Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
In this Review, Wiedenheft and colleagues retrace events that led from early endeavours to understand the role of Cas9 in CRISPR-mediated adaptive immunity to current efforts aimed at developing this enzyme for programmable genetic editing.
Shah and Kuriyan highlight how the analysis of sequence variation synergizes with protein structure information, to provide new insights into specificity and allosteric regulation of signaling proteins.
Zhou, Gaullier and Luger review insights derived from cutting-edge biophysical and structural approaches applied to the study of nucleosome dynamics and nucleosome-binding factors, with a focus on the experimental advances driving the research.
This Review discusses mechanistic insights into 5´–3´ RNA decay, such as translation–decay coupling, coordination between complexes that process 5´ & 3´ RNA termini, conformational control of enzymatic activity, phase separation, & RNA modifications.
Cross-linking mass spectrometry has developed into a robust and flexible tool that provides medium-resolution structural information. This review highlights notable successes of this technique and discusses common pipelines.
In this Review, Haoxing Xu and colleagues summarize current knowledge of TRP channels and their roles in the response to environmental and cellular signals, focusing in particular on the least known class, the organellar TRPs.
Cramer and colleagues review and discuss how the structural elucidation of transcription factors and functional complexes of human mitochondrial RNA polymerase have informed emerging understanding of the mechanism of mitochondrial gene transcription.
Bhat and Cortez discuss current knowledge on the multiple mechanisms by which RPA and RAD51 contribute to genome stability during DNA replication, in particular for replication fork reversal and fork protection.
Developments in basic RNA biology have spawned RNA-based strategies to generate new types of therapeutics. Judy Lieberman reviews RNA-based drug design and discusses barriers to more widespread applications and possible ways to overcome them.
Wu and Wilson review our structural knowledge of influenza virus HA and broadly neutralizing antibodies, which have opened the way for design of novel vaccines and therapeutics.
In this Review, the authors discuss our current understanding of how the hexameric helicases that catalyze helix unwinding during DNA replication are physically and functionally integrated with other replisome components.
In this Review, the authors discuss recent insights into the mechanism of GPCR signaling provided by structural and biophysical elucidation of receptor interactions with G proteins and arrestins.
Rossmann and colleagues review the rapid progress in our understanding of the structure of Zika virus, building on previous studies of other flaviviruses such as dengue virus.
In this Review, the authors consider how single-molecule biophysical approaches can inform our understanding of the ring-shaped structural maintenance of chromosome (SMC) complexes and their function in chromosome organization.
This review highlights recent mechanistic insights into the CRISPR class 2 type V enzymes Cpf1 and C2c1, which are crucial for improving these genome engineering tools and expanding the genomic editing space.
Five protein complexes, CI–CV, form the oxidative phosphorylation electron transport chain in the mitochondrial membrane and can be found organized into supercomplexes (SCs): I+III2+IV, or respirasome; I+III2; III2+IV; and CV2. Letts and Sazanov review current knowledge on the structure, assembly and function of respiratory SCs.
In this Review, Peña, Hurt and Panse discuss our current knowledge on the eukaryotic ribosome assembly, a complex process that takes place across different cellular compartments and involves over 200 assembly factors.
The ribosome-associated complex (RAC) is formed by the JD protein Zuo1 and the unconventional Hsp70 Ssz1. This Review presents recent developments that have increased our understanding of RAC's mechanisms and cellular functions.
This Review highlights recent breakthroughs in X-chromosome inactivation and discusses how the multitasking RNA Xist can structurally and functionally transform an active chromosome into uniquely organized facultative heterochromatin.