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ATPγS substantially defeats the biasing mechanism for kinesin steps

Fri, 20 Feb 2026 15:33:00 GMT

Kinesin molecular motors step directionally along microtubules inside cells, hauling molecular cargoes. This is fundamental to the way cells organise themselves and is crucially important, for example. for brain function. Karnawat et al use single molecule optical trapping to show that replacing kinesin's ATP chemical fuel with ATPγS, in which just one oxygen atom of ATP is replaced with a sulphur, still allows stepping but defeats most of its directional bias. Asking why reveals the mechanism of directional stepping in unprecedented detail.
Read the paper here.

A geometrically informed permutation test for dependency in spatiotemporal patterns of protein species in microscopic images

Fri, 20 Feb 2026 15:29:00 GMT

Colocalisation in microscopy is notoriously difficult to quantify. Here, we applied a new statistical method using the Earth mover's distance to analyse microscopy movies of microtubule-associated proteins moving inside cells. The work was done by Tom Honnor in Julia Brettschneider's group in Statistics in collaboration with the Royle lab in BMS.

Read the paper here.

Multiparametric Electrogram Feature Analysis for Ventricular Tachycardia Functional Extra-Stimulus Substrate Mapping

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 10:39:56 GMT

Defining the critical VT substrate has been a major focus of R&D teams globally. The importance of functional substrate identification has been reported by several world-renowned groups. However, as we move towards implementation, standardisation of functional extra-stimulus mapping is required. Our work just published in JACC Journals attempts to address this.

What are the important electrogram features that provide the greatest accuracy in defining the VT isthmus?

This international, multicentre study provides insights important to consider as we work towards automation of the approach.

Read the paper here.

ShapeSpaceExplorer: Analysis of morphological transitions in migrating cells using similarity-based shape space mapping

Wed, 14 Jan 2026 11:49:00 GMT

The paper describes the development of ShapeSpaceExplorer, an interactive software package that makes it easy to analyse cell morphology without any prior knowledge of relevant shape features and in particular enables tracking how cell shape changes dynamically. At the core of our software is a new and efficient method to measure the similarity of two shapes. Pairwise distances from all shapes in the dataset are used to position each shape in a low-dimensional map of shape space. The user can explore this shape space and visualise average shapes from any region of interest, partition shape space to analyse shape distributions from different experimental conditions or measure the speed of shape changes between two regions of shape space. We also show that shape dynamics information is sufficient to predict when migrating cells change direction.
Read the paper here.

Actin arginylation alters myosin engagement and F-actin patterning despite structural conservation

Tue, 09 Dec 2025 11:33:00 GMT

Actin is a highly abundant and key protein that forms long filaments inside cells, helping them maintain shape, move, and divide. This functional versatility arises from its ability to interact with a wide range of binding partners and via tight regulation. One important mechanism of regulation is post-translational modifications such as actin arginylation.

A new study from the labs of Professor Mohan Balasubramanian, Associate Professor Masanori Mishima, Professor Karuna Sampath and collaborators, Dr Sarah Heissler and Dr Krishna Chinthalapudi, in the Ohio State College of Medicine, published in the Journal of Cell Biology, further our understanding of how arginylated actin looks and interacts with a key actin interactor Myosin II. Importantly, they found that the acidic amino acids in the N-terminus of actin facilitate interactions with a set of basic amino acids in myosin, and that arginylation might sort actin into locations wherein contractility is minimized.

Read the paper here.

StayRose: a photostable StayGold derivative red-shifted by genetic code expansion

Thu, 30 Oct 2025 11:48:29 GMT

StayRose: a photostable StayGold derivative red-shifted by genetic code expansion was published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry last week by a team of scientists from the groups of Mohan Balasubramanian (WMS), Masanori Mishima (WMS), Allister Crow (SLS), Falk Schneider (WMS), Abhishek Kumar (Marine Biological Laboratory) and Lijiang Song (Warwick Chemistry), funded by a collaborative Wellcome Trust bioimaging grant.

This work was led by first author Dr Will Smith, who completed his PhD as part of the MRC DTP.

