Cell biology articles within Nature

Featured

• Article
  22 April 2024 | Open Access

  Multimodal cell atlas of the ageing human skeletal muscle

  The Human Muscle Ageing Cell Atlas provides a series of integrated cellular and molecular explanations for sarcopenia and frailty development in advanced ages.

  • Yiwei Lai
  • , Ignacio Ramírez-Pardo
  •  & Miguel A. Esteban

• Article | 17 April 2024

  Brain endothelial GSDMD activation mediates inflammatory BBB breakdown

  Lipopolysaccharide-induced breakdown of the blood–brain barrier requires activation of GSDMD-mediated plasma membrane permeabilization and pyroptosis in brain endothelial cells.

  • Chao Wei
  • , Wei Jiang
  •  & Feng Shao

• Article
  17 April 2024 | Open Access

  Control of neuronal excitation–inhibition balance by BMP–SMAD1 signalling

  Signalling by the developmental morphogen BMP2 through the transcription factor SMAD1 has a key role in controlling the glutamatergic innervation of parvalbumin-expressing interneurons and maintaining the balance between excitation and inhibition in the mammalian cortex.

  • Zeynep Okur
  • , Nadia Schlauri
  •  & Peter Scheiffele

• Article | 10 April 2024

  ROS-dependent S-palmitoylation activates cleaved and intact gasdermin D

  • Gang Du
  • , Liam B. Healy
  •  & Hao Wu

• Article | 10 April 2024

  Sex differences orchestrated by androgens at single-cell resolution

  The effects of sex and androgens on the molecular programs and cellular populations are explored using a single-cell transcriptomic atlas comprising over 2.3 million cells from different tissues in Mus musculus.

  • Fei Li
  • , Xudong Xing
  •  & Dong Gao

• Article | 10 April 2024

  Metabolic rewiring promotes anti-inflammatory effects of glucocorticoids

  Glucocorticoids reprogram the mitochondrial metabolism of macrophages, resulting in increased and sustained production of the anti-inflammatory metabolite itaconate and, as a consequence, inhibition of the inflammatory response.

  • Jean-Philippe Auger
  • , Max Zimmermann
  •  & Gerhard Krönke

• Review Article | 03 April 2024

  Bridging structural and cell biology with cryo-electron microscopy

  The interplay between cryo-electron microscopy and cryo-electron tomography to define complex macromolecular assemblies and visualize them in situ is explored.

  • Eva Nogales
  •  & Julia Mahamid

• Article | 03 April 2024

  Mechanical activation opens a lipid-lined pore in OSCA ion channels

  The molecular basis of OSCA/TMEM63 channel mechanosensitivity was investigated by determining 44 cryogenic electron microscopy structures of channels in different environments, expanding understanding of channel-mediated mechanotransduction and pore formation, with implications for two protein families.

  • Yaoyao Han
  • , Zijing Zhou
  •  & Yixiao Zhang

• News & Views | 27 March 2024

  The race to uncover fission factors for lysosomal organelles heats up

  Organelles called lysosomes fuse with cargo-carrying vesicles and degrade the cargo molecules. How lysosomes maintain their size despite constant vesicle fusion was unclear, but now factors that aid organelle fission have been found.

  • Shilpa Gopan
  •  & Thomas J. Pucadyil

• Article | 27 March 2024

  The HEAT repeat protein HPO-27 is a lysosome fission factor

  The conserved HEAT repeat protein HPO-27 is identified as a lysosome scission factor in Caenorhabditis elegans, and the human homologue MROH1 also serves the same function to maintain lysosomal homeostasis.

  • Letao Li
  • , Xilu Liu
  •  & Xiaochen Wang

• News Feature | 20 March 2024

  These ‘movies’ of proteins in action are revealing the hidden biology of cells

  A burgeoning technique called time-resolved cryo-EM is granting insights into the tiny motors and devices that power life.

  • Ewen Callaway

• Article
  13 March 2024 | Open Access

  Substrate-induced condensation activates plant TIR domain proteins

  Binding of the substrates NAD⁺ and ATP to the plant Toll/interleukin-1 receptor (TIR) domain proteins induces phase separation and, thereby, activation of TIR enzymatic and immune signalling activity.

