Organelles articles within Nature Cell Biology

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  • Review Article |

    In this Review Article, Klionsky and co-authors discuss selective autophagy pathways that degrade unwanted cytosolic components and organelles, and how these pathways require ligand receptors and scaffold proteins for cargo specificity.

    • Damián Gatica
    • , Vikramjit Lahiri
    •  & Daniel J. Klionsky

  • Review Article |

    Mechanical forces influence both cytoplasmic and nuclear events. Kirby and Lammerding discuss recent evidence suggesting that the nucleus itself is a mechanosensor and methods to study nuclear mechanotransduction.

    • Tyler J. Kirby
    •  & Jan Lammerding

  • News & Views |

    Mitochondria contain their own circular mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), which, over time, is subjected to mutations that may eventually result in functional defects. A study now describes genetic and metabolic selection processes during germ cell development that prevent accumulation of harmful mtDNA variants.

    • Di Chen
    •  & Amander T. Clark

  • News & Views |

    Membrane trafficking specificity between distinct compartments ensures that cargo proteins and lipids are delivered to their target organelle. However, accurate recognition of cargo carriers by tethering factors on target membranes is poorly understood. TBC1D23 is now identified as an adaptor that links endosome-derived vesicles with golgins at the trans-Golgi.

    • J. Christopher Fromme
    •  & Mary Munson

  • News & Views |

    During muscle development, nuclei travel from the centre of the myofibre to the periphery, a process defective in certain diseases. A new study reveals that this movement is due to centripetal forces imposed on nuclei by the crosslinking and contraction of myofibrils.

    • Jonathan N. Rosen
    •  & Mary K. Baylies

  • Article |

    Flores et al. show that hair follicle stem cells rely on the production of lactate via the LDHA enzyme to become activated. Inducing Ldha through Mpc1 inhibition or Myc activation successfully reactivates the hair cycle in quiescent follicles.

    • Aimee Flores
    • , John Schell
    •  & William E. Lowry

  • Review Article |

    In this Review, Prinz and co-authors discuss the role of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) in the de novo generation of peroxisomes, lipid droplets and omegasomes, and how this requires subdomains with specific protein and lipid compositions.

    • Amit S. Joshi
    • , Hong Zhang
    •  & William A. Prinz

  • News & Views |

    Fusion between the inner membranes of two mitochondria requires the GTPase optic atrophy 1 (OPA1), but the molecular mechanism is poorly understood. A study now shows that fusion of two liposomes can be performed by OPA1 tethered to just one liposome, through an interaction with the phospholipid cardiolipin on the opposing liposome.

    • Raymond Liu
    •  & David C. Chan

  • News & Views |

    Due to their varied metabolic and signalling roles, mitochondria are important in mediating cell behaviour. By altering mitochondrial function, two studies now identify metabolite-induced epigenetic changes that have profound effects on haematopoietic stem cell fate and function.

    • John C. Schell
    •  & Jared Rutter

  • News & Views |

    Although the mitochondrial inner membrane rhomboid peptidase PARL is known to participate in critical signalling cascades, its role in apoptosis has remained unclear. PARL is now shown to process the mitochondrial pro-apoptotic protein Smac (also known as DIABLO) for its subsequent release into the cytosol where it antagonizes XIAP-mediated caspase inhibition to promote apoptosis.

    • Naotada Ishihara
    •  & Katsuyoshi Mihara

  • News & Views |

    Work from the early 1980s reported strange lobes protruding from Caenorhabditis elegans germ cell precursors. However, the fate and potential significance of these lobes remained unexplored for decades. Now, neighbouring endodermal cells are shown to sever and digest these lobes, in an unexpected process of 'intercellular cannibalism', which could play an important part in regulating primordial germ cells.

