James A. Letts
@lettsscience.bsky.social
Pinned
James A. Letts
@lettsscience.bsky.social
· Nov 10
Hydrophilic metformin and hydrophobic biguanides inhibit mitochondrial complex I by distinct mechanisms - Nature Structural & Molecular Biology
He, Teng and Yang et al. report how metformin, the widely used antidiabetic drug, inhibit its target, the respiratory complex I, through a distinct state-dependent, inhibitor trapping mechanism, thus ...
www.nature.com
How does the well tolerated anti-hyperglycemic drug #metformin inhibit mitochondrial complex I?
In our new paper, we use structures, MD and kinetics to show that metformin inhibits by a distinct mechanism that more hydrophobic, less well tolerated, biguanides.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
In our new paper, we use structures, MD and kinetics to show that metformin inhibits by a distinct mechanism that more hydrophobic, less well tolerated, biguanides.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by James A. Letts
Reposted by James A. Letts
Isadonna Tengganu and Ke Hu develop transfection and ExM protocols for Chromera velia, enabling direct comparisons with its parasitic apicomplexan relative, Toxoplasma gondi.
journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/...
journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/...
January 13, 2026 at 9:53 AM
Isadonna Tengganu and Ke Hu develop transfection and ExM protocols for Chromera velia, enabling direct comparisons with its parasitic apicomplexan relative, Toxoplasma gondi.
journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/...
journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/...
Reposted by James A. Letts
For decades, scientists have designed drugs to slow down or block enzymes, but Tarun Kapoor wondered if tackling some diseases requires the opposite approach.
We spoke with Kapoor about why speeding up an enzyme is so difficult, and how his team is cracking this problem.
See the full Q&A here:
We spoke with Kapoor about why speeding up an enzyme is so difficult, and how his team is cracking this problem.
See the full Q&A here:
Scientists have gotten good at blocking enzymes to treat disease. Now can they speed them up? - News
Enzymes are the molecular machines that power life; they build and break down molecules, copy DNA, digest food, and drive virtually every chemical reaction in our cells. For decades, scientists have d...
www.rockefeller.edu
January 13, 2026 at 6:55 PM
For decades, scientists have designed drugs to slow down or block enzymes, but Tarun Kapoor wondered if tackling some diseases requires the opposite approach.
We spoke with Kapoor about why speeding up an enzyme is so difficult, and how his team is cracking this problem.
See the full Q&A here:
We spoke with Kapoor about why speeding up an enzyme is so difficult, and how his team is cracking this problem.
See the full Q&A here:
Reposted by James A. Letts
It is so exciting to see our LEA proteins playing a role in solving this insane structure. Amazing work to the authors!
Thrilled to share our latest work @luptoncj.bsky.social @drellisdon.bsky.social @drmlhalls.bsky.social.
Structure of the lysosomal KICSTOR-GATOR1-SAMTOR nutrient-sensing supercomplex.
🧪🔬#cryoEM
Now online @cellpress.bsky.social.
doi.org/10.1016/j.ce...
Structure of the lysosomal KICSTOR-GATOR1-SAMTOR nutrient-sensing supercomplex.
🧪🔬#cryoEM
Now online @cellpress.bsky.social.
doi.org/10.1016/j.ce...
January 9, 2026 at 5:39 PM
It is so exciting to see our LEA proteins playing a role in solving this insane structure. Amazing work to the authors!
Reposted by James A. Letts
The #ChlamyDataset is on the cover of @cp-molcell.bsky.social 🖼️🥰!
Read @lifeonthewedge.bsky.social's great thread🧵 for the inside scoop🍨 on all the #TeamTomo developments already made possible since these 1829 tomos hit EMPIAR 🧪 🧶🧬
For more, here's the old preprint thread:
bsky.app/profile/cell...
Read @lifeonthewedge.bsky.social's great thread🧵 for the inside scoop🍨 on all the #TeamTomo developments already made possible since these 1829 tomos hit EMPIAR 🧪 🧶🧬
For more, here's the old preprint thread:
bsky.app/profile/cell...
This one was quite the journey! The paper describing the #ChlamyDataset is finally out and on the cover of Mol Cell!
This beautiful rendering made by co-author @jessheebner.bsky.social and Holly Peterson shows an instance of mitochondrial fission found in the dataset 😍
[Maybe long thread ahead]
This beautiful rendering made by co-author @jessheebner.bsky.social and Holly Peterson shows an instance of mitochondrial fission found in the dataset 😍
[Maybe long thread ahead]
January 9, 2026 at 7:49 PM
The #ChlamyDataset is on the cover of @cp-molcell.bsky.social 🖼️🥰!
