Cell dynamics

Whitehead Institute Member Jonathan Weissman and colleagues used large-scale systematic genetic screens to identify the molecules and pathways that populate the mitochondrial surface with important and diverse signaling proteins. They deciphered the logic by which the cell ensures the proper delivery of these proteins. These findings may have important implications for understanding the impact on health and disease when these processes go awry.

Whitehead Institute Member Jonathan Weissman and collaborators developed a tool to reconstruct the family trees and individual states of cells in humans, revealing how blood cell production changes in old age.

Whitehead Institute Member Iain Cheeseman and colleagues found that the key factor in determining the assembly location of the kinetochore—a cellular machine that helps distribute chromosomes during cell division—is the local concentration of kinetochore proteins.

Transcription factors bind DNA and protein. Now, researchers in Whitehead Institute Member Richard Young’s lab find that many transcription factors can also bind RNA, which fine tunes their regulation of gene expression, suggesting new therapeutic opportunities.

How do cells decide how long to pause division after they detect errors? Whitehead Institute Member Iain Cheeseman and colleagues identified that the key player is a previously undiscovered protein that was hiding in plain sight. Read more and also check out our Behind the Science podcast looking at the unexpected nature of this discovery.

Clumps of abnormal RNA are known to build up in some neurological disorders including Huntington’s disease and ALS. New research from Whitehead Institute Member Ankur Jain shows that these clumps can form outside of the cell’s nucleus, becoming more toxic to cells.

Whitehead-Broad team harnesses new pooled, image-based screening method to probe the functions of over 5,000 essential genes in human cells.

A new study reveals that the protein MTCH2, which is essential in a variety of cellular processes, is responsible for shuttling various other proteins into the membrane of mitochondria. The finding could have implications for cancer treatments and provides insight into a variety of MTCH2-linked conditions.

A new paper from the lab of Whitehead Institute Director Ruth Lehmann reveals how primordial germ cells in flies migrate from one end of an embryo to the other during development. The work could have implications for how scientists study germ cells in vivo, as well as other motile cells such as cancer cells.

Researchers at Whitehead Institute uncover the 3-D structure of GATOR2, a protein complex that plays a critical role in a signaling pathway that regulates cell growth.