361 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 demonstrates that disrupting sphingolipid metabolism rigidifies and ruptures endolysosomal membranes, thereby facilitating tau seed escape and propagation, a process that can be mitigated by restoring membrane fluidity through unsaturated fatty acid supplementation.
The authors developed SurpHer, a genetically encoded, ratiometric biosensor that enables real-time, dynamic imaging of extracellular pH gradients at the surface of individual living cells, particularly for studying tumor microenvironments.
By employing iterative ultrastructure expansion microscopy (iU-ExM) to achieve 12 nm effective resolution, this study reveals the previously inaccessible molecular architecture of individual photoreceptor discs, demonstrating that rhodopsin occupies 92% of the disc radial extent and uncovering compartmentalized pathology in retinitis pigmentosa where disc spacing increases while centriolar structures remain preserved.
Using newly developed GFP-LC3-RFP reporter mice, this study reveals that the brain exhibits unexpectedly high basal autophagic flux compared to other adult tissues, providing a mechanistic explanation for the severe neurological phenotypes associated with autophagy gene mutations.
This study utilizes kinetic mapping and ectopic tether localization assays in *Saccharomyces cerevisiae* to functionally assign specific Golgi-associated tethers—Sgm1, Imh1, and GARP—to distinct intra-Golgi and endosome-to-TGN recycling pathways, revealing a previously undocumented role for GARP in intra-Golgi trafficking.
This study demonstrates that ATG2A interacts with RAB1A-positive early secretory membranes to facilitate autophagosome biogenesis, revealing a critical role for RAB1A in lipid transport downstream of LC3B lipidation despite ARFGAP1 being dispensable for the process.
This study reveals that the copper-transporting ATPase ATP7B synergizes with the lysosomal exocytosis pathway to detoxify cadmium by trafficking to lysosomes and sequestering the metal, a mechanism distinct from ATP7A and essential for cellular resistance to cadmium-induced toxicity.
This secondary analysis of public data demonstrates that N-acetylcysteine provides partial, dose-dependent protection against heat stress-induced damage in skeletal muscle cells, with maximal efficacy at 2.0 mM showing a large effect size that supports its potential as an adjunct therapy for trauma-induced hypermetabolic states despite limited statistical significance due to small sample size.
This study demonstrates that adult *C. elegans* sensory neurons can regenerate their cilia and restore function following injury through a distinct mechanism involving the DAF-19, DLK-1, and CEBP-1 pathways, as well as modulatory signals from surrounding glia.
This study utilizes dark-field imaging to demonstrate that label-free, real-time monitoring of scattered light intensity can effectively track dynamic mitochondrial matrix volume changes and permeability transition in living cells, revealing distinct swelling responses to ion transport and ATP synthase subunit c deficiency.