Myosin XI, a model of its conserved role in plant cell tip growth
Biochem Soc Trans. 2024 Apr 17:BST20220783. doi: 10.1042/BST20220783. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTIn eukaryotic cells, organelle and vesicle transport, positioning, and interactions play crucial roles in cytoplasmic organization and function. These processes are governed by intracellular trafficking mechanisms. At the core of that trafficking, the cytoskeleton and directional transport by motor proteins stand out as its key regulators. Plant cell tip growth is a well-studied example of cytoplasm organization by polarization. This polarization, essential for the cell's function, is driven by the cytoskeleton and its assoc...
Source: Biochemical Society Transactions - April 17, 2024 Category: Biochemistry Authors: Edward J Chocano-Coralla Luis Vidali Source Type: research
The ring rules the chain - inositol pyrophosphates and the regulation of inorganic polyphosphate
Biochem Soc Trans. 2024 Apr 17:BST20230256. doi: 10.1042/BST20230256. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTThe maintenance of phosphate homeostasis serves as a foundation for energy metabolism and signal transduction processes in all living organisms. Inositol pyrophosphates (PP-InsPs), composed of an inositol ring decorated with monophosphate and diphosphate moieties, and inorganic polyphosphate (polyP), chains of orthophosphate residues linked by phosphoanhydride bonds, are energy-rich biomolecules that play critical roles in phosphate homeostasis. There is a complex interplay between these two phosphate-rich molecules, and the...
Source: Biochemical Society Transactions - April 17, 2024 Category: Biochemistry Authors: Azmi Khan Manisha Mallick Jayashree S Ladke Rashna Bhandari Source Type: research
Therapeutic exploitation of ferroptosis
Biochem Soc Trans. 2024 Apr 17:BST20230550. doi: 10.1042/BST20230550. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTPathological breakdown of membrane lipids through excessive lipid peroxidation (LPO) was first described in the mid-20th century and is now recognized as a form of regulated cell death, dubbed ferroptosis. Accumulating evidence unveils how metabolic regulation restrains peroxidation of phospholipids within cellular membranes, thereby impeding ferroptosis execution. Unleashing these metabolic breaks is currently therapeutically explored to sensitize cancers to ferroptosis inducing anti-cancer therapies. Reversely, these natur...
Source: Biochemical Society Transactions - April 17, 2024 Category: Biochemistry Authors: Magali Walravens Ine Koeken Tom Vanden Berghe Source Type: research
RNA m6A modification, signals for degradation or stabilisation?
Biochem Soc Trans. 2024 Apr 17:BST20230574. doi: 10.1042/BST20230574. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTThe RNA modification N6-methyladenosine (m6A) is conserved across eukaryotes, and profoundly influences RNA metabolism, including regulating RNA stability. METTL3 and METTL14, together with several accessory components, form a 'writer' complex catalysing m6A modification. Conversely, FTO and ALKBH5 function as demethylases, rendering m6A dynamic. Key to understanding the functional significance of m6A is its 'reader' proteins, exemplified by YTH-domain-containing proteins (YTHDFs) canonical reader and insulin-like growth fac...
Source: Biochemical Society Transactions - April 17, 2024 Category: Biochemistry Authors: Guifeng Wei Source Type: research
SUMO and the DNA damage response
Biochem Soc Trans. 2024 Apr 17:BST20230862. doi: 10.1042/BST20230862. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTThe preservation of genome integrity requires specialised DNA damage repair (DDR) signalling pathways to respond to each type of DNA damage. A key feature of DDR is the integration of numerous post-translational modification signals with DNA repair factors. These modifications influence DDR factor recruitment to damaged DNA, activity, protein-protein interactions, and ultimately eviction to enable access for subsequent repair factors or termination of DDR signalling. SUMO1-3 (small ubiquitin-like modifier 1-3) conjugation ha...
