316 papers
Molecular biology explores the tiny machinery inside living cells, revealing how genetic instructions are read, copied, and turned into the proteins that keep us alive. This field acts as a bridge between the static code of DNA and the dynamic processes that drive growth, disease, and life itself, offering insights into everything from cellular repair to the development of new medicines.
On Gist.Science, we track every new preprint uploaded to bioRxiv in this category to make these complex discoveries accessible to everyone. Our team processes each submission to provide both clear, plain-language explanations and detailed technical summaries, ensuring you can grasp the core findings without getting lost in dense academic jargon.
Below are the latest molecular biology papers freshly processed from bioRxiv, ready for you to explore and understand.
Deletion of the ribosomal protein gene *rpmJ* in *Escherichia coli* enhances *zntA* transcription and confers zinc resistance through a translation-dependent mechanism involving the native *zntA* promoter and N-terminal coding region, a process that is reversed by the ectopic expression of the RpmJ paralog YkgO.
This study utilizes cryo-EM structures and functional analyses to reveal how distinct conformational rearrangements of BepA's 6- and 9-loops regulate its dual roles in substrate interaction and proteolytic activation during the triage of LptD at the BAM complex.
This study identifies FAM136A as a conserved, essential chaperone residing in the mitochondrial intermembrane space that solubilizes and facilitates the insertion of voltage-dependent anion channels (VDACs) and specific electron transport chain subunits into the outer mitochondrial membrane.
This study utilizes ChIP-seq and DNase I footprinting to define the genome-wide CosR regulon in *Campylobacter jejuni*, revealing its bipartite DNA-binding motif, autoregulation, and redox-responsive remodeling of core cellular processes under oxidative stress.
This study introduces a versatile, modular lentiviral system that enables multiplexed gene perturbations and real-time phenotypic monitoring, demonstrating through in vivo breast cancer models that ER+ tumor growth relies on the interdependent activity of estrogen, progesterone, and androgen receptors.
This study utilizes unique molecular identifiers and spike-ins to characterize the selective, protein-associated, and capacitation-responsive dynamics of small RNAs in mouse sperm, thereby resolving technical biases and clarifying the molecular factors that shape the sperm small RNA repertoire.
Through structure-guided design, researchers developed potent branched C7-substituted 7-deaza-SAH analogues that occupy the entire SAM-binding pocket of mpox virus VP39 and dengue virus NS5 methyltransferases, demonstrating a versatile strategy for inhibiting structurally distinct viral enzymes.
The paper introduces Ptarmigan-1, a structure-free, site-resolved contrastive learning model that enables rapid and accurate virtual screening across diverse protein targets—including cryptic and disordered sites—by directly embedding protein sequences and 2D chemical structures without requiring explicit 3D pose construction.
This study demonstrates that experimental design factors, specifically bioreactor type and carbon substrate complexity, significantly influence aquatic bacterial metabolic rate estimates derived from RNA quantitative stable isotope probing (qSIP), thereby offering critical guidance for future applications of this method in aquatic environments.
This study utilizes cryo-electron microscopy to reveal the structural and mechanistic basis of translation initiation on the poliovirus IRES, identifying critical interactions between IRES domain IVc and ribosomal proteins uS19/uS13, as well as a conserved GNRA tetraloop engaging the initiator tRNA, which are essential for viral replication.