Silva & Mayrhofer et al. show that during chronic metabolic stress Tent5a expression is increased, leading to elongation of poly(A) tails, stabilization of the insulin mRNA, and increasing insulin synthesis. This helps augment insulin secretion during increased metabolic demand.
Zhang et al. analyze single‑cell transcriptomes of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) and identify Ki‑67 as a key driver of breast cancer metastasis. Beyond marking proliferation, Ki‑67 promotes CTC intravasation and clustering by enhancing cell–cell adhesion- related programs.
Iten et al. show here that intestinal worm infection induces the accumulation of activated group 2 innate lymphocytes (ILC2s) in the spleen, which drive the expansion of red pulp macrophages.
Genetic screens facilitate advances in biology, yet functional dissection of large mammalian proteins has remained challenging. A new study in Nature Communications by Corinne Kaufmann from the Wutz group (IMHS) uses targeted point mutagenesis of haploid cells to functionally map regulators at single amino acid resolution. Application of the method reveals critical amino acids of the silencing factor SPEN in X chromosome inactivation.