Issues

Summary: The triple helix is a protein structure of fundamental importance in building the extracellular matrix that enabled animal multicellularity and tissue evolution.

Summary: Cortical domains are a central feature of epithelial and polarised cells. This Review presents the dynamics of cortical domains in early Drosophila embryos and discusses underlying mechanisms for formation of cortical domains.

Summary: AFG3L2 and YME1L1 coordinately regulate OMA1 maturation and consequently, mitochondrial dynamics.

Summary: Inhibition of Aurora A kinase activity in prometaphase leads to a removal of Mad2 from kinetochores, the loss of the SAC and a premature exit from mitosis.

Highlighted Article: Green algae within the Scenedesmaceae, three isolated from desert crust and two aquatic, are introduced for comparative analysis of mechanisms underlying desiccation tolerance and multicellularity.

Highlighted Article: The first micrographic evidence of a cryptic Golgi organelle in the amoeba Naegleria gruberi is presented, revealing the Golgi in this species has a rare tubular morphology.

Summary: Dynamic shape changes of amoeboid cells are far from random, but are the consequence of refined symmetries and symmetry changes that are orchestrated by small G-proteins and the cytoskeleton.

Highlighted Article: Through analysis of Rab7-knockout cells, this paper shows that Rab7 is dispensable for autophagosome–lysosome fusion and that glutamine starvation regulates autolysosome maturation in cultured mammalian cells.

Summary: hMSCs exhibit faster chemotaxis with fewer focal adhesions and an increased protrusion rate on soft substrates, suggesting that the total speed of a cell is the sum of stiffness-dependent and chemokine-dependent components.

Summary: A conserved sequence in occludin determines the dynamic property of tight junctions and adherens junctions in the renal and intestinal epithelia, and regulates collective cell migration.