Cell: Protein folding via charge zippers

Membrane proteins are the "molecular machines" in biological cell envelopes. They control diverse processes, such as the transport of molecules across the lipid membrane, signal transduction, and photosynthesis. Their shape, ...

How did early primordial cells evolve?

Four billion years ago, soon after the planet cooled enough for life to begin, primordial cells may have replicated and divided without protein machinery or cell walls, relying instead on just a flimsy lipid membrane. New ...

Architecture of a lipid transport protein revealed

For the first time, the complex architecture of a protein that controls the transport of lipids between the two layers of a cell membrane has been described. With this structure, Biochemists from the University of Zurich ...

Lipid research may help solve COVID-19 vaccine challenges

New research by University of Texas at Dallas scientists could help solve a major challenge in the deployment of certain COVID-19 vaccines worldwide—the need for the vaccines to be kept at below-freezing temperatures during ...

New membrane-synthesis pathways in bacteria discovered

Biologists at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB) have discovered new mechanisms used by bacteria to manufacture lipids, i.e. fat molecules, for the cell membrane. Those mechanisms are a combination of familiar bacterial synthesis ...

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