Source: Biochemical Society Transactions - April 17, 2024 Category: Biochemistry Authors: Jai S Bhachoo Alexander J Garvin Source Type: research
Deconstructing cancer with precision genome editing
Biochem Soc Trans. 2024 Apr 17:BST20230984. doi: 10.1042/BST20230984. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTRecent advances in genome editing technologies are allowing investigators to engineer and study cancer-associated mutations in their endogenous genetic contexts with high precision and efficiency. Of these, base editing and prime editing are quickly becoming gold-standards in the field due to their versatility and scalability. Here, we review the merits and limitations of these precision genome editing technologies, their application to modern cancer research, and speculate how these could be integrated to address future dir...
Source: Biochemical Society Transactions - April 17, 2024 Category: Biochemistry Authors: Grace A Johnson Samuel I Gould Francisco J S ánchez-Rivera Source Type: research
New insights into the structure and dynamics of the TOM complex in mitochondria
Biochem Soc Trans. 2024 Apr 17:BST20231236. doi: 10.1042/BST20231236. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTTo date, there is no general physical model of the mechanism by which unfolded polypeptide chains with different properties are imported into the mitochondria. At the molecular level, it is still unclear how transit polypeptides approach, are captured by the protein translocation machinery in the outer mitochondrial membrane, and how they subsequently cross the entropic barrier of a protein translocation pore to enter the intermembrane space. This deficiency has been due to the lack of detailed structural and dynamic informa...
Source: Biochemical Society Transactions - April 17, 2024 Category: Biochemistry Authors: Stephan Nussberger Robin Ghosh Shuo Wang Source Type: research
Covalent activity-based probes for imaging of serine proteases
Biochem Soc Trans. 2024 Apr 17:BST20231450. doi: 10.1042/BST20231450. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTSerine proteases are one of the largest mechanistic classes of proteases. They regulate a plethora of biochemical pathways inside and outside the cell. Aberrant serine protease activity leads to a wide variety of human diseases. Reagents to visualize these activities can be used to gain insight into the biological roles of serine proteases. Moreover, they may find future use for the detection of serine proteases as biomarkers. In this review, we discuss small molecule tools to image serine protease activity. Specifically, we...
Source: Biochemical Society Transactions - April 17, 2024 Category: Biochemistry Authors: Marcin Skorenski Shanping Ji Steven H L Verhelst Source Type: research
Inorganic polyphosphate and ion transport across biological membranes
Biochem Soc Trans. 2024 Apr 17:BST20230522. doi: 10.1042/BST20230522. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTInorganic polyphosphate (polyP) is widely recognized for playing important roles and processes involved in energy and phosphate storage, regulation of gene expression, and calcium signaling. The less well-known role of polyP is as a direct mediator of ion transport across biological membranes. Here, we will briefly summarize current knowledge of the molecular mechanisms of how polyP can be involved in membrane ion transport. We discuss three types of mechanisms that might involve polyP: (1) formation of non-protein channel c...
Source: Biochemical Society Transactions - April 17, 2024 Category: Biochemistry Authors: Yaw Akosah Jingyi Yang Evgeny Pavlov Source Type: research
Post-translational modifications: emerging directors of cell-fate decisions during endoplasmic reticulum stress in Arabidopsis thaliana
Biochem Soc Trans. 2024 Apr 11:BST20231025. doi: 10.1042/BST20231025. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTHomeostasis of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) is critical for growth, development, and stress responses. Perturbations causing an imbalance in ER proteostasis lead to a potentially lethal condition known as ER stress. In ER stress situations, cell-fate decisions either activate pro-life pathways that reestablish homeostasis or initiate pro-death pathways to prevent further damage to the organism. Understanding the mechanisms underpinning cell-fate decisions in ER stress is critical for crop development and has the potential ...
