined by different genetic programs, but the regulation of cellular differentiation is still not well understood. Besides the possible control exerted by the activity and combination of transcription factors, there are multiple RNA processing mechanisms, ensuring differential gene expression.
Two papers present strong evidence that the codon-anticodon interaction is poised on a tipping point so that, given a nudge, the tRNA can insert the wrong amino acid into the growing polypeptide chain, leading to translational fidelity loss.