  • Wen Song
  • , Li Liu
  •  & Jijie Chai

• Article | 13 March 2024

  Time-resolved cryo-EM of G-protein activation by a GPCR

  Time-resolved cryo-EM is used to capture structural transitions during G-protein activation stimulated by a G-protein-coupled receptor.

  • Makaía M. Papasergi-Scott
  • , Guillermo Pérez-Hernández
  •  & Georgios Skiniotis

• Research Briefing | 11 March 2024

  Dysregulated cellular stress management becomes a source of stress

  Stress responses protect cells from harmful conditions, but once the stress has resolved, these responses must be actively turned off to avoid cell damage that might lead to the development of neurodegenerative disease.

• News & Views | 06 March 2024

  Interactions between immune cells recorded

  Direct interactions between cells in tissue are incompletely understood because the advanced technologies required to examine them are still in their infancy. A new method can decipher cell–cell interactions on a large scale.

  • Michael A. Wheeler

• Article | 28 February 2024

  CST–polymerase α-primase solves a second telomere end-replication problem

  Incomplete duplication of the C-rich telomeric repeat strand by lagging-strand DNA synthesis is counteracted by DNA synthesis mediated by CST–polymerase α-primase.

  • Hiroyuki Takai
  • , Valentina Aria
  •  & Titia de Lange

• Article | 28 February 2024

  Mechanisms of calcium homeostasis orchestrate plant growth and immunity

  A study of calcium homeostasis in the plant Arabidopsis reveals two signalling pathways it uses to balance the objectives of growth and immunity by regulating the level of Ca²⁺ in the cytosol.

  • Chao Wang
  • , Ren-Jie Tang
  •  & Sheng Luan

• Technology Feature | 27 February 2024

  How phase separation is revolutionizing biology

  Imaging and molecular manipulation reveal how biomolecular condensates form and offer clues to the role of phase separation in health and disease.

  • Elie Dolgin

• Obituary | 21 February 2024

  Judith Campisi (1948–2024), cell biologist who explored how cells age

  Researcher who established the role of cellular senescence in cancer and ageing.

  • Jan Vijg
  •  & Jan Hoeijmakers

• Article
  21 February 2024 | Open Access

  The UFM1 E3 ligase recognizes and releases 60S ribosomes from ER translocons

  Attachment of the ubiquitin-like modifier UFM1 to 60S ribosomes has a critical function in the release and recycling of stalled or terminated ribosomes from the endoplasmic reticulum membrane.

  • Linda Makhlouf
  • , Joshua J. Peter
  •  & Yogesh Kulathu

• Article | 21 February 2024

  UFM1 E3 ligase promotes recycling of 60S ribosomal subunits from the ER

  Structural and biochemical analyses reveal details of how UFM1 conjugation and deconjugation mediate ribosome recycling and quality control.

  • Paul A. DaRosa
  • , Ivan Penchev
  •  & Ron R. Kopito

• Article
  21 February 2024 | Open Access

  WNT signalling control by KDM5C during development affects cognition

  The demethylase KDM5C, mutations in which often lead to intellectual disability, is identified as a crucial player in regulating the precise timing of neurodevelopment together with the WNT signalling pathway.

  • Violetta Karwacki-Neisius
  • , Ahram Jang
  •  & Yang Shi

• Article | 14 February 2024

  Nuclear export of circular RNA

  Circular RNAs are exported from the nucleus by Ran-GTP, exportin-2 and IGF2BP1 in a mechanism analogous to protein export rather than mRNA export.

  • Linh H. Ngo
  • , Andrew G. Bert
  •  & Vihandha O. Wickramasinghe

• Article | 07 February 2024

  Allosteric modulation and G-protein selectivity of the Ca²⁺-sensing receptor

  Cryo-electron microscopy structures of the human calcium-sensing receptor in complex with G_i and G_q proteins reveal how this receptor activates distinct G protein subtypes and how its function is modulated by a variety of ligands.

  • Feng He
  • , Cheng-Guo Wu
  •  & Georgios Skiniotis

• Article | 07 February 2024

  Convergence of coronary artery disease genes onto endothelial cell programs

  Variant-to-gene-to-program is a new approach to building maps of genome function to link risk variants to disease genes and to convergent signalling pathways in an unbiased manner; its strength is demonstrated in coronary artery disease.

