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This Comment draws attention to cellular protrusions as a source of extracellular vesicles (EVs). These protrusion-derived vesicles expand the repertoire of EVs, impacting current nomenclature and our understanding of EV functions in inter-cellular communication.
Early zebrafish embryos increase the size and complexity of their nuclear pore complexes, enabling efficient nuclear import of maternal transcription factors, which induces zygotic genome activation.
Leilei Chen describes the discovery that adenosine-to-inosine editing by ADAR1 marks endogenous double-stranded RNA as self, to prevent it from triggering innate immunity.
Liming Sun brings to attention paper by Li et al. (2012) reporting that necroptosis kinases, RIPK1 and RIPK3, form functional amyloids that regulate cell death signalling.
Podosomes and invadopodia, collectively called ‘invadosomes’, are actin-based structures that drive proteolytic invasion in various physiologically relevant cell types (including osteoclasts, immune cells, endothelial cells and fibroblasts) and in cancer cells. Recent work has expanded our understanding of the architecture and mechanisms of invadosomes, and has revealed their diverse functions beyond matrix degradation.
Transmembrane proteins associate with specific subsets of lipids, which create nano-environments with unique properties. Better understanding of how these nano-environments regulate protein dynamics and function will afford means to control activities of transmembrane proteins, many of which serve essential signalling and transport roles.
PIWI-interacting RNAs (piRNAs) are small non-coding RNAs with essential roles in germ line development through silencing of transposable elements and in regulation of protein-coding genes. Recent studies have deepened our understanding of the biogenesis and function of piRNAs and their roles in infertility, cancer and neurological diseases in humans.
Cell–extracellular matrix (ECM) interactions occur at specialized, multi-protein adhesion complexes, with clustered integrins as the predominant ECM receptors. Progress in characterization of adhesion composition, organization and dynamics in response to force has improved understanding of adhesion maturation and turnover and the relationships between adhesion structures and functions.