Read @lifeonthewedge.bsky.social's great thread🧵 for the inside scoop🍨 on all the #TeamTomo developments already made possible since these 1829 tomos hit EMPIAR 🧪 🧶🧬
For more, here's the old preprint thread:
bsky.app/profile/cell...
Read @lifeonthewedge.bsky.social's great thread🧵 for the inside scoop🍨 on all the #TeamTomo developments already made possible since these 1829 tomos hit EMPIAR 🧪 🧶🧬
For more, here's the old preprint thread:
bsky.app/profile/cell...
Reposted by James A. Letts
This was a really fun and interesting Molecule of the Month to do! Check out the article to see even more elaborate RNA-only structures.
Large and intricate naturally occurring structures composed exclusively of RNA... ROOL!
More at Molecule of the Month: pdb101.rcsb.org/motm...
More at Molecule of the Month: pdb101.rcsb.org/motm...
January 6, 2026 at 3:48 PM
This was a really fun and interesting Molecule of the Month to do! Check out the article to see even more elaborate RNA-only structures.
Reposted by James A. Letts
Medina, Chang et al. of the @nanigrotjahn.bsky.social lab introduce a new method based on the Surface Morphometrics pipeline to measure global and local thicknesses of organellar #membranes from cellular cryo-electron tomography data. rupress.org/jcb/article/...
#CryoET
#CryoET
January 5, 2026 at 8:15 PM
Medina, Chang et al. of the @nanigrotjahn.bsky.social lab introduce a new method based on the Surface Morphometrics pipeline to measure global and local thicknesses of organellar #membranes from cellular cryo-electron tomography data. rupress.org/jcb/article/...
#CryoET
#CryoET
Reposted by James A. Letts
New preprint out! Using ~75k environmental OTUs + 77 fossil calibrations, we reconstructed a Proterozoic timeline of eukaryote evolution. Our results show crown eukaryotes were already diversifying >1.6 Ga, long before the first undisputed fossils (~1.05 Ga).
🔗 DOI: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
🔗 DOI: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
December 15, 2025 at 8:19 AM
New preprint out! Using ~75k environmental OTUs + 77 fossil calibrations, we reconstructed a Proterozoic timeline of eukaryote evolution. Our results show crown eukaryotes were already diversifying >1.6 Ga, long before the first undisputed fossils (~1.05 Ga).
🔗 DOI: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
🔗 DOI: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Reposted by James A. Letts
A free, open-access library of high-quality organism illustrations for science communication
A free, open-access library of high-quality organism illustrations for science communication
We create vector graphics of model organisms and emerging biological research organisms to enhance our publications. We’re sharing these editable graphics under a CC0 license for other scientists to...
doi.org
December 29, 2025 at 6:03 PM
A free, open-access library of high-quality organism illustrations for science communication
Reposted by James A. Letts
It’s out! Using cryo-ET in Dicty cells, we take a fresh in situ look at vaults. Surprisingly, we uncover vaults associated with ER and NE membranes, and find that many vaults enclose ribosomes in defined orientations, opening new avenues to their cellular function! www.biorxiv.org/lookup/conte...
December 16, 2025 at 8:17 AM
It’s out! Using cryo-ET in Dicty cells, we take a fresh in situ look at vaults. Surprisingly, we uncover vaults associated with ER and NE membranes, and find that many vaults enclose ribosomes in defined orientations, opening new avenues to their cellular function! www.biorxiv.org/lookup/conte...
Reposted by James A. Letts
Happy to share a new preprint exploring the unusual biochemistry of a "weirdly" diverged cytochrome c in malaria parasites that exemplifies a lineage common to many apicomplexan parasites. @uofubiochem.bsky.social @uuhsresearch.bsky.social @uofutahcihd.bsky.social
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
A Divergent Cytochrome c in Malaria Parasites with an Anomalously Low Redox Potential
Eukaryotic cytochrome (cyt) c is a highly conserved mitochondrial protein central to cellular respiration, featuring a covalently attached hexacoordinate heme whose redox potential is tuned by axial H...
www.biorxiv.org
December 26, 2025 at 4:37 PM
Happy to share a new preprint exploring the unusual biochemistry of a "weirdly" diverged cytochrome c in malaria parasites that exemplifies a lineage common to many apicomplexan parasites. @uofubiochem.bsky.social @uuhsresearch.bsky.social @uofutahcihd.bsky.social
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Reposted by James A. Letts
Finally, we’ve solved a long-standing mystery: what tintinnid shells are actually made of:
A new class of biomaterial formed by remarkable structural proteins unique to tintinnids.
A major milestone after 3 years of work! Read about it in our preprint: doi.org/10.64898/202...
#ProtistsOnSky
A new class of biomaterial formed by remarkable structural proteins unique to tintinnids.
