Molecular biology articles from across Nature Portfolio

LIS1 protein is important for brain development and stem cells’ survival. Here the authors show that LIS1 binds RNA and interact with RNA-binding proteins regulating the physical properties of mouse embryonic stem cells.

Single-cell multi-omics methods are essential for characterizing cell states and types. The past decade has ushered in improvements in spatial resolution and computational data integration and in new omics modalities. Consequently, single-cell multi-omics have advanced fundamental and translational research, including, for example, in production of cell atlases and in tumour immunology therapeutics.

Tracking protein-RNA interaction across cell types is challenging. Here, Ruan et al develop a dual-deaminase method called PIE-Seq, where protein targets are marked by both C-to-U and A-to-I RNA base editors, and apply it to 25 human RNA-binding proteins.

The authors discovered a far distant genomic region containing multiple clusters of regulatory elements that drive coordinated Hoxa expression across chromatin topologically associating domains in cranial neural crest, and are required for patterning of facial structures.