Cell biology articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Retroviruses such as HIV integrate into the host genome as an essential step prior to their replication. Here Lelek et al. identify nuclear pore complex proteins that are essential for HIV nuclear import and productive integration, and show that the intranuclear protein Tpr influences integration into transcriptionally active chromatin.

    • Mickaël Lelek
    • , Nicoletta Casartelli
    •  & Francesca Di Nunzio

  • Article |

    Protein arginine methylation is an abundant post-translational modification often associated with RNA-binding proteins. Here the authors show that the previously uncharacterized PRMT9 enzyme catalyses the symmetrical methylation of SAP145, which promotes its association with the SMN complex and regulates splicing.

    • Yanzhong Yang
    • , Andrea Hadjikyriacou
    •  & Mark T. Bedford

  • Article
    | Open Access

    STAT3 is an intracellular transducer of cytokine signals that cooperates with Ras in tumour formation and is often activated in lung cancer. Here the authors show that STAT3 acts as a tumour suppressor in a mouse model of Kras-driven lung adenocarcinoma.

    • Beatrice Grabner
    • , Daniel Schramek
    •  & Emilio Casanova

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Homologous recombination can overcome replication fork inactivation, but this can cause gross chromosomal rearrangements. Here, the authors show that DNA damage and intra-S phase checkpoints are blind to chromosome rearrangement in the first cell cycle, and are only induced in the second cell cycle.

    • Saed Mohebi
    • , Ken’Ichi Mizuno
    •  & Johanne M. Murray

  • Article |

    The spatial orientation of cell divisions is fundamental for tissue architecture and homeostasis but the extracellular cues regulating this process are largely unknown. Here, the authors show that Semaphorin3B released from the floor plate and the nascent choroid plexus controls progenitor division orientation in the developing mouse spinal cord.

    • Elise Arbeille
    • , Florie Reynaud
    •  & Valérie Castellani

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Suppression of MutS HOMOLOGUE 1 (MSH1), a plant protein targeted to mitochondria and plastids, causes a variety of phenotypes. Here Virdi et al. show that MSH1 depletion in Arabidopsisresults in heritable changes in nuclear DNA methylation, which can lead to enhanced growth vigour.

    • Kamaldeep S. Virdi
    • , John D. Laurie
    •  & Sally A. Mackenzie

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The role of macrophages in hypertension-induced arterial remodeling is poorly understood. Here, Sumida et al. show that high blood pressure drives the alternatively activated macrophages to secrete complement C1q protein, which in turn elicits proliferative β-catenin signalling in the arterial smooth muscle cells.

    • Tomokazu Sumida
    • , Atsuhiko T. Naito
    •  & Issei Komuro

  • Article |

    Photoreceptor-based photoswitches have proved to be powerful tools for the specific control of protein activity in live cells. Here the authors describe Magnets, a new set of photoswitches based on the Vivid photoreceptor with enhanced hetero-dimerization specificity and variable activation kinetics.

    • Fuun Kawano
    • , Hideyuki Suzuki
    •  & Moritoshi Sato

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Cells grown on a stiff substrate are stimulated through physical cues to spread, create actin stress fibres and proliferate. Here Cui et al. show that cyclic stretching cells on a soft pillar substrate has the same effect as growth on a stiff substrate, and results in nuclear translocation of YAP and MRTF-A.

    • Yidan Cui
    • , Feroz M. Hameed
    •  & Michael Sheetz

  • Article |

    Some bacteria can form nanotubes to transfer proteins and plasmids between neighbouring cells. Here, the authors show that nanotubes can also mediate the exchange of cytoplasmic amino acids between cells of the same or different bacterial species.

    • Samay Pande
    • , Shraddha Shitut
    •  & Christian Kost

  • Article |

    Studies of cellular mechanotransduction commonly use elastic substrates, whereas biological substrates are viscoelastic, exhibiting stress relaxation. Here, the authors show through computational modelling and experiments that viscoelastic substrates can stimulate cell spreading to a greater extent than purely elastic substrates with the same initial stiffness.

    • Ovijit Chaudhuri
    • , Luo Gu
    •  & David J. Mooney

  • Article |

    Juxtaglomerular neurons (JGNs) of the mammalian olfactory bulb are generated throughout life, but when and how these adult-born cells acquire responsiveness to sensory stimuli remains unknown. Here, the authors use in vivotwo-photon imaging to monitor the migration and integration of adult-born JGNs and their sensory response properties.

