This epic paper, which has been a heroic 10 year journey for the lead author, Ricardo Barrientos, is finally out in Cell today! Many thanks to all co-authors, especially Billie Meadowcroft and Andela Saric for their beautiful MD simulations www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

Basement membrane turnover controls cell shape

Basement membranes are scaffolds of proteins, like collagen, that give organs shape. During development, basement membranes must adapt to the growing organ. We infer how fast the basement membrane ada...

cell.com

In their Perspective article, Marintia Nava-García @marintianava.bsky.social, Michelle Baird @michelleabaird.bsky.social and colleagues discuss the emerging roles of lipids in nuclear function and homeostasis. journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/...

Happy to share that this beautiful work by @mudgal17.bsky.social in collaboration with the Weis lab @eth-dbiol.bsky.social, discovering a new membrane fusion mechanism in eukaryotes, is finally out in peer-reviewed form at @cp-molcell.bsky.social. www.cell.com/molecular-ce...

A conserved mechanism of membrane fusion in nuclear pore complex assembly

Fischer et al. uncover a fundamental mechanism of membrane fusion during nuclear pore complex (NPC) assembly. Brl1 and Brr6 form ring-shaped, membrane-remodeling complexes that interact and bridge the...

cell.com

Vanni Lab at UNIFR, Switzerland@labvanni.bsky.social · last yr.

Happy to share the latest work from the lab, led by @mudgal17.bsky.social‬, in collaboration with the Weis lab @ethzurich.bsky.social. How do nuclear membranes fuse during NPC assembly? We answer this question in our latest work, where we identify a new mechanism for membrane fusion… (1/13)

Our Special Issue: Cell Biology of the Nucleus is complete Explore our Toc: journals.biologists.com/jcs/issue/13... Our cover image shows the posteriorly positioned nuclei (Nup50-mCherry - pink) of notochord cells in Ciona embryos. See article by Peng et al. journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/...

How did animal senses evolve? Max Coyle et al. used choanoflagellates to uncover TRPW, ancient ion channels predating animal somatosensory receptors. TRPW links microbial prey ecology to evolution of receptor structure, sensory organelles, & multicellular processing. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Our paper "Gene ancestries reveal diverse microbial associations during eukaryogenesis.” is finally out in Nature. Eukaryogenesis was likely a gradual process shaped by multiple microbial partners and virus-mediated gene transfer, rather than a single binary symbiosis. doi.org/10.1038/s415...

☄️New biosensor!☄️ We present Meteor, our GFP-based methionine optical reporter, which can be used to measure methionine dynamics across scales, from subcellular to organisms like C elegans! Plasmids will be deposited with Addgene. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Revealing the spatiotemporal dynamics of methionine metabolism with a genetically encoded single-fluorophore biosensor

Methionine is an essential amino acid, used for protein synthesis, redox homeostasis, and methylation reactions throughout the cell. However, the compartmentalized dynamics of methionine have remained...

biorxiv.org

Science really takes a village. Thrilled to share this with my friend @dudinlab.bsky.social, and with our brilliant and fearless teams, our collaborators around the world and our mentors - in my case a special shoutout to Buzz Baum, Jan Ellenberg and @monicabettencourt.bsky.social. 1/2

EMBO@embo.org · 2mo ago

Congratulations to Gautam Dey (EMBL) and Omaya Dudin (University of Geneva) for being awarded the EMBO Gold Medal 2026 in recognition of their outstanding contributions to the #LifeSciences in Europe! 🧪 https://www.embo.org/press-releases/embo-gold-medal-2026-awarded-to-gautam-dey-and-omaya-dudin/

Happy to share the final version of this work is now out in @natchembio.nature.com. Lots of additional exciting data! Congrats to all the authors!

Posttranslational modifications remodel proteome-wide ligandability - Nature Chemical Biology

A chemoproteomic strategy reveals how posttranslational modifications reshape protein ligandability across the human proteome, uncovering more than 400 state-dependent interactions, including phosphor...

nature.com

Chris Parker@chrisgparker.bsky.social · last yr.

Excited to share a new preprint from the lab. We show that PTMs like phosphorylation & glycosylation dynamically reshape proteome-wide ligandability in cells, including proteins like KRAS. Great collaboration with the Huang Lab, @forlilab.bsky.social and BMS. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

What membrane properties do cells maintain through regulation of lipid metabolism? In a new paper, we identify intrinsic curvature stress as one such parameter and show how different (eukaryotic) cell types employ different lipids to do that www.cell.com/cell-reports...

