Showing papers in "Trends in Cell Biology in 2012"

TL;DR: The bioactive sphingolipid metabolite sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P) is now recognized as a critical regulator of many physiological and pathophysiological processes, including cancer, atherosclerosis, diabetes and osteoporosis.

TL;DR: This review summarizes current knowledge on the structural organization, composition, and mechanics of the actin cortex, focusing on the link between molecular processes and macroscopic physical properties and consequences of cortex dysfunction in disease.

TL;DR: The characteristics of chaperone-mediated autophagy are reviewed and the subset of molecules that confer cells the capability to identify individual cytosolic proteins and direct them across the lysosomal membrane for degradation are reviewed.

TL;DR: A possible working model for how secreted miRNAs might be sorted and transferred between cells are proposed and speculated on their biological significance are proposed.

TL;DR: These studies demonstrate that NF-κB regulates energy homeostasis via direct engagement of the cellular networks governing glycolysis and respiration, with profound implications beyond metabolic diseases, including cancer, ageing and anticancer therapy.

TL;DR: The importance of membrane area and of tension as a master integrator of cell functions, particularly for membrane traffic, is discussed.

TL;DR: This review focuses on current understanding of the Lin28-mediated control of let-7 maturation and highlights the central role of Lin28 in stem cell biology, development, control of glucose metabolism, and dysregulation in human disease.

TL;DR: Trans dimers are less flexible than cadherin monomers, a factor that drives junction assembly following cell-cell contact by reducing the entropic cost associated with the formation of lateral cis oligomers.

TL;DR: The role of Wnt signaling in myogenesis and in regulating the homeostasis of adult muscle is discussed and novel roles for the non-canonical planar cell polarity (PCP) and AKT/mTOR pathways are revealed.

TL;DR: This review surveys the knowledge of mTOR-ER stress intersections and highlights potential therapeutic implications of crosstalk between these pathways.

TL;DR: Through the comparison of cytokinesis, cell migration and epithelial morphogenesis, a framework encapsulating spatiotemporal regulation of contractility from established pathways with the dynamics and mechanics of actomyosin networks is proposed.

TL;DR: Current and emerging evidence suggests that the Hippo pathway can modulate its effects on tissue size by the direct regulation of SC proliferation and maintenance and provides an attractive model for how this pathway might communicate physiological needs for growth to tissue-specific SC pools.

TL;DR: Recent advances and ongoing efforts in designing and characterizing synthetic compartmentalization systems to mimic natural strategies and increase metabolic yields of engineered pathways are discussed.

TL;DR: Recent findings on budding yeast endocytosis are discussed that have advanced knowledge of how -60 endocytic proteins are recruited, perform their functions, are regulated by lipid and protein modifications, and are disassembled, all with remarkable regularity.

TL;DR: Gadd45 recruits nucleotide and/or base excision repair factors to gene-specific loci and acts as an adapter between repair factors and chromatin, thereby creating a nexus between epigenetics and DNA repair.

TL;DR: The emerging conserved mechanism and role of ligand/transcription-independent Notch signaling in cell and developmental biology and the non-canonical Notch pathway appears to be highly conserved from flies to mammals is discussed.

TL;DR: Recent findings on the involvement of Cdk5 in the pathophysiological mechanisms underlying various neurodegenerative diseases are summarized.

TL;DR: It is proposed that the senescence secretome can be a source of novel targets for prosenescence therapies, as it has tumor suppressive actions and has the potential to be used for treating cancer and other pathologies.

TL;DR: This work discusses recent progress made towards understanding how organisms use ROS, and to what degree they depend on them, during the related processes of cell migration and adhesion, and suggests hydrogen peroxide has been suggested to act as a chemoattractant in its own right.

TL;DR: The physiological roles of autosecretory cargos that are often associated with inflammatory processes and also play a role in the formation of specialized tissues and in tissue remodeling are described, expanding the immediate sphere of influence of autophagy from the intracellular to the extracellular space.

TL;DR: The epigenetic regulation of lifespan in diverse model organisms is described, focusing on the role and mode of action of chromatin regulators that affect two epigenetic marks, trimethylated lysine 4 of histone H3 (H3K4me3) and trimethylator 27 of hist one H2 (H2K27me3), in longevity.

TL;DR: An overview of well-known p53 target genes and the tumor phenotypes of the cognate knockout mice are presented, and the recent identification of new p53 transcriptional targets are addressed and how they enhance the understanding of p 53 transcriptional networks central for tumor suppression are addressed.

TL;DR: Recent findings on regulation of cell division by the oxidation of cysteines in cell division regulators and the potential of targeting these critical cysteine residues for cancer therapy are summarized.

TL;DR: Identifying the cellular targets responsible for the effects of resveratrol and developing target-specific therapies will be helpful in increasing the efficacy of this drug without increasing its potential adverse effects.

TL;DR: Recent work on acentrosomal spindle formation and chromosome alignment/separation during oocyte meiosis in different animal models is reviewed.

TL;DR: Existing evidence of the differential roles played by various ubiquitin chains, particularly K63, M1, and K11 chains, in NF-κB activation are discussed.

TL;DR: It is proposed that MINOS forms a central part of an ER-mitochondria organizing network (ERMIONE) that controls mitochondrial membrane architecture and biogenesis.

TL;DR: In this article, the role of ubiquitin conjugation machinery in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) pathway is discussed, and a type of modification applied to the misfolded ER protein and de-ubiquitylating enzymes are examined.

TL;DR: The interplay of multimeric protein complexes at the TZ is described, integrating morphological, genetic and proteomic data towards an account of TZ function in ciliary physiology.

TL;DR: This review focuses on the proposed self-organizing nature of ROPs in plants and how ROP-mediated cellular mechanisms compare with those responsible for cell polarity in animals and yeast.