The work presents a new fluorescent protein named StayRose, which is the first red version of the photobleaching-resistant green protein StayGold. These photostable proteins can be tagged to proteins of interest for microscopy and overcome the previous issue of fluorescence loss during prolonged imaging. StayRose contains an unnatural amino acid, 3-aminotyrosine, which underpins its red colour. Tests showed that StayRose maintains the extreme photostability of StayGold. The work presents a StayRose crystal structure, the first of a 3-aminotyrosine-incorporating fluorescent protein, and demonstrates use of StayRose in bacteria and zebrafish embryos.

Read the paper here.

Cyclic Peptide–Polymer Conjugate Nanotubes for Delivery of SN-38 in Treatment of Colorectal Cancer Model

Thu, 30 Oct 2025 11:45:30 GMT

A recent publication in Advanced Healthcare Materials led by PhD student Sophie Hill is the result of a collaboration between Sébastien Perrier and Robert Dallmann. Together they show the potential of cyclic peptide-polymer conjugate nanotubes as powerful drug delivery vectors in a mammalian model of human disease.

The Perrier lab has already shown that these nanotubes are great drug delivery tools due to their propensity for dynamic self-assembly, high aspect ratio morphology and structural interchangeability, and demonstrated the shielding abilities of the polymeric corona of nanotubes to enhance pro-drug bond stabilities and modulate hydrolysis.

Here, they have used a hydrophobic core with multiple drug units attached to improve drug loading capacity and overall efficiency of the nanotube carriers. They show in vitro efficacy and in vivo pharmacokinetic and anti-tumour pharmacodynamics of these nanotubes in colorectal cancer models, comparing the potent topoisomerase inhibitor SN-38 with its clinically-used parent pro-drug irinotecan.

This work highlights the potential of SN-38 nanotubes as well-tolerated therapeutic option for colorectal cancer, with implications for future clinical translation and improved patient outcomes.

Read the paper here.

New Dual-Action Antimicrobial Polymers with Anti-Inflammatory Properties

Fri, 17 Oct 2025 14:16:00 GMT

A recent publication in the ACS journal Biomacromolecules by Sebastien Perrier and Robert Dallmann, in collaboration with Monash University and the CSIRO in Australia, reports a major step forward in the design of antimicrobial materials that not only fight infection but also reduce harmful inflammation.

Antimicrobial polymers, inspired by cationic host defence peptides (HDPs), are emerging as promising alternatives to antibiotics in the global battle against antimicrobial resistance. In this study, the researchers synthesized a library of 15 copolymers using RAFT polymerization and explored their ability to modulate immune responses in activated macrophages.

Two copolymers stood out, showing the ability to suppress the NF-κB pro-inflammatory pathway, scavenge reactive oxygen species, and reduce IL-6 cytokine production. Remarkably, one of these also demonstrated strong antimicrobial activity against Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

This dual antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory action opens new therapeutic avenues for materials that can combat bacterial infections while preventing excessive inflammation and sepsis at infection sites.

Read the paper here.

CellMet: Extracting 3D shape and topology metrics from confluent cells within tissues

Thu, 04 Sep 2025 08:30:18 GMT

A new paper from the Saunders lab introduces CellMet, an open-source toolkit that extracts 3D cell shape and topology metrics within dense tissue. Going beyond basic measures like volume and surface area, CellMet reveal detailed morphological features - such as twisting shape - and highlights how cells interact and organise themselves. From organoids to Drosophila embryos, CellMet provides a powerful framework to reveal hidden tissue architecture.

Read the paper.
CellMet

Live cell LaBeRling

Mon, 28 Jul 2025 15:55:00 GMT

A new paper from the Royle lab describes a method to label membrane contact sites in living cells on-demand. Laura Downie found that the Lamin B Receptor (LBR), which is usually on the nuclear envelope, can be used as a multi-purpose contact site highlighter. With a bit of engineering, LBR can label ER contacts with the plasma membrane, mitochondria, lysosomes, endosomes, lipid droplets and the Golgi! We found Golgi-ER contact sites persist in mitosis, a time when the Golgi is broken down but the contact sites remain intact! As a bonus track, the paper contains a method to segment mitochondria and ER from volume-EM data using machine learning, and find their contacts in 3D.

Read the paper here.