  • Gavin R. Schnitzler
  • , Helen Kang
  •  & Jesse M. Engreitz

• News & Views | 06 February 2024

  From the archive: lonely cells, and Thomas Henry Huxley backs evolution

  Snippets from Nature’s past.

• Research Briefing | 05 February 2024

  Several transient binding events create a strong, adaptable interface between organelles

  Rapid communication between intracellular structures such as the endoplasmic reticulum and the mitochondria is crucial for the coordinated functioning of cells. Such interactions occur mainly at sites where the compartments are in direct contact, and are mediated by specific tethering machinery. High-speed single-molecule tracking reveals a well-regulated interface at which many rapid binding and unbinding events provide highly adaptable interactions.

• Nature Video | 31 January 2024

  Why human brain cells grow so slowly

  Some human neurons take years to reach maturity; an epigenetic ‘brake’ could be responsible.

  • Shamini Bundell

• News & Views | 31 January 2024

  Natural inhibitor found for cell death by ferroptosis

  The discovery that an evolutionarily conserved molecule used to make cholesterol also acts as a defence against a cell-death mechanism called ferroptosis might lead to new ways to treat cancer and other clinical conditions.

  • Donna D. Zhang

• News Feature | 31 January 2024

  How cancer hijacks the nervous system to grow and spread

  A new wave of research is unpicking the relationship between cancer and neurons — and looking for ways to stop the crosstalk.

  • McKenzie Prillaman

• Article
  31 January 2024 | Open Access

  Stress response silencing by an E3 ligase mutated in neurodegeneration

  The E3 ligase SIFI is identified as a dedicated silencing factor of the integrated stress response, a finding that has implications for the development of therapeutics for neurodegenerative diseases caused by mitochondrial protein import stress.

  • Diane L. Haakonsen
  • , Michael Heider
  •  & Michael Rapé

• Article | 31 January 2024

  7-Dehydrocholesterol dictates ferroptosis sensitivity

  7-Dehydrocholesterol (7-DHC) is a natural anti-ferroptotic metabolite and pharmacological manipulation of 7-DHC levels shows promise as a therapeutic strategy for cancer and ischaemia–reperfusion injury.

  • Yaxu Li
  • , Qiao Ran
  •  & Ping Wang

• Article | 31 January 2024

  7-Dehydrocholesterol is an endogenous suppressor of ferroptosis

  Proferroptotic activity of 7-dehydrocholesterol reductase is shown along with an unexpected prosurvival function of its substrate, 7-dehydrocholesterol, indicating a cell-intrinsic mechanism that could be used by cancer cells to protect phospholipids from oxidative damage and escape ferroptosis.

  • Florencio Porto Freitas
  • , Hamed Alborzinia
  •  & José Pedro Friedmann Angeli

• Article
  24 January 2024 | Open Access

  Motion of VAPB molecules reveals ER–mitochondria contact site subdomains

  High-speed molecular tracking is integrated with three-dimensional electron microscopy to map the diffusion distribution and ultrastructure of endoplasmic reticulum-mitochondria contact sites, revealing the ability of high-speed single-molecule imaging to map contact site interface structures and corresponding diffusion landscapes.

  • Christopher J. Obara
  • , Jonathon Nixon-Abell
  •  & Jennifer Lippincott-Schwartz

• Article
  24 January 2024 | Open Access

  HIV-1 capsids enter the FG phase of nuclear pores like a transport receptor

  The HIV-1 capsid behaves like a nuclear transport receptor entering and traversing an FG phase, with its interior serving as a cargo container, bypassing an otherwise effective barrier to viral infection.

  • Liran Fu
  • , Erika N. Weiskopf
  •  & Dirk Görlich

• News & Views | 10 January 2024

  DNA sensing and repair systems unexpectedly team up against cancer

  DNA in the cytoplasm can be a sign of abnormalities such as viral infections or cancer. A protein with a role in DNA-damage response was unexpectedly found to activate defences against the threats indicated by cytoplasmic DNA.

  • Silvia Monticelli
  •  & Petr Cejka

• News & Views | 10 January 2024

  How plants iron out the competing interests of growth and defence

  Once a plant recognizes a pathogen, part of its defence strategy is to withhold iron. The mechanism involves suppression of root acquisition of iron by degrading a molecule that activates the iron-uptake pathway.