    • Yury Kovalchuk
    • , Ryota Homma
    •  & Olga Garaschuk

  • Article |

    The ciliary margin of the eye functions as a source of multipotent progenitor cells in certain organisms but whether it plays this role in humans has not been easy to study. Here the authors culture human embryonic stem cells that self-organize into retinal tissue, and show that ciliary margin-like growth zones emerge from the developing human retinal tissue and contain stem cell niches.

    • Atsushi Kuwahara
    • , Chikafumi Ozone
    •  & Yoshiki Sasai

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A relationship between membrane tension and clathrin polymerization during endocytosis has not been experimentally established. Here, the authors show using an in vitroreconstituted system and theoretical modelling that membrane tension regulates clathrin polymerization into spherical cages by varying the membrane budding energy.

    • Mohammed Saleem
    • , Sandrine Morlot
    •  & Aurélien Roux

  • Article
    | Open Access

    RIPK3 can cause necroptotic cell death via MLKL phosphorylation, and activate NLRP3 inflammasome. Here the authors show that MLKL is dispensable for NLRP3 activation by RIPK3, and highlight how different IAP proteins limit RIPK3 induced apoptosis, necroptosis and IL-1 secretion.

    • Kate E. Lawlor
    • , Nufail Khan
    •  & James E. Vince

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Neurons have complex dendritic trees but the rules governing the propagation of signals from dendrites to nuclei remain unclear. Here the authors combine diffusion-reaction modelling and live imaging to investigate the mechanisms regulating cAMP signalling in neurons and find that dendritic tree geometry shapes synapse-to-nucleus signalling.

    • Lu Li
    • , Nicolas Gervasi
    •  & Jean-Antoine Girault

  • Article |

    The Hippo pathway plays a role in regulating organ size and stem cell renewal but the regulatory mechanisms that fine-tune this pathway are not well understood. Here the authors report on the role of NEDD4 as a negative regulator of the Hippo signalling components, WW45 and LATS kinase, and in controlling cell proliferation and intestinal stem cell homeostasis.

    • Sung Jun Bae
    • , Myungjin Kim
    •  & Jae Hong Seol

  • Article |

    Mice can be generated from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) but the impact of accumulated mutations on the developmental potential of the cells remains to be determined. Here the authors show that mice generated from iPSCs tolerate the accumulation of somatic mutations for up to six generations, but their viability decreased with increasing generations.

    • Shuai Gao
    • , Caihong Zheng
    •  & Shaorong Gao

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Mammalian mitochondria are capable of inter-organelle communication, but connections between mitochondria have not been defined. Here, Picard et al. report the presence of inter-mitochondrial junctions, electron-dense regions with coordinated inner membrane cristae that do not depend on mitofusins for their formation.

    • Martin Picard
    • , Meagan J. McManus
    •  & Douglas C. Wallace

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Protein phosphorylation is known to play an important role in cell adhesion signalling. Robertson et al. present a proteomic resource mapping the phosphorylation states of proteins isolated from adhesion complexes and, taking advantage of this data set, show that the cell cycle kinase CDK1 may influence cell adhesion.

    • Joseph Robertson
    • , Guillaume Jacquemet
    •  & Martin J. Humphries

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Cytoplasmic dynein from the yeast S. cerevisiae behaves distinctly from mammalian dyneins, despite structural conservation. Here, Nicholas et al. identify a C-terminal domain in mammalian dynein that restricts force generation and travel distance, which, when removed, allows mammalian dynein to behave like its yeast counterpart.

    • Matthew P. Nicholas
    • , Peter Höök
    •  & Arne Gennerich

  • Article |

    Imaging live cells at nanometre resolution is challenging because radiation damage kills the cells during exposure. Here, the authors overcome this difficulty in a ‘diffraction before destruction’ experiment using an X-ray laser and record signal to 4 nm resolution on a free-flying cell.

    • Gijs van der Schot
    • , Martin Svenda
    •  & Tomas Ekeberg

  • Article |

    Cells rewire their gene networks to adapt to the environment, yet little is known about the mechanisms underlying gene network evolution. Here, the authors show that changing promoters in the galactose network between two species of yeast changes network inducibility levels and affects fitness.