A major milestone after 3 years of work! Read about it in our preprint: doi.org/10.64898/202...
#ProtistsOnSky
December 27, 2025 at 10:30 AM
Finally, we’ve solved a long-standing mystery: what tintinnid shells are actually made of:
A new class of biomaterial formed by remarkable structural proteins unique to tintinnids.
A major milestone after 3 years of work! Read about it in our preprint: doi.org/10.64898/202...
#ProtistsOnSky
A new class of biomaterial formed by remarkable structural proteins unique to tintinnids.
A major milestone after 3 years of work! Read about it in our preprint: doi.org/10.64898/202...
#ProtistsOnSky
Reposted by James A. Letts
Final version is out! Our large-scale cryo-ET dataset 🔬 of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii 🦠 is now published in @cp-molcell.bsky.social
Huge collaborative effort! So glad to see the community already using it to develop new resources & tools.
Check it out here: shorturl.at/z4i4c
#CryoEM #CryoET
Huge collaborative effort! So glad to see the community already using it to develop new resources & tools.
Check it out here: shorturl.at/z4i4c
#CryoEM #CryoET
December 19, 2025 at 4:45 PM
Final version is out! Our large-scale cryo-ET dataset 🔬 of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii 🦠 is now published in @cp-molcell.bsky.social
Huge collaborative effort! So glad to see the community already using it to develop new resources & tools.
Check it out here: shorturl.at/z4i4c
#CryoEM #CryoET
Huge collaborative effort! So glad to see the community already using it to develop new resources & tools.
Check it out here: shorturl.at/z4i4c
#CryoEM #CryoET
Reposted by James A. Letts
New @jgp.org study from Lopez-Mateos, Narang, & @vyy-sf.bsky.social @ucd-physiology.bsky.social reveals potential of #DeepLearning methods to model multiple states of human voltage-gated sodium channels and their interactions with β-subunits and calmodulin. rupress.org/jgp/article/...
#IonChannels
#IonChannels
December 18, 2025 at 7:30 PM
New @jgp.org study from Lopez-Mateos, Narang, & @vyy-sf.bsky.social @ucd-physiology.bsky.social reveals potential of #DeepLearning methods to model multiple states of human voltage-gated sodium channels and their interactions with β-subunits and calmodulin. rupress.org/jgp/article/...
#IonChannels
#IonChannels
Reposted by James A. Letts
Just on time for the holidays! Happy to share the published version of the discovery of leptophytes, a new deep-branching and widespread group of microalgae based on plastid MAGs (ptMAGs). Now with additional support from a mitochondrial MAG (mtMAG) of leptophytes.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Identification of a deep-branching lineage of algae using environmental plastid genomes - Nature Communications
Here, the authors leverage data from the Tara Oceans expeditions to perform a phylogeny-guided plastid genome-resolved metagenomic survey and provide 660 non-redundant plastid genomes from marine alga...
www.nature.com
December 18, 2025 at 9:48 AM
Just on time for the holidays! Happy to share the published version of the discovery of leptophytes, a new deep-branching and widespread group of microalgae based on plastid MAGs (ptMAGs). Now with additional support from a mitochondrial MAG (mtMAG) of leptophytes.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by James A. Letts
very unusual - a tRNA regulated anion channel
December 18, 2025 at 5:26 PM
very unusual - a tRNA regulated anion channel
Reposted by James A. Letts
Our latest paper on the molecular mechanisms of XPF-ERCC1 recruitment to SLX4-dependent DNA repair pathways has been published! Congratulations to first author Junjie Feng, and a heartfelt thank you to all our collaborators for their contributions to this study!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
December 16, 2025 at 4:29 PM
Our latest paper on the molecular mechanisms of XPF-ERCC1 recruitment to SLX4-dependent DNA repair pathways has been published! Congratulations to first author Junjie Feng, and a heartfelt thank you to all our collaborators for their contributions to this study!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by James A. Letts
Reposted by James A. Letts
Cryo-EM structures of plant Augmin reveal coiled-coil assembly, antiparallel dimerization, and NEDD1 binding pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41387433/ #cryoem
December 13, 2025 at 5:45 PM
Cryo-EM structures of plant Augmin reveal coiled-coil assembly, antiparallel dimerization, and NEDD1 binding pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41387433/ #cryoem
Reposted by James A. Letts
Love the caption of Fig. 3 in this impressive preprint:
"A Goodsell-esque 3D orthogonal rendering of an IsoNet2-processed FIB-milled tomogram of C. reinhardtii"
doi.org/10.64898/202...
Since I am no expert, what does the cryoET community think of IsoNet? @cellarchlab.com
doi.org/10.1038/s414...