  • Shanice S. Webster
  •  & Mary Lou Guerinot

• Research Briefing | 20 December 2023

  Zebrafish embryo cells need no receptors to receive signals from afar

  Thin cellular protrusions called cytonemes can transport ligand–receptor complexes from a signal-producing cell to a receiving cell in the developing zebrafish embryo. Even cells lacking the receptor can be activated by this signalling system.

• Article
  20 December 2023 | Open Access

  Cytoneme-mediated transport of active Wnt5b–Ror2 complexes in zebrafish

  In zebrafish embryos, active complexes of Wnt5b and its membrane-bound receptor Ror2 are transported between cells via cellular protrusions called cytonemes to initiate paracrine Wnt5b signalling in cells that do not endogenously express the receptor.

  • Chengting Zhang
  • , Lucy Brunt
  •  & Steffen Scholpp

• Article
  20 December 2023 | Open Access

  Cryo-EM structures of PP2A:B55–FAM122A and PP2A:B55–ARPP19

  Cryo-electron microscopy structures of the PP2A:B55 holoenzyme bound to its inhibitors ARPP19 and FAM122A show distinct binding modes of the two inhibitors.

  • Sathish K. R. Padi
  • , Margaret R. Vos
  •  & Wolfgang Peti

• Article
  20 December 2023 | Open Access

  Mitochondrial dysfunction abrogates dietary lipid processing in enterocytes

  Mitochondria have a pivotal role in the transport of dietary lipids in enterocytes, a finding that might have relevance to understanding the aberrant gastrointestinal function in patients with mitochondrial disorders.

  • Chrysanthi Moschandrea
  • , Vangelis Kondylis
  •  & Manolis Pasparakis

• News & Views | 18 December 2023

  Muscle immune cells protect mitochondrial organelles during exercise

  A suppressive type of immune cell called a regulatory T cell has a key role in helping muscles to adapt to exercise — guarding muscle mitochondrial organelles against damage mediated by proinflammatory factors generated during physical activity.

  • Gerald Coulis
  •  & S. Armando Villalta

• News & Views | 15 December 2023

  Wetlands, neutrinos and warning coloration: kicking off a year of remarkable science

  Highlights from News & Views published in early 2023.

• News & Views | 13 December 2023

  Modified messenger-RNA components alter the encoded protein

  Modified components of messenger RNA can cause the protein-production machinery to stall during the process of translation. This might change the protein being made, a finding with implications for vaccines or therapies.

  • Nicholas J. Tursi
  •  & David B. Weiner

• Article | 04 December 2023

  Genetic risk converges on regulatory networks mediating early type 2 diabetes

  Integration of multiomics data with functional analysis of pancreatic tissues from individuals with early-stage type 2 diabetes indicates that the genetic risk converges on RFX6, which regulates chromatin architecture at multiple risk loci.

  • John T. Walker
  • , Diane C. Saunders
  •  & Marcela Brissova

• News | 21 November 2023

  Wi-Fi for neurons: first map of wireless nerve signals unveiled in worms

  Studies find a densely connected network of neurons that communicate over long distances, rather than across synapses.

  • Claudia López Lloreda

• News & Views | 15 November 2023

  Stress granules offer first aid for leaky organelles

  Assemblies of protein and RNA called stress granules appear in response to stressful conditions. The discovery that these granules can plug holes in punctured organelles sheds light on cellular defences against damage and infection.

  • Stephen P. Plassmeyer
  •  & Alex S. Holehouse

• Article
  15 November 2023 | Open Access

  Stress granules plug and stabilize damaged endolysosomal membranes

  Stress granules function at sites of intracellular membrane damage by forming on and stabilizing the ruptured membrane and promoting membrane repair.

  • Claudio Bussi
  • , Agustín Mangiarotti
  •  & Maximiliano G. Gutierrez

• News | 09 November 2023

  This hybrid baby monkey is made of cells from two embryos

  The work paves the way for scientists to use chimeric primates to study human diseases.

  • Carissa Wong

• Perspective | 08 November 2023

  The power and potential of mitochondria transfer

  The mechanisms by which mitochondria are transferred between cells and how intercellular mitochondria transfer regulates physiological processes and disease pathogenesis are discussed.

  • Nicholas Borcherding
  •  & Jonathan R. Brestoff