Cell polarity articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    How RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) regulate gene expression via effectors of RNA processing is unclear. Here, the authors dissect the effector interface of an essential RBP, Unkempt, and investigate its contribution to translational control in cells.

    • Kriti Shah
    • , Shiyang He
    •  & Jernej Murn

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Theoretical and experimental observations argue that apical domain heterogeneity in the neural plate is a tug-of-war contest between constricted and elongated cells. This competition likely reflects mechanical forces operating during tissue bending.

    • Miho Matsuda
    • , Jan Rozman
    •  & Sergei Y. Sokol

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Different membrane proteins dynamically polarize to organize signal transduction, but the underlying mechanism is unclear. Here, the authors show that a differential diffusion mediated partitioning process is sufficient to drive such spatiotemporal patterning of membrane-associated signaling proteins.

    • Tatsat Banerjee
    • , Satomi Matsuoka
    •  & Pablo A. Iglesias

  • Article
    | Open Access

    After respiratory viral infection and in fibrotic lung disease, repair and remodeling processes particularly affect airway basal cell (BC) and alveolar epithelial cell populations. Here, using single cell transcriptomics and lineage tracing, the authors characterize this process and define roles for innate immune activation in the regulation of BC fate and alveolar remodeling.

    • Andrew K. Beppu
    • , Juanjuan Zhao
    •  & Barry R. Stripp

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Cell polarity is key to many processes in bacteria. By focusing on the roadblock domain protein MglC, the authors elucidate the mechanistic basis and design principles of a system that spatiotemporally regulates switchable front-rear polarity and directional migration.

    • Luís António Menezes Carreira
    • , Dobromir Szadkowski
    •  & Lotte Søgaard-Andersen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The mechanisms that drive myocyte orientation and fusion to control muscle directionality are not well understood. Here authors show that the developing skeleton produces mechanical tension that instructs the directional outgrowth of skeletal muscles.

    • Kazunori Sunadome
    • , Alek G. Erickson
    •  & Igor Adameyko

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Schwannomas are mainly caused by NF2 tumour suppressor inactivation, but they display intratumoural heterogeneity. Here the authors show that this heterogeneity is caused by the loss of polarity and acquisition of different programmes of ErbB ligand production in NF2-mutant Schwann cells.

    • Christine Chiasson-MacKenzie
    • , Jeremie Vitte
    •  & Andrea I. McClatchey

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Regulation of oriented cell divisions during development is important to position daughter cells and build a structured and functional tissue. Here the authors show that Annexin A1 is a key polarity protein that regulates planar orientation of the cell division axis to guide mammary epithelial morphogenesis.

    • Maria Fankhaenel
    • , Farahnaz S. Golestan Hashemi
    •  & Salah Elias

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Cell migration regulates diverse (patho)physiological processes, including cancer metastasis. Here the authors show that the chloride ion channel SWELL1 and the ion exchanger NHE1 are preferentially enriched at the trailing and leading edges, respectively, of migrating cells and regulate cell volume to propel confined cells, favouring breast cancer cell extravasation and metastasis.

    • Yuqi Zhang
    • , Yizeng Li
    •  & Konstantinos Konstantopoulos

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Planar cell polarity (PCP) is critical for tissue-wide coordination and successful development. Here Jussila et al. generate a GFP-Vangl2 fusion for live imaging and discover a surprising directionality to the intercellular propagation of cell polarity, and ultimately link PCP defects with idiopathic scoliosis.

    • Maria Jussila
    • , Curtis W. Boswell
    •  & Brian Ciruna

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Goudreault et al. investigate the role of Afadin downstream of RAS GTPases, substantiating this cell adhesion protein as a true RAS effector that couples its activation to cell polarity through the Scribble protein.

    • Marilyn Goudreault
    • , Valérie Gagné
    •  & Matthew J. Smith

  • Article
    | Open Access

    RNA granules are important regulators of RNA metabolism. Here the authors report that RNA granules containing RNA helicase DDX6 disassemble during neuronal maturation.

    • Karl E. Bauer
    • , Niklas Bargenda
    •  & Michael A. Kiebler

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The Frizzled/Dishevelled planar cell polarity pathway is involved in mitotic spindle orientation, but how this is coordinated with the cell cycle is unclear. Here, the authors show with Drosophila sensory organ precursor cells that Cyclin A is recruited in prophase by Frizzled/Dishevelled, regulating division orientation.

    • Pénélope Darnat
    • , Angélique Burg
    •  & Agnès Audibert

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A common cellular manifestation for diverse kidney diseases is dysregulated actin cytoskeleton in distinct cell types that include glomerular podocytes and tubular epithelial cells. Here, authors pharmacologically activate dynamin and this results in polymerization and crosslinking of actin filaments to establish the structural integrity of these cells, thus ameliorating disease phenotypes.

    • Kamalika Mukherjee
    • , Changkyu Gu
    •  & Sanja Sever

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Neutrophils migrate with remarkably stable front-rear polarization. Using optogenetic receptor control to induce reversal of polarization in restrictive microfluidic channels, the authors find that myosin II promotes this stability by suppressing transmission of receptor inputs at the cell rear.

    • Amalia Hadjitheodorou
    • , George R. R. Bell
    •  & Julie A. Theriot

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Human early development remains largely inaccessible, owing to technical and ethical limitations of working with natural embryos. Here the authors assess the extent to which human expanded pluripotent stem cells can specify distinct cell lineages and capture aspects of early human embryogenesis.

