Issues

Summary: Tenascin-C is an extracellular matrix molecule that shapes cell behavior in developing and traumatized tissues, and has a great potential in disease diagnosis and tissue repair.

Summary: We review recent findings on the mechanisms that mediate the motility and positioning of lysosomes, and the importance of lysosome dynamics for cell physiology and pathology.

Highlighted Article: Rab40b plays a key role in mediating invadopodia function during breast cancer cell invasion by binding to Tks5 and functioning as a tether mediating MMP2 and MMP9 targeting to the extending invadopodia.

Summary: Development is more sensitive to gain of vinculin activity than its loss, and vinculin can promote cytoplasmic adhesion complexes independently of the usual integrin cue.

Highlighted Article: The functional impact of missense mutations is difficult to predict. Yeast cells detect the misfolding effects of these types of mutations in the human BRCA1 protein, revealing an associated nuclear transport impairment.

Summary: Removal of Cabyr by using CRISPR-Cas9 results in mouse spermatozoa with a disorganized fibrous sheath, impaired motility and a subsequent loss of their ability to fertilize oocytes.

Highlighted Article: The availability of the membrane tether junctophilin-2 determines the nanostructure of the fast intracellular Ca²⁺ signalling junctions but, if present above a minimum required level, forms an auto-regulatory mechanism which maintains local Ca²⁺ signals broadly independent of the structural differences.

Summary: Gap junction expression has been linked to enhanced metastasis and cell migration. We show here that Cx26 gap junctions selectively enhance cell migration by disrupting N-cadherin-based cell adhesion in HeLa cells.

Highlighted Article: Dysfunction of mitochondria and subsequently energy generation occurs in many human diseases. Here, we propose a mechanism that allows rapid activation of glucose influx to prevent energy crisis during such dysfunction.

Summary: The class III PI3K Vps34 activates Armus (TBC1D2), a Rab7 GTPase-activating protein, to regulate endosomal trafficking.