Volume 26 Issue 3, March 2019

Autophagy is a highly contextual modulator of tumorigenesis. A new study shows that autophagy can serve as a tumor suppressor to mediate cell death at replicative crisis.

Last year, several studies reported that proteins form biomolecular condensates at gene enhancers. Nair et al. now show that these condensates undergo physical changes over time, which affects their nuclear localization and the transcriptional output of their target genes.

Biochemical and genetic assays show that the nuclease Apn2 removes terminal cyclic phosphates that arise from ribonucleotide incorporation in the genome of budding yeast.

Comparative Hi-C analysis of synchronized mouse spermatocyte populations reveals dynamic changes in chromosome organization during meiotic prophase that permit homolog pairing while sustaining gene expression.

Hi-C analyses of meiotic and postmeiotic male germ cells show that global reprogramming of 3D chromatin organization gives rise to the highly compartmentalized genome architecture seen in mature sperm.

Mechanical distortion of DNA structure induces off-target binding and cleavage by SpyCas9 at sites with up to ten mismatches, a potential mechanism that exposes cryptic off-target sites in cells during transcription or replication.

After acute agonist stimulation, phase-separated complexes form at estrogen-receptor-bound enhancer sites and coalesce into condensates with cooperative enhancer activity. Chronic stimulation causes the condensates to mature into a less dynamic, gel-like state.

The crystal structure of a broadly neutralizing monoclonal antibody against Ebola virus glycoprotein isolated from a human survivor allows the engineering of variant antibodies with expanded activity and has implications for vaccine design.

Histone variant macroH2A1.2 and chromatin remodeler ATRX act jointly to maintain telomere integrity under conditions of acute replication stress in ALT-positive cancer cells.

P granules, which are cytoplasmic RNA granules that form via liquid–liquid phase separation in the posterior of Caenorhabditis elegans embryos, require gel and liquid phases for localized assembly and stability

Two evolutionarily distant SMC–kleisin complexes are shown to contain a bendable coiled-coil discontinuity near the middle of their arms, which permits a folded conformation with potential implications for DNA loading and translocation.

In vivo and in vitro protein-RNA interaction maps identify an RNA-binding patch within the allosteric regulatory site of PRC2 that explains how RNA-mediated inhibition of PRC2 is relieved by allosteric activation.