Source: Biochemical Society Transactions - April 10, 2024 Category: Biochemistry Authors: Ethan Thibault Federica Brandizzi Source Type: research
Atomic force microscopy 3D structural reconstruction of individual particles in the study of amyloid protein assemblies
Biochem Soc Trans. 2024 Apr 11:BST20230857. doi: 10.1042/BST20230857. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTRecent developments in atomic force microscopy (AFM) image analysis have made three-dimensional (3D) structural reconstruction of individual particles observed on 2D AFM height images a reality. Here, we review the emerging contact point reconstruction AFM (CPR-AFM) methodology and its application in 3D reconstruction of individual helical amyloid filaments in the context of the challenges presented by the structural analysis of highly polymorphous and heterogeneous amyloid protein structures. How individual particle-level s...
Source: Biochemical Society Transactions - April 10, 2024 Category: Biochemistry Authors: Claudia Chitty Kinga Kuliga Wei-Feng Xue Source Type: research
Post-translational modifications: emerging directors of cell-fate decisions during endoplasmic reticulum stress in Arabidopsis thaliana
Biochem Soc Trans. 2024 Apr 11:BST20231025. doi: 10.1042/BST20231025. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTHomeostasis of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) is critical for growth, development, and stress responses. Perturbations causing an imbalance in ER proteostasis lead to a potentially lethal condition known as ER stress. In ER stress situations, cell-fate decisions either activate pro-life pathways that reestablish homeostasis or initiate pro-death pathways to prevent further damage to the organism. Understanding the mechanisms underpinning cell-fate decisions in ER stress is critical for crop development and has the potential ...
Source: Biochemical Society Transactions - April 10, 2024 Category: Biochemistry Authors: Ethan Thibault Federica Brandizzi Source Type: research
Atomic force microscopy 3D structural reconstruction of individual particles in the study of amyloid protein assemblies
Biochem Soc Trans. 2024 Apr 11:BST20230857. doi: 10.1042/BST20230857. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTRecent developments in atomic force microscopy (AFM) image analysis have made three-dimensional (3D) structural reconstruction of individual particles observed on 2D AFM height images a reality. Here, we review the emerging contact point reconstruction AFM (CPR-AFM) methodology and its application in 3D reconstruction of individual helical amyloid filaments in the context of the challenges presented by the structural analysis of highly polymorphous and heterogeneous amyloid protein structures. How individual particle-level s...
Source: Biochemical Society Transactions - April 10, 2024 Category: Biochemistry Authors: Claudia Chitty Kinga Kuliga Wei-Feng Xue Source Type: research
Post-translational modifications: emerging directors of cell-fate decisions during endoplasmic reticulum stress in Arabidopsis thaliana
Biochem Soc Trans. 2024 Apr 11:BST20231025. doi: 10.1042/BST20231025. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTHomeostasis of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) is critical for growth, development, and stress responses. Perturbations causing an imbalance in ER proteostasis lead to a potentially lethal condition known as ER stress. In ER stress situations, cell-fate decisions either activate pro-life pathways that reestablish homeostasis or initiate pro-death pathways to prevent further damage to the organism. Understanding the mechanisms underpinning cell-fate decisions in ER stress is critical for crop development and has the potential ...
Source: Biochemical Society Transactions - April 10, 2024 Category: Biochemistry Authors: Ethan Thibault Federica Brandizzi Source Type: research
Atomic force microscopy 3D structural reconstruction of individual particles in the study of amyloid protein assemblies
Biochem Soc Trans. 2024 Apr 11:BST20230857. doi: 10.1042/BST20230857. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTRecent developments in atomic force microscopy (AFM) image analysis have made three-dimensional (3D) structural reconstruction of individual particles observed on 2D AFM height images a reality. Here, we review the emerging contact point reconstruction AFM (CPR-AFM) methodology and its application in 3D reconstruction of individual helical amyloid filaments in the context of the challenges presented by the structural analysis of highly polymorphous and heterogeneous amyloid protein structures. How individual particle-level s...
Source: Biochemical Society Transactions - April 10, 2024 Category: Biochemistry Authors: Claudia Chitty Kinga Kuliga Wei-Feng Xue Source Type: research
