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 in the polymorphic fungus *A. pullulans*, which exhibits a 100-fold cell size range, organelle composition is influenced by cell size, as mitochondria and ER scale proportionally with volume while vacuoles and peroxisomes do not.
The lipid transfer protein ORP3 regulates PI4P and PI(4,5)P2 levels at the plasma membrane during mitosis by transferring PI4P from the membrane to the ER via VAPA-mediated recruitment, a process essential for proper spindle geometry, cytokinesis, and the prevention of genetic instability.
The study reveals that epithelial stretching reduces aPKC activity to trigger the apical accumulation of its low-affinity substrate Yurt, which activates a contractile pathway to homeostatically regulate apical domain size.
This study demonstrates that the ISWI chromatin remodeler, through its Snf2h and Snf2l subunits, is essential for cell fate transitions in muscle and adipose tissues by mediating the recruitment of the cBAF complex and CTCF to lineage-determining transcription factor binding sites, a process critical for de novo chromatin organization during differentiation.
By combining live-cell imaging, traction force microscopy, and Hidden Markov Modeling, this study reveals that fibroblast migration is organized into discrete mechanical states characterized by specific couplings of force generation, cell shape, and motion, which persist even when cytoskeletal organization is disrupted.
This study reveals that liver sinusoidal endothelial cells integrate diverse inflammatory, metabolic, and oxidative stress signals via MAPK-dependent pathways to upregulate BMP6, which, in concert with hepatocyte secreted factors, drives hepcidin induction and subsequent hypoferremia to maintain iron homeostasis.
This study demonstrates that MARK4 localizes to stress granules via its spacer domain and kinase activity to enhance their formation by suppressing TIA1 dimerization, thereby synergistically promoting tau accumulation and toxicity in models of Alzheimer's disease.
This study reveals that glycogen synthase kinase 3 (GSK3) regulates septin 9 (SEPT9) distribution between actin and microtubule cytoskeletons through a phosphorylation-dependent switch, thereby controlling neuronal polarization and linking cytoskeletal dynamics to broader cellular signaling pathways.
This study introduces a novel therapeutic strategy that utilizes RNA-guided CRISPR-Cas12a2 to selectively eliminate cancer cells harboring TP53 mutations by detecting tumor-specific transcripts to trigger trans-chromatin cleavage and cell death, thereby offering a solution for targeting previously undruggable mutations.
This study demonstrates that skeletal muscle fibers adapt to a reduced number of myonuclei by actively optimizing their spatial distribution, resulting in increased regularity and uniformity along the fiber axis and surface to maintain efficient intracellular organization.