How proteins in yeast communicate to find mates

Understanding the family of cellular on/off switches known as G-proteins is important because these proteins control a lot of the communication between cells in the human body and beyond. A new study from the University of ...

When dangerous toxins teach fundamental biology

"What our work shows is how a complex in the center of the cell, the ER-Golgi interaction region, controls plasma membrane cholesterol, which is essential for many cellular functions, if not essential for multicellular life," ...

New understanding of the inner world of lysosomes

Researchers at Duke-NUS Medical School and colleagues in Singapore have identified a protein that transports degraded membrane lipids out of lysosomes, cellular organelles that are the breakdown factories of cells. The findings, ...

How bacteria cope with stress

When exposed to stress, bacteria allow their metabolism to take a break during which they suppress, for example, the incorporation of proteins into membranes. Scientists from Marburg, Freiburg and Munich have discovered this ...

Mitochondria efficiently adapt to changing metabolic conditions

A recent study explains an essential component for proper mitochondrial function: The protein complexes MICOS and ATP synthase can communicate with each other. Dr. Heike Rampelt and Prof. Dr. Nikolaus Pfanner at the Institute ...

Study uncovers mechanisms of drug side effects

Researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine have discovered how drugs can affect various membrane-spanning proteins in addition to their intended target, potentially causing unwanted side effects. The results illuminate one of ...

Molecular scales on biological membranes

Cellular processes on membranes are often fast and short-lived. Molecules assemble briefly, separate again, interact with different partners and move along or through the membrane. It is therefore important to not only study ...

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