Issues

Summary: In this Cell Science at a Glance article and the accompanying poster, we review the current knowledge on the function of intramembrane proteolysis in mammalian cells.

Summary: A discussion of the theory that pericellular matrices behave like hydrogels whose interactions can generate the entire 1000-fold range of observed cell–cell adhesion strengths.

Summary: ESCRT-0 is a heterodimeric ubiquitin receptor involved in endosomal trafficking, that has been acquired in opisthokonts and missing in other organisms. We discuss how other multicellular organisms, such as plants, recognise ubiquitylated cargoes.

Summary: A new 3D fluorescence microscopy-based method allows analysis of the high speed beating of cilia and flagella, with potential to answer open questions about Leishmania and Trypanosoma 3D motility.

Highlighted Article: The regulatory domain of the COPI-associated ArfGAP Glo3 can stabilize the COPI coat. GTP hydrolysis is necessary to resolve the stabilised state. This mechanism is regulated by phosphorylation.

Highlighted Article: The inflammatory chemokine CXCL2 has an important role in the pathogenesis of osteoporosis and attenuates osteogenesis by inhibiting differentiation of osteoblasts through ERK1/2 signaling.

Highlighted Article: A FRET-based method is used to assess the impact of GPCR hetero-oligomerization on downstream signaling and contributes to the identification of the stoichiometry of endogenously expressed GPCRs under physiological conditions.

Highlighted Article: Characterization of a newly discovered nectin trans-endocytosis processes that not only transfers cell surface proteins but also cytoplasmic proteins. It can also transfer measles virus ribonucleocapsids, extending tropism to neurons.

Summary: Overexpression of the mitochondrial targeting sequence of ATP5G1 perturbs glucose metabolism, and translocates K-Ras to mitochondria and phosphatidylserine to endomembranes, through regulation of PI4P content at the Golgi.

Summary: In human fibroblasts, glucocorticoids induce a delay or bypass entry into senescence induced by oncogenic B-RAF-V600E. This senescence is promoted by EGR1 through transcriptional activation of the key cell cycle inhibitors CDKN1A and CDKN2B.

Summary: MKL1 expression is elevated in patients with papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) with nodal metastasis, promoting the migration and invasion of human PTC cells by targeting the TGF-β–Smad3–MMP2 signaling pathway.

Summary: The spine apparatus is assembled locally in dendrites. This process, which relies on the presence of synaptopodin and F-actin, is disrupted by interfering with myosin V activity.

Highlighted Article: The Chlamydomonas flagellar membrane glycoprotein FMG-1B is responsible for coupling the motor machinery of IFT to an extracellular substrate to generate flagellar surface motility (whole-cell gliding and microsphere movement).

Summary: There is a highly specific requirement for a single PI3K isoform, PI3Kβ, during growth factor-stimulated macropinocytosis and constitutive macropinocytosis in PTEN-null tumor cells.

Summary: Cyclin C and the Pten phosphatase combine to restrict thyroid tissue hyperplasia by maintaining levels of the p21 and p53 tumor suppressors through a post-transcriptional mechanism.

Summary: The RNA-binding protein QKI isoforms hold key roles in alternative splicing facilitating the production of vascular cells for therapy and disease modelling.