414 papers
Cell biology is the study of life at its most fundamental unit: the cell. This field explores how these microscopic building blocks function, communicate, and replicate to sustain living organisms, from the simplest bacteria to complex human tissues. By understanding the machinery inside a cell, scientists unlock secrets about growth, disease, and the very nature of existence itself.
At Gist.Science, we track every new preprint uploaded to bioRxiv within this dynamic category. Our team processes each submission to provide both accessible plain-language explanations and detailed technical summaries, ensuring you can grasp complex discoveries without getting lost in dense jargon. Below are the latest papers in cell biology, offering a fresh look at the inner workings of life as they are shared with the world.
This study reveals that alphaherpesviruses (HSV-1 and PRV) hijack the host DNA damage response by inducing the nuclear export and cytosolic MDM2-mediated degradation of class I histone deacetylases (HDAC1/2), a mechanism essential for efficient viral replication and a promising target for therapeutic intervention.
This study demonstrates that AT2-intrinsic expression of misfolded Z-AAT protein drives conserved proteotoxic and inflammatory stress responses, leading to aberrant cell fate adoption and increased susceptibility to emphysema, thereby establishing a cell-autonomous mechanism contributing to Alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency pathogenesis beyond the traditional protease-antiprotease imbalance.
Using a mouse model of 5-fluorouracil-induced mucositis, this study reveals that chemotherapy-induced oral mucosal injury is primarily driven by p53-mediated cell cycle arrest rather than apoptosis, accompanied by unique metabolic reprogramming and diverse epithelial progenitor dynamics that collectively determine tissue repair outcomes.
This study identifies the histone methyltransferase Dot1L as an epigenetic gatekeeper that restricts adult bone regeneration, demonstrating that its genetic or pharmacological inhibition expands injury-responsive CXCL12⁺ stromal progenitors and accelerates early bone formation.
This study uses a computational model to demonstrate that immune cells utilize autoattractants to coordinate collective migration, revealing that an optimal balance between signal production and removal creates a critical boundary where efficient chemotaxis is maximized just before the system transitions into inefficient aggregation.
Periodic red light exposure mitigates aging in mice by downregulating SIRT4 in keratinocytes, which activates fatty acid metabolism and the TCA cycle to increase acetyl-CoA and H3K9ac levels, thereby reshaping senescence-related gene expression through synergistic metabolic and epigenetic regulation.
By employing cryo-electron tomography to visualize the leading edge of human fibroblasts, this study reveals the diverse in situ structural architecture and dynamic interplay of focal adhesions with actin, vimentin, and microtubules, thereby establishing a new framework for understanding cytoskeletal integration and force transmission during cell migration.
By integrating cryo-electron tomography, cross-linking mass spectrometry, and expansion microscopy, this study provides the first comprehensive in situ molecular and structural map of the mammalian multiciliated cell ciliary base, revealing detailed microtubule architectures, novel protein localizations, and the spatial organization of the surrounding cytoskeletal environment.
This study characterizes gestational changes in decidual natural killer (dNK) cell heterogeneity and function, demonstrating that induced pluripotent stem cells can be differentiated into functional, early-gestation-like dNK2 subtypes via TGF{beta} treatment, thereby establishing a novel platform for modeling reproductive diseases and developing cell-based therapeutics.
This study demonstrates that insulin and somatostatin regulate glucagon secretion in αTC1-6 cells by utilizing Stathmin-2 to direct glucagon-containing vesicles and lysosomes away from the cell periphery via Arl8-mediated microtubule transport, thereby promoting their degradative retention as an alternative mechanism to inhibiting exocytosis.