    • Weilin Peng
    • , Ping Liu
    •  & Murat Acar

  • Article |

    Glioblastoma multiforme is the most common and aggressive form of primary brain tumour, and in 50% of cases EFGR is mutated, amplified or upregulated. Here the authors show that NHE9 controls the amount of EGFR at the membrane surface of brain tumour-initiating stem cells by affecting the luminal pH of sorting endosomes.

    • Kalyan C. Kondapalli
    • , Jose P. Llongueras
    •  & Rajini Rao

  • Article |

    Activation of the liver receptor CAR and β-catenin are both involved in hepatocellular carcinoma. Here, the authors show that combined activation of both CAR and β-catenin in mice can drive uncontrolled liver growth and is sufficient for hepatocarcinogenesis.

    • Bingning Dong
    • , Ju-Seog Lee
    •  & David D. Moore

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Antigenic peptides are loaded into major histocompatibility complex class I (MHC I) molecules after entering the ER via the TAP transporter. Here, Fischbach et al. develop a flow cytometry assay to monitor TAP-dependent peptide translocation that is sensitive enough to use on scarce primary cell subsets.

    • Hanna Fischbach
    • , Marius Döring
    •  & Robert Tampé

  • Article |

    T regulatory cells (Tregs) prevent immunopathology by inhibiting excessive T-cell activation. Here the authors show interactions between dendritic cells, Tregs and antigen-specific T cells in the lymph node during initiation of the immune response in real time by two-photon microscopy.

    • Melanie P. Matheu
    • , Shivashankar Othy
    •  & Michael D. Cahalan

  • Article |

    Cell-type diversity results from a series of binary cell fate decisions. Here, Matsuda et al.find that cells engineered with a Notch/Delta lateral inhibition circuit spontaneously bifurcate into Notch-active and Delta-positive subpopulations that are robust at the individual and population levels.

    • Mitsuhiro Matsuda
    • , Makito Koga
    •  & Miki Ebisuya

  • Article |

    Airway epithelia from cystic fibrosis patients show an exaggerated inflammatory response to P. aeruginosa. Here, Rimessi et al. show that P. aeruginosa exposure causes augmented Ca2+signalling in the absence of functional CFTR, leading to mitochondrial damage and activation of the NLRP3 inflammasome.

    • Alessandro Rimessi
    • , Valentino Bezzerri
    •  & Paolo Pinton

  • Article |

    Phagocytic activity of macrophages is reduced in HIV-1-infected patients, but the reason for this is unknown. Here, the authors report that secreted Tat protein inhibits phagocytosis by binding to the phospholipid PI(4,5)P2and impairing the recruitment of small GTPase Cdc42 to the phagocytic cup.

    • Solène Debaisieux
    • , Simon Lachambre
    •  & Bruno Beaumelle

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Improving the efficiency of reprogramming of somatic cells to induced pluripotent stem cells is of major interest. Here, the authors combine ascorbic acid and 2i (MAP kinase and GSK inhibitors) conditions and show increased efficiency and synchronicity in the reprogramming of fibroblasts and partially reprogrammed cells, and study epigenetic effectors and signalling pathways responsible for this effect.

    • Khoa A. Tran
    • , Steven A. Jackson
    •  & Rupa Sridharan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Microbial pathogens can activate both innate and adaptive receptors, and integration of these signals may enhance the sensitivity of the immune response. Freeman et al. show that innate microbial cues sensitize B cells to antigen by increasing actin dynamics and reducing the actin-dependent confinement of the B-cell receptor.

    • Spencer A. Freeman
    • , Valentin Jaumouillé
    •  & Michael R. Gold

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Augmented AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) activity inhibits cell migration through an unknown mechanism. Here, Yan et al.show that AMPK phosphorylates the novel substrate PDZ and LIM domain 5 (Pdlim5), and that phosphomimetic Pdlim5 impairs cell migration by disrupting the Rac1-Arp2/3 signalling pathway.

    • Yi Yan
    • , Osamu Tsukamoto
    •  & Seiji Takashima

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Angiopoietin-1 (Ang1) and angiopoietin-2 (Ang2) have opposing effects on vascular stability through their receptor Tie2, but there is evidence for Tie2-independent functions of Ang2. Here, Hakanpaa et al.show that Ang2 directly activates β1-integrin, leading to rearrangement of the actin cytoskeleton and decreased VE-cadherin in cell–cell junctions.

    • Laura Hakanpaa
    • , Tuomas Sipila
    •  & Pipsa Saharinen

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