Researchers from the Turner lab have published the first description of the role of the ZFP36 family of RNA binding proteins in regulatory T cells (Tregs).

Tregs are key to maintaining balance in the immune system and essential to preventing autoimmune disease.

By the targeted deletion of Zfp36l1 and Zfp36l2 in Tregs in mice, the findings demonstrate that loss of these RNA binding proteins results in Tregs no longer being able to control other immune cell types, which results in inflammation.

The data point to a key role of ZFP36L1 and ZFP36L2 in governing multiple cytokine responses in Tregs, including regulating the availability of the cytokine interferon-gamma, which activates immune responses, as well as being important in maintaining Treg stability.

Virginia Tech researchers at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute have discovered that microscopic structural changes in the aging heart may help prevent irregular heartbeats. The discovery challenges the idea that all age-related heart changes are harmful. 

In a recent study published in Current Biology, a research team led by Professor Takashi Ueda of the National Institute for Basic Biology and Associate Professor Masaru Fujimoto of the University of Tokyo has revealed the molecular steps that led to the emergence of this plant-specific vacuolar transport system. Their work shows that the acquisition of this pathway was driven by the stepwise neofunctionalization of a membrane fusion protein called VAMP7.

An unprecedented international effort to decode how cells manage the transport of chemical substances has culminated in four groundbreaking studies published in Molecular Systems Biology. Led by Giulio Superti-Furga at CeMM, the Research Center for Molecular Medicine of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, and supported by an international consortium of academic and pharmaceutical partners under the European Union's Innovative Medicines Initiative, this decade-long project provides the first comprehensive functional blueprint of chemical transport pathways in human cells.