A rare microorganism found in an unexpected environment may be evading detection by "playing dead," according to microbiologists at the University of Houston.

The human body is made up mostly of water. If this water is removed, the body's cells cannot survive, even when water is reintroduced. But some organisms can completely dry out yet return to life when...

Epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) is a conserved multi-step cellular program that plays an essential role across a range of biological processes. This review covers the roles and states of EMT i...

Shi et al. demonstrate that the mechanically activated ion channel Piezo1 serves as a critical sensor for innate immune cells, enabling them to distinguish the invasive hyphal form of C. albicans from...

John Gurdon is at the Wellcome Trust/Cancer Research UK Institute of Cancer and Developmental Biology in Cambridge. Educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, he changed from classics to zoology. Dur...

Cell size shapes how organisms interact with their environment, yet our understanding of these effects remains fragmented. We synthesise these effects into a Theory of Optimal Cell Size (TOCS), predic...

Zhou et al. identify an ancient role of the nucleoporin NUP50 in pro-longevity responses to nutrient stress, independent of its role in nuclear transport. The authors show that nutrient stress activates NUP50 post-translationally, rewiring metabolism and promoting longevity through its intrinsically disordered region, coupling energy sensing to protective transcriptional responses.

Biber et al. use melanoma cells on collagen matrices of varying stiffness, combined with an activity-based ubiquitin probe and proteomics, to identify DUBs affected by mechanical cues. They reveal USP...

Peskett et al. show that P-bodies and the Whi3 protein form distinct condensates as budding yeast cells age. Mixing of these condensates promotes senescence entry and primes cells to abort the pheromo...

Bioelectricity is likely as old as life itself. From the moment the first proto-cell was enclosed in a lipid bilayer, a membrane potential arose. Thus, one can expect that bioelectrical activities inf...

How multiciliated cells (MCCs) generate hundreds of centrioles for multiciliation has remained an unresolved problem in cell biology. Lu et al. show that the MCC “master” transcriptional regulator, MCIDAS, not only functions in the nucleus to induce genes for multiciliation but also undergoes cytoplasmic translocation to organize explosive centriole biogenesis.

Biomolecular condensates (BCs) are ubiquitous compartments that regulate key functions in cells. Authors demonstrate that phase separation is suppressed with glycine by using model heterotypic condensates composed of nucleophosmin 1 and ribosomal ribonucleic acid.

Anthony (Tony) Patelunas is an Early Career Leadership Program alum who served as co-chair of the Early Career Scientist Career Development Subcommittee during his time in the program.   The ECLP,…