Journal Club

Highlighting recent, timely papers selected by Academy member labs

Category Archives: Cell Biology

Journal Club: Understanding how a plant makes a hook could someday improve crops

Posted on April 12, 2019 by Amber Dance

This spring, as the first shoots of new plants emerge from the soil, many are bent over in a hook. This simple act protects the fragile stem tip and leaves as the sprout pokes up through the dirt. But how … Continue reading →

Journal Club: Tumors create an acidic environment that helps them invade surrounding tissues

Posted on March 29, 2019 by Jessica P. Johnson

Cancer cells tend to turn their extracellular environment acidic, thus helping these rogue cells thrive while creating a hostile environment for normal ones. Acidosis promotes tumor growth, metastasis and drug resistance, while helping tumor cells evade the immune system. But … Continue reading →

Journal Club: Plants load extracellular vesicles with a new class of RNAs

Posted on February 19, 2019 by Jyoti Madhusoodanan

A recent study in The Plant Cell found that plants release extracellular vesicles carrying a new class of RNA molecules, named “tiny RNAs.” The findings are among the first to reveal the contents of these vesicles, and may hint at … Continue reading →

Journal Club: Amoeba have long-distance preference for certain bacteria, pointing to other cell-sensing insights

Posted on January 29, 2019 by Jessica P. Johnson

How does the microscopic amoeba track down prey in the vastness of the forest floor? Ample research on the soil amoeba Dicytostelium discoideum, affectionately called “Dicty” by researchers, has provided some clues. But the mechanisms behind long-distance sensing of bacterial … Continue reading →

Journal Club: Ion channel puts the squeeze on blood vessels, affecting blood pressure

Posted on December 15, 2018 by Charlotte Schubert

Blood pressure is exquisitely regulated to respond to our physiological state. Stress raises blood pressure. Simply stand up, and the arteries constrict to maintain pressure. New findings in mice show how a protein called PKD2 helps regulate blood pressure by … Continue reading →

Journal Club: Key protein family helps govern sense of touch in both plants and animals

Posted on November 16, 2018 by Amber Dance

Compared to their knowledge of other senses, scientists know relatively little about how cells sense touch. A newly confirmed family of mechanosensors, comprising more than a dozen members and present in both plants and animals, is an important step toward … Continue reading →

Categories: Cell Biology | Journal Club | Neuroscience | Tagged cell membrane, cell wall, ion channel, mechanosensor, OSCA protein, sense of touch, TMEM63 protein | Leave a comment

Journal Club: Researchers catch the mouse brain in the act of learning something new

Posted on November 5, 2018 by Amber Dance

Neurobiologists have captured, for the first time, the moment in a mouse’s brain when it first learns something new: in this case, that a beep signals a delicious droplet of sugar water. The results, recently reported in Nature Neuroscience, support a famous … Continue reading →

Journal Club: Simple model reproduces patterns of toxic protein buildup across multiple neurodegenerative diseases

Posted on October 26, 2018 by Jessica P. Johnson

Fatal neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) begin as tiny pockets of misfolded proteins that evade the body’s normal detritus-removal systems. They spread throughout the brain and clog neural pathways. But exactly how these proteins propagate … Continue reading →

Journal Club: Bioengineers build a tiny heart ventricle to better understand heart disease and treatment

Posted on August 3, 2018 by Amber Dance

Bioengineer Kit Parker wants to build replacement hearts for children born with heart defects. Although that goal remains a long way off, Parker recently took a step in that direction by assembling a 1:250 scale model of the human left … Continue reading →

Categories: Cell Biology | Journal Club | Medical Sciences | Tagged arrhythmia, heart attack, heart defect, isoproterenol, stem cells, tissue engineering, ventricle | 1 Comment

Journal Club: Studies hint at how cholesterol and other molecules move through cells

Posted on March 27, 2018 by Charlotte Schubert

Four recent studies take a close look at how molecules cross the gap between membrane contacts within a cell, offering insights into crucial cellular activities. Three of the papers elucidate the transport of cholesterol; the fourth suggests that such contact … Continue reading →

Categories: Cell Biology | Journal Club | Tagged cholesterol, contact site, LAM protein, plasma membrane, StARkin domain, sterol | Leave a comment

Journal Club: Scientists culture human placenta cells in hopes of understanding pregnancy complications

Posted on February 1, 2018 by Carolyn Beans

A collection of human placental cells known as trophoblasts are responsible for much of what goes right in a healthy pregnancy. But growing and studying these cells in the lab has been a major challenge. Now, a team of Japanese … Continue reading →