    • Berna Sozen
    • , Victoria Jorgensen
    •  & Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz

  • Article
    | Open Access

    PAK4 is a kinase involved in cell-cell junctions, though the identify of the  local protein network involving PAK4 is unclear. Here, the authors performed proximity proteomic analysis on mammalian PAK4 and find  that PAK4 is associated with Afadin-dependent junctions, and report putative PAK4 phosphorylation substrates at this site.

    • Yohendran Baskaran
    • , Felicia Pei-Ling Tay
    •  & Edward Manser

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Epithelial cells that organise into structures that contain a lumen are polarised. Here, the authors show that the short intracellular domain of transmembrane protein CD13 is required to capture endosomes at the apical site and is required for the polarisation of cells.

    • Li-Ting Wang
    • , Abira Rajah
    •  & Luke McCaffrey

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Early stages of embryogenesis are known to depend on subcellular localization and transport of maternal mRNA, but systematic analyses have been hindered by a lack of methods for tracking of RNA. Here the authors combine spatially-resolved transcriptomics and single-cell RNA labeling to perform a spatio-temporal analysis of the transcriptome during early zebrafish development, revealing insights into this process.

    • Karoline Holler
    • , Anika Neuschulz
    •  & Jan Philipp Junker

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Sensory hair cells develop an asymmetric architecture to restrict stimulus detection to a single axis. Here the authors identify GPR156 as directing a 180-degree reversal in hair cell orientation through Gαi, downstream of EMX2 in the mouse inner ear and zebrafish lateral line.

    • Katie S. Kindt
    • , Anil Akturk
    •  & Basile Tarchini

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Establishing protein gradients for asymmetric cell division is fundamental across all kingdoms of life. Here the authors construct asymmetric cell division in E. coli by localizing the expression of RNA polymerase using an orthogonal unipolar scaffold, and restricting diffusion of its products.

    • Da-Wei Lin
    • , Yang Liu
    •  & Hsiao-Chun Huang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Contact stimulation of migration drives tissue morphogenesis. Here the authors report that filopodia-based contact-dependent asymmetry of cell–matrix adhesion drives directional movement, whereas contractile actin cables contribute to the integrity of the migrating cell cluster in the myotubes of Drosophila developing testes.

    • Maik C. Bischoff
    • , Sebastian Lieb
    •  & Sven Bogdan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Cilia originate from a basal body and basal foot, but the precise molecular mechanisms of basal foot biogenesis are unclear. Here, the authors show that ANKS1A interacts with FOP to transform the subdistal appendages from an unpolarized structure to a polarized structure with a basal foot.

    • Hyunchul Ryu
    • , Haeryung Lee
    •  & Soochul Park

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The I-BAR protein IRSp53 senses membrane curvature but its physiological role is unclear. Here, the authors show that during early lumen morphogenesis, IRSp53 controls the shape of the apical plasma membrane and polarized trafficking and ensures the correct epithelial tubular architecture and if deleted, affects renal tubules morphogenesis in various organisms.

    • Sara Bisi
    • , Stefano Marchesi
    •  & Andrea Disanza

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Budding yeast cell polarization is known to self-assemble, but it is still not clear what controls the size of the resulting septin ring. Here the authors show that the septin ring diameter is set by cell volume, ensuring that larger cells have larger rings.

    • I. V. Kukhtevich
    • , N. Lohrberg
    •  & K. M. Schmoller

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The evolutionarily conserved complex, the Par proteins, regulates cell polarity. Here, the authors show that in Drosophila neuroblasts, the Par complex exhibits liquid–liquid phase separation dependent on the cell cycle.

    • Ziheng Liu
    • , Ying Yang
    •  & Wenyu Wen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    During cell migration, cells are polarized with distinct front vs. rear regions but whether and how polarity is transmitted to the nucleus is unclear. Here the authors show that frontally-biased endoplasmic reticulum and the nuclear membrane protein Emerin contribute to front-rear nuclear cell polarity.

    • Paulina Nastały
    • , Divya Purushothaman
    •  & Paolo Maiuri

  • Article
    | Open Access

    To model hepatocyte function accurately in vitro, it is necessary to generate and maintain a polarized epithelium. Here, the authors describe a protocol to generate polarized human pluripotent stem cell-derived hepatocyte-like cells (HLCs) to model enteric virus production and drug secretion in vitro.

    • Viet Loan Dao Thi
    • , Xianfang Wu
    •  & Charles M. Rice

  • Article
    | Open Access

    While biallelic mutations of the SLC26A4 gene cause non-syndromic hearing loss with enlarged vestibular aqueducts or Pendred syndrome, a considerable number of patients carry mono-allelic mutations. Here the authors identify EPHA2 as another causative gene of Pendred syndrome with SLC26A4.

    • Mengnan Li
    • , Shin-ya Nishio
    •  & Masanori Nakayama

  • Article
    | Open Access

    De novo lumen formation during vertebrate left–right organizer development is required for body axis establishment. Here the authors utilize zebrafish to demonstrate that the position and cleavage of the cytokinetic bridge in dividing left-right organizer cells dictates tissue morphogenesis.

    • L. I. Rathbun
    • , E. G. Colicino
    •  & H. Hehnly

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