"A Goodsell-esque 3D orthogonal rendering of an IsoNet2-processed FIB-milled tomogram of C. reinhardtii"
doi.org/10.64898/202...
Since I am no expert, what does the cryoET community think of IsoNet? @cellarchlab.com
doi.org/10.1038/s414...
December 12, 2025 at 8:38 AM
Love the caption of Fig. 3 in this impressive preprint:
"A Goodsell-esque 3D orthogonal rendering of an IsoNet2-processed FIB-milled tomogram of C. reinhardtii"
doi.org/10.64898/202...
Since I am no expert, what does the cryoET community think of IsoNet? @cellarchlab.com
doi.org/10.1038/s414...
"A Goodsell-esque 3D orthogonal rendering of an IsoNet2-processed FIB-milled tomogram of C. reinhardtii"
doi.org/10.64898/202...
Since I am no expert, what does the cryoET community think of IsoNet? @cellarchlab.com
doi.org/10.1038/s414...
Reposted by James A. Letts
This week in @science.org
Structural insight into the incorporation of far-red chlorophyll f in cyanobacterial photosystem I
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
#cyanobacteria
#plantscience
Structural insight into the incorporation of far-red chlorophyll f in cyanobacterial photosystem I
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
#cyanobacteria
#plantscience
Locating the missing chlorophylls f in far-red photosystem I
The discovery of chlorophyll f–containing photosystems, with their long-wavelength photochemistry, represented a distinct, low-energy paradigm for oxygenic photosynthesis. Structural studies on chloro...
www.science.org
December 12, 2025 at 3:49 PM
This week in @science.org
Structural insight into the incorporation of far-red chlorophyll f in cyanobacterial photosystem I
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
#cyanobacteria
#plantscience
Structural insight into the incorporation of far-red chlorophyll f in cyanobacterial photosystem I
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
#cyanobacteria
#plantscience
Reposted by James A. Letts
Happy to share our fun team-up with @centriolelab.bsky.social & @stearnslab.bsky.social to reveal the architecture of the mammalian centriole’s Distal Ring 🛟. Very cool multiscale integration of #UExM 📏🔬with #CryoET ❄️🔬. Congrats to @ebertiaux.bsky.social & @computingcaitie.bsky.social #TeamTomo 🧪
How does C2CD3 contribute to distal appendage formation in centrioles? @centriolelab.bsky.social show that C2CD3 acts as a central architectural organizer of the distal #centriole, bridging the luminal distal ring complex & peripheral appendage sites @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/496XZuH
December 10, 2025 at 11:02 AM
Happy to share our fun team-up with @centriolelab.bsky.social & @stearnslab.bsky.social to reveal the architecture of the mammalian centriole’s Distal Ring 🛟. Very cool multiscale integration of #UExM 📏🔬with #CryoET ❄️🔬. Congrats to @ebertiaux.bsky.social & @computingcaitie.bsky.social #TeamTomo 🧪
Reposted by James A. Letts
New online: Atomic models of the Toxoplasma cell invasion machinery
Atomic models of the Toxoplasma cell invasion machinery
Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, Published online: 09 December 2025; doi:10.1038/s41594-025-01728-wZeng et al. applied single-particle cryo-electron microscopy to native samples isolated from the human parasite Toxoplasma gondii, determining multiple structures of key components of the conoid, a cone-shaped organelle essential for host cell invasion.
go.nature.com
December 10, 2025 at 8:37 AM
New online: Atomic models of the Toxoplasma cell invasion machinery
Reposted by James A. Letts
Two researchers at UC Davis have been awarded a VinFuture Prize in recognition of their work developing self-cloning crops, a breakthrough for sustainable agriculture.
Read more: ucdav.is/4oJ41Hx
Read more: ucdav.is/4oJ41Hx
December 8, 2025 at 11:34 PM
Two researchers at UC Davis have been awarded a VinFuture Prize in recognition of their work developing self-cloning crops, a breakthrough for sustainable agriculture.
Read more: ucdav.is/4oJ41Hx
Read more: ucdav.is/4oJ41Hx
Reposted by James A. Letts
Had a great time interviewing Dr. Lilach Sheiner (@sheinerlab.bsky.social) for the latest edition of ISOP’s Protistology Newsletter. Check it out here! #ProtistsOnSky #Toxoplasma #Science
ISOP member spotlight Lilach Sheiner
YouTube video by Protistologists
youtu.be
December 4, 2025 at 12:26 AM
Had a great time interviewing Dr. Lilach Sheiner (@sheinerlab.bsky.social) for the latest edition of ISOP’s Protistology Newsletter. Check it out here! #ProtistsOnSky #Toxoplasma #Science