Probing cellular phase separation with a biomimetic system suggests a mechanism for condensate formation with low abundance molecules.

Nature Communications - The nucleation of biomolecular condensates is seldom quantified in living cells. Here, the authors show how protein clusters form before microscopically visible condensation...

Splicing is the molecular process by which introns are removed from pre-mRNA and exons are joined together to form the sequence of the mature mRNA. While the biochemical steps of splicing have been...

Nature - After 600 rounds of selection, anaerobic snowflake yeast evolved to be macroscopic, becoming around 20,000 times larger (approximately mm scale) and about 10,000-fold more biophysically...

Nature - More than a decade ago, scientists started finding peculiar droplets inside cells. Now researchers are trying to work out how these ubiquitous beads form and what they do.

HHMI invests $200 million in a small cadre of leading scientists, challenging them to push the limits of what we know about biology.

Multiphase formation and coalescence as a mechanism of Hippo pathway regulation, which highlights the restriction of biomolecular condensate activity without condensate dissolution.

Unlike its DNA template, RNA abundance and synthesis rates increase with cell size, as part of a mechanism of cellular RNA concentration homeostasis. Here, we study this scaling phenomenon in human...

A high-throughput microscopy screen for drugs that modulate SARS-CoV-2 spike-mediated membrane fusion identifies an essential role for cholesterol in both virus entry and syncytia formation.

Nature - Risk variants for ALS and FTD in the synaptic gene UNC13A increase the expression of an UNC13A cryptic exon in neurons with TDP-43 depletion.

Neville et al. describe a modification of histidine repeat proteins by polyphosphate that is non-covalent yet remarkably resistant to denaturing conditions. They present 30 human and yeast polyhist...

Using the principles of soft matter physics and cell biology to illuminate novel mechanisms of cellular compartmentalization that drive biological development

Many enveloped viruses induce multinucleated cells (syncytia), reflective of membrane fusion events caused by the same machinery that underlies viral entry. These syncytia are thought to facilitate...

Stress granules (SGs) are cytoplasmic, non-membranous RNA/protein structures that assemble in response to environmental stress. G3BP is a critical SG-nucleating protein, and its ability to regulate...

People taking cholesterol-lowering drugs may fare better than others if they catch the novel coronavirus. A new study hints at why: the virus relies on the fatty molecule to get past the cell’s...

Pad Thai, a Thai dish of stir-fried rice noodles and other ingredients, is one of the culinary heritages of Thailand. In the southern region of Thailand, Pad Thai has different characteristics from...

Tauopathies are age-associated neurodegenerative diseases whose mechanistic underpinnings remain elusive, partially due to lack of appropriate human models. Current human induced pluripotent stem...

Nature Cell Biology - Yu et al. identify that STING bicondensates occur in virus-infected cells, thereby restricting TBK1 activation and innate immunity.

Nature Methods - RaPID uses biotin ligases BirA* and the faster acting BASU to label proteins in the proximity of an RNA motif of interest in living cells.

Website for the David W. Sanders Lab at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center

Greig et al. analyze natural and synthetic low-complexity mixed-charge domains (MCDs) to identify key sequence features influencing nuclear speckle condensation and function. Increasing negative...

Biomolecular condensates are broadly implicated in both normal cellular regulation and disease. Consequently, several chemical biology and optogenetic approaches have been developed to induce phase...

Certain RNA sequences, via secondary structures, specify the molecular properties of phase-separated cellular condensates.

Nature - I spent more than a year in a manic state, burning out for the sake of my job. Here’s how I found balance again.

Aggregation of hyperphosphorylated tau in neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs) is closely associated with neuronal death and cognitive decline in Alzheimer’s disease (AD). To define the signatures that...