Active regulation of intrinsic curvature by eukaryotic phospholipid metabolism

Cells maintain membrane function by actively balancing the molecular shape of their lipids. Milshteyn et al. find that, when subjected to high hydrostatic pressure, yeast and human cells, but not bact...

cell.com

Excited to share the first study from the Morstein Lab on a new approach that enables selective editing, tagging, and visualization of mammalian lipids www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/... #chembio #lipidtime @caltech.edu @caltechcce.bsky.social @harayamajrlab.bsky.social @logan-tenney.bsky.social

Beyond proteins and DNA, #lipids are emerging as key players in nuclear biology - shaping nuclear envelope dynamics, mechanosensing, gene regulation and genome stability. Our new Perspective highlights recent advances, open questions, and future directions 👉 journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/...

Emerging roles of lipids in nuclear function and homeostasis

Summary: Lipids are increasingly recognized as essential regulators of nuclear homeostasis, membrane dynamics, mechanotransduction and genome stability, opening new frontiers for understanding nuclear...

journals.biologists.com

Why do nucleoli adopt irregular shapes despite their liquid-like nature? Sara Cuylen-Häring and colleagues find that Ki-67 mediates this irregularity by tethering chromatin at the surface and creating internal chromatin invaginations link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Ki-67 shapes the nucleolus by anchoring chromatin via its amphiphilic properties - The EMBO Journal

The nucleolus, a membrane-less organelle essential for ribosome biogenesis, adopts variable shapes across cell types and in response to environmental conditions, yet the mechanisms regulating its morp...

link.springer.com

It’s incredibly hard to study lipids in biological membranes on the nanoscale. You need near-perfect information on both membrane ultrastructure and lipid density. Lipid-CLEM, now out in @natcellbio.nature.com brought to you by @mathilda95.bsky.social changes that: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Condensates are powerful ways to break symmetry and cells do remarkable things with them. Here we show that in a multinucleate fungus, a condensate regulates translation of a cyclin and a formin in distinct locations. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

RNA-specific local translation is patterned by condensates for multinucleate cell growth - Nature Cell Biology

Geisterfer, Jalihal et al. show spatially distinct effects of Whi3 condensates on target translation in Ashbya syncytia. In vitro, translation is enriched at condensate–solute interfaces but repressed...

nature.com

Sooo happy to share our new paper in @nature.com “CLCC1 promotes hepatic neutral lipid flux and nuclear pore complex assembly.” A terrific collaboration with @arrudalab.bsky.social, led by co–first authors Alyssa Mathiowetz and Emily Maymand. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

CLCC1 promotes hepatic neutral lipid flux and nuclear pore complex assembly - Nature

CRISPR–Cas9 screening identifies CLCC1 as a factor that increases neutral lipid flux to prevent hepatic steatosis and promotes nuclear pore complex assembly by promoting membrane bending and fusi...

nature.com

Cells come in many shapes and sizes, with diverse physiological functions. But how do #organelles and their interaction networks remodel during #differentiation of stem cells into different cell types? Here’s what we discovered about neuronal differentiation: 1/13

bioRxiv Cell Biology@biorxiv-cellbio.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Organelle communication networks rewire to support lipid metabolism during neuronal differentiation https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.02.10.704675v1

Thrilled to share our latest study, led by @reikatei.bsky.social, in @natchembio.nature.com! We began by asking a simple question—how do cells know if they have too much of a lipid in a particular membrane, and how do they respond to rectify this imbalance? www.nature.com/articles/s41... More info 👇

Membrane editing with proximity labeling reveals regulators of lipid homeostasis - Nature Chemical Biology

Coupling an optogenetic lipid-modifying enzyme with proximity labeling reveals protein networks and mechanisms regulating lipid homeostasis in the membranes of target organelles.

nature.com

I've been waiting for this Titeca et al. story from Anne-Claude Gavin's lab to come out: A systematic, comprehensive analysis of lipid transfer protein cargo selection, a truly massive undertaking. What a time to work in lipid biology. Cool stuff every few days. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Tom70-mediated mitochondria-nuclear envelope contacts regulate nuclear pore complex inheritance during gametogenesis https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.11.20.689567v1

Thanks @jcellsci.bsky.social for this opportunity to contribute to your centenary collection with our take on the state of the field - 10 years after its modern reincarnation 🧪🌍 W/ @alebenoit.bsky.social @eelcotromer.bsky.social @fritzlaylin.bsky.social journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/...

Evolutionary cell biology comes of age

Summary: This Perspective discusses how the discipline of evolutionary cell biology, by integrating evolutionary theory, comparative physiology and modern molecular approaches, works to understand how...

journals.biologists.com

This opening statement made me actually open and read the paper. You all should, too. It's a wonderful piece of work. Thought-provoking in the best sense. It may very well be that Yamuna & team have found a proxy measurement for local metabolic activity. Which would be a game changer.

Yamuna Krishnan@krishnanyamuna.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Organelles do NOT have a single uniform pH. And if you think they must, because “protons diffuse fast,” this paper is for you. A thread on why that assumption is wrong; and what we found instead. 🧵 1/n

New work describes our efforts to achieve CRISPR editing of the mitochondrial genome. www.biorxiv.org/lookup/conte...

Towards CRISPR-based editing of the mitochondrial genome in yeast

Mitochondria, which evolved from symbiotic bacteria, possess their own genomes (mtDNA) and support independent transcription and translation within the organelle. Given the essential role of mtDNA in ...

biorxiv.org

this is amazing they show some compelling evidence for 3' to 5' translation #RNASky #RNABiology 🧪 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

3' to 5' Translation of Circular RNAs?

For decades, the 5' to 3' direction of translation has been a central dogma of molecular biology. Here we present evidence that eukaryotic circular RNAs (circRNAs) can serve as templates for 3' to 5' ...

biorxiv.org

Joe Shen’s and Zaza Gelashvili’s work on the role of the ER in nuclear membrane mechanotransduction finally came out in a journal!

Endoplasmic reticulum disruption stimulates nuclear membrane mechanotransduction

Nature Cell Biology - Shen, Gelashvili and Niethammer developed an inner nuclear membrane tension sensor and demonstrated that ER–nuclear membrane contiguity acts as a mechanical buffer.

rdcu.be

And another Asgard paper. Cells in motion! Wow! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Dynamic protrusions mediate unique crawling motility in Asgard Archaea (Promethearchaeota)

Crawling motility is a hallmark of eukaryotic cells and requires a dynamic actin cytoskeleton, regulated adhesion, and spatially organized signalling pathways. Asgard archaea (phylum Promethearchaeota...

biorxiv.org

Preprint alert! It is my great pleasure to announce the first manuscript from the lab, a story that started @gmivienna.bsky.social and was mainly accomplished by the intrepid @gesahoffmann.bsky.social at @mpi-mp-potsdam.bsky.social. A brief thread with our findings www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

AGO5 restricts virus vertical transmission in plant gametophytes

The propagation of a viral infection from a host parent to its progeny is known as vertical transmission, or seed transmission in plants. It allows viral infections to rapidly spread locally via polle...

biorxiv.org

New preprint from the lab!!🎉 We show that Asgard archaea ESCRT-III proteins can trigger membrane fission and reveal its molecular mechanism, offering clues to how these cells may have built internal compartments. But do these organisms even have these compartments? www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Molecular basis for cellular compartmentalization by an ancient membrane fission mechanism

The emergence of cell compartmentalization depends on membrane fission to create the endomembrane compartments. In eukaryotes, membrane fission is commonly executed by ESCRT-III, a protein complex con...

biorxiv.org

And the saga continues! Our collaborative work with outstanding Justin Korfhage & Thomas Melia’s lab in PNAS shows that ATG2A transfers triglycerides and does so bidirectionally! An exciting twist in our understanding of lipid transport. Definitely worth a deep read: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

ATG2 is a triglyceride transfer protein | PNAS

Bridge-like lipid transfer proteins (BLTPs) are established to function in phospholipid transport between bilayers at organelle–organelle contact s...

pnas.org

Abdou Rachid Thiam@abdourachidthiam.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Thrilled to share our latest work showing that the bridge lipid transport protein ATG2A transfers diacylglycerol (DAG), and some TAG/PA, from the ER to LDs, thereby recruiting DGAT2 to drive local TAG synthesis, promoting LD expansion while protecting ER membranes. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

How do new centromeres evolve while staying compatible with the division machinery? Discover it in our new Nature paper! We show centromeres transition gradually via a mix of drift, selection, and sex, reaching new states that still work with the kinetochore. 👉 doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09779-1