360 papers
Biochemistry explores the intricate chemical processes that power life, bridging the gap between biology and chemistry to explain how molecules like proteins and DNA function within living cells. This field reveals the molecular machinery behind everything from metabolism to genetic inheritance, turning complex biological mysteries into understandable chemical interactions.
On Gist.Science, we bring you the freshest discoveries in this dynamic area directly from bioRxiv. Our team processes every new preprint uploaded to the server, transforming dense academic findings into both clear, plain-language overviews and detailed technical summaries. This dual approach ensures that whether you are a curious beginner or a seasoned researcher, you can grasp the significance of these breakthroughs immediately.
Below are the latest papers in biochemistry, complete with our curated summaries to help you navigate the cutting edge of molecular science.
The authors developed HYlight2, an improved genetically encoded sensor for fructose-1,6-bisphosphate that offers significantly enhanced sensitivity and enables in vivo imaging of glycolytic flux across diverse tissues and organisms, including neurons, pancreatic islets, and the liver.
The G23S mutation in *Paenibacillus polymyxa* β-glucosidase B, predicted via Foldit modeling and the Design to Data database, successfully enhances catalytic efficiency and maximum reaction velocity by approximately two-fold and fourteen-fold respectively, with only a minimal trade-off in thermal stability.
This study identifies novel taxane deacetylases (T13dA1, T13dA2, and T79dA) that re-delineate the paclitaxel biosynthetic pathway as a complex network, enabling the successful reconstitution of high-yield baccatin III production in *Nicotiana benthamiana* through integrated 18- and 19-gene pathways.
This study reveals that the phosphatase PPM1B utilizes a trinuclear metal center, where a third metal ion (M3) directly coordinates the substrate and stabilizes the leaving group to drive hydrolysis, representing a convergent chemical strategy with PPP phosphatases that employs a distinct catalytic architecture.
This study demonstrates that AI-designed synthetic protein minibinders (C6-DPC) can overcome signaling barriers to enable efficient, functional human myogenic reprogramming by simultaneously activating pro-myogenic FGFR pathways and suppressing anti-myogenic ALK1/TGFBR2 and inflammatory gp130 signals, thereby generating high-force muscle tissues from fibroblasts.
Researchers have developed a chemically induced dimerization system using a de novo designed, membrane-permeable macrocyclic peptide and a cognate protein homodimer that enables precise conditional control over cellular processes such as gene expression and luciferase reconstitution.
This paper characterizes the biochemical properties and dimeric structure of LpiA, an MprF homologue from *Agrobacterium fabrum*, using cryo-EM to reveal conserved architectural features and potential substrate-binding motifs shared with related bacterial species.
This study demonstrates that the duration of IAPP-induced β-cell toxicity is quantitatively predicted by the length of the aggregation lag phase, indicating that transient pre-fibrillar intermediates, rather than mature fibrils, are the primary drivers of cellular dysfunction in diabetes.
This study establishes the fluorescent non-canonical amino acid 7-HCAA as a sensitive, site-specific probe for monitoring real-time conformational changes during prion formation, demonstrating its ability to track structural transitions in vitro while maintaining the infectivity of the resulting PrPSc in vivo.
This paper introduces dEVA, a multi-objective evolutionary algorithm framework that enables the zero-shot, de novo design of functional metalloenzymes without relying on natural templates, successfully demonstrating the creation of a bi-zinc enzyme with catalytic efficiency comparable to natural phosphatases.