    • Jennifer K. Heppert
    •  & Bob Goldstein

  • News & Views |

    The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) is the largest membrane-bound organelle in cells, and its size needs to be carefully controlled. Downsizing the ER by autophagy is now shown to involve Sec62, a protein that also helps to build up the organelle. This link suggests a molecular switch for ER size control.

    • Sebastian Schuck

  • News & Views |

    Lysosomes are digestive organelles of the endocytic and autophagic pathways. Increasing lysosome enzyme activities could help to clear pathological cellular waste. A recent study shows that lysosomal digestive functions can be promoted in isolated cells and mice by pharmacologically stimulating the autophagy- and lysosome-regulating transcription factors TFEB and ZKSCAN3 through previously unrecognized mTORC1-independent pathways acting via PKC.

    • Paul Saftig
    •  & Albert Haas

  • Article |

    Using a chemical screening approach, Yang and colleagues identify PKC as a regulator of lysosome biogenesis, which controls the subcellular localization of TFEB and ZKSCAN3 through parallel signalling pathways and independently of mTORC1.

    • Yang Li
    • , Meng Xu
    •  & Chonglin Yang

  • News & Views |

    Decreases in endoplasmic reticulum calcium content are sensed by resident STIM proteins, which can activate plasma membrane Orai channels to facilitate Ca2+ entry. The role of STIMATE, a previously unknown component of the store-operated calcium entry complex, has now been identified and defined.

    • Robert Hooper
    •  & Jonathan Soboloff

  • Article |

    Bonifacino and colleagues identify a four-protein complex, called the endosome-associated recycling protein (EARP) complex, that associates with Rab4-positive endosomes and promotes recycling-endosome tethering and fusion.

    • Christina Schindler
    • , Yu Chen
    •  & Juan S. Bonifacino

  • Article |

    By live imaging of mouse oocytes, Verlhac and colleagues demonstrate that actin-coated vesicles together with myosin Vb participate in centring of the nucleus by creating a gradient of cytoplasmic forces.

    • Maria Almonacid
    • , Wylie W. Ahmed
    •  & Marie-Hélène Verlhac

  • Article |

    Medina, Ballabio and colleagues report that calcium release from the lysosome stimulates calcineurin, which dephosphorylates and activates TFEB. These findings reveal a central role for calcium signalling in autophagy and lysosome homeostasis.

    • Diego L. Medina
    • , Simone Di Paola
    •  & Andrea Ballabio

  • News & Views |

    Stat3 has been shown to regulate lysosome membrane permeabilization and cell death in vivo during post-lactation mammary gland involution. It is now revealed that Stat3 induces lysosome membrane permeabilization by causing phagocytosis of milk fat globules, which destabilize the lysosome membrane leading to leakage of cathepsin proteases.

    • Shefali Krishna
    •  & Michael Overholtzer

  • Letter |

    Gundersen and colleagues report that the FHOD1 formin is involved in nuclear positioning, by physically linking nesprin-2G, a protein of the outer nuclear membrane, to actin cables, to allow the formation of the transmembrane actin-associated nuclear (TAN) lines that are needed to move the nucleus.

    • Stefan Kutscheidt
    • , Ruijun Zhu
    •  & Gregg G. Gundersen

  • News & Views |

    Using in vitro reconstitution systems, three studies shed light on the interactions of Atg8 family proteins with cargo receptors and components of the basal autophagy machinery. The results have important mechanistic implications for selective macroautophagy, scaffold formation and spatio-temporal organization of the lipidation process during autophagosome formation.

    • Terje Johansen
    •  & Trond Lamark

  • Article |

    The Cvt pathway in yeast operates constitutively, but the mechanism by which non-cargo material is excluded from the vacuole is incompletely defined. Martens and colleagues show that cargo binding to the cargo receptor Atg19 exposes further Atg8 binding sites on the receptor, which draws the isolation membrane around the autophagic cargo and prevents inclusion of non-cargo material in autophagosomes.

    • Justyna Sawa-Makarska
    • , Christine Abert
    •  & Sascha Martens

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