The discovery of a fluorescent protein that can be rapidly switched between long-lived ‘on’ and ‘off’ states will lead to a new generation of super-resolution imaging experiments on living cells.

A protein complex that enables cells to transport substances across their membranes, and that typically consists of four subunits, can also function as two hemicomplexes, each with two subunits.

Fluorescence resonance energy transfer has been used to explore the interactions between DNA polymerases, sliding clamps and clamp loaders as DNA is replicated in human cells.

Goblet cells secrete mucins—which are key components of mucus—in a process that is regulated by calcium ions, which enter the goblet cells via a mechanism involving a channel protein called TRPM5.

When a protein involved in DNA repair malfunctions, it can anneal RNA molecules to DNA molecules, creating hybrids that increase the frequency of mutations in the DNA.

Cells that give rise to the infectious form of parasitic flatworms called schistosomes show similar patterns of gene expression to stem cells in free-living flatworms.

Optogenetics has revealed that synaptic vesicles can be recycled extremely rapidly in nematodes, indicating that existing models for how synapses 'reload' may need to be revised.

Steroid hormone receptors control the expression of their target genes through a digital on-off switch in individual cells, which leads to an analogue dose-response relationship at the level of the whole organism.

Cell replenishment within the airways is governed by the random division of a population of basal progenitor cells, in a process that is accelerated in smokers.

Fluorescent derivatives of a bacteriophage protein that binds double-stranded ends can trap and label genome-destabilizing double-strand DNA breaks in bacterial and human cells, and illuminate the origins of spontaneous DNA breakage in both.