Insight on Research

Collaborative study between Michael Hastings’s group in the LMB’s Neurobiology Division and David Wilcockson at Aberystwyth University reveals that crustaceans have two distinct cerebral clocks – one to track days and one for tides – which operate in parallel using overlapping genetic components.

Study of body clock proteins led by Nicola Smyllie in Michael Hastings’s group in the LMB’s Neurobiology Division, reveals that PER and CRY, key body clock proteins, act more independently than previously thought, challenging long-held understanding of our body’s circadian rhythms.

New specimen supports, designed by Chris Russo’s group in the LMB’s Structural Studies Division, solve decades-long question on how to use liquid helium in cryo-EM to reduce radiation damage and improve information capture.

Felix Randow’s group, in the LMB’s PNAC Division, has identified the mechanism by which cytosol-dwelling Shigella flexneri bacteria use their effector protein IpaH1.4 to avoid LPS ubiquitylation by degrading the host E3 ligase RNF213.

Led by postdoc Frank Bürmann, Jan Löwe’s group in the LMB’s Structural Studies Division, and Mark Dillingham’s group at the University of Bristol, have identified the mechanism the bacterial SMC complex MukBEF uses to entrap DNA ahead of loop extrusion, and found how this pathway can be inhibited by a bacteriophage protein.

Spearheaded by postdoc George Ghanim, Kelly Nguyen’s group in the LMB’s Structural Studies Division have investigated the molecular mechanisms which allow LINE-1 to propagate throughout the genome via retrotransposition during target-primed reverse transcription.