Abstract. Polyethylene terephthalate (PET)-hydrolyzing enzymes (PETases) are a recently discovered enzyme class capable of plastic degradation. PETases are

In the growing field of chemical proteomics, there is a need for general methods to map the reactivity profiles of covalent probes in complex proteomes. Now, a completely unbiased proteomic workflow h...

McCreery, Stubb et al. show that mechano-osmotic changes in the nucleus induce general transcriptional repression and prime chromatin for cell fate transitions by relieving repression of specific differentiation genes.

Membrane contact sites between the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and plasma membrane (PM) are essential for lipid transfer, calcium signaling, and membrane organization. While the formation and function of ER–PM contacts are increasingly well-characterized, the spatiotemporal regulation of their localization remains elusive. Emerging evidence using nanopatterned substrates, ultrastructural imaging, and protein localization analyses indicates that membrane curvature can act as a spatial cue for the recruitment of specific tethering proteins, influencing where contact sites form. This opinion article synthesizes recent advances linking membrane topography ER–PM contact organization and highlights systems where curvature actively orchestrates contact position through curvature-sensing proteins. It also outlines key unanswered questions about how membrane curvature integrates into broader signaling networks that govern organelle contact communication.

University of Nebraska's drug design centre director is communicating his team's scientific breakthroughs with tattoos and now has 29 on his arm

The developers of OpenFold3 have released an early version of the tool, which they hope will one day perform on par with DeepMind’s protein-structure model.

The kinetochore fibrous corona docks on CENP-E and a second elusive receptor identified as the checkpoint protein BUB1.

Malaria continues to devastate tropical regions of the world, with resistance to frontline drugs on the rise. Kinase inhibition has emerged as a promising novel mechanism of action in the fight…

Immunomodulatory imide drugs (IMiDs), including thalidomide, lenalidomide, and pomalidomide, can be used to induce degradation of a protein of interest that is fused to a short degron motif, which often comprises a zinc finger (ZF). These IMiDs, however, also induce the degradation of endogenous ZF-containing neosubstrates, including IKZF1, IKZF3, and SALL4. To improve degradation selectivity, we took a bump-and-hole approach to design and screen bumped IMiD analogues against 8380 ZF mutants. This yielded a bumped IMiD analogue that induces efficient degradation of a mutant ZF degron, while not affecting other cellular proteins, including IKZF1, IKZF3, and SALL4. In proof-of-concept studies, this system was applied to induce degradation of the optimum degron fused to CDK9, HPRT1, NanoLuc, or TRIM28. We anticipate that this system will be a valuable addition to the current arsenal of degron systems for use in target validation.

RNAs move through the extracellular space to transmit information between cells, including mammalian neurons, yet how specific RNAs are channeled into these extracellular routes is unknown. Using geno...

Vinculin buffers force via dynamic domain unfolding/refolding under physiological load and lacks a